What makes you hopeful?
(For Kris and KT)
”…I hope someday you’ll join us.
And the world will live as one.”
—John Lennon
There are times she asks me, “What gives you hope?”
I say, “Ain’t The Audacity of Dope—“
Ol’ Schmo, Slick Willy or The Drone Ranger
It’s random acts of kindness from a stranger
It’s Farmers Markets, Co-Ops and mutual aid
It’s those first crayon drawings my children made!
It’s couples taking care of each other
It’s a professor teaching his grandmother
It’s the bad saxophonist who can sing—
It’s the hot Jazz group that can playground swing
It’s a young drummer who’s living his dream…
It’s John Coltrane blowing A Love Supreme!
It’s the cozy, sable, zippered sweater
It’s brilliant teachers making me better
It’s red flags flying from a church steeple—
It’s gangstas woke—now serving the people!
It’s school children walking out in protest
It’s freedom fighters who risk arrest…
It’s an addict living clean and sober
It’s Ferguson’s thru-line to Strike-tober
It’s speeches of Malcolm and Dr. King
It’s George Floyd Summer thawing Arab Spring…
It’s my ‘rabbi’ dying—then coming back
It’s waking up this morning—proud and Black
It’s fifteen minutes of flame once a week—
It’s Tryin’/Tranein’ for my Wikileak!
© 2022. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.
Former forklift driver/warehouse worker/janitor, Raymond Nat Turner is a NYC poet; BAR's Poet-in-Residence; and founder/co-leader of the jazz-poetry ensemble UpSurge!NYC. You can Vote for his work at:
GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-town-criers-big-tooth-fund
PayPal: paypal.me/towncrierRNT
As international eyes stay locked on Gaza, Tel Aviv is executing its most aggressive campaign of ethnic cleansing and land theft in the occupied West Bank since 1948.
Unilateral coercive measures, sanctions, are weapons of mass suffering. This new international day marks a global rejection of the West’s economic warfare against sovereign nations.
The so-called "peace agreement" between Rwanda and Congo prioritizes U.S. access to mineral riches. The violence carried out against thousands of civilians continues.
Trump’s accelerated fascism is met with the silence of a compromised U.S. "left." Its institutions, tethered to capitalism and the Democratic Party, reveal they are part of the machine they claim to…
Western media celebrate the terrorist they supported as Syria's savior. Syria’s new U.S.-backed rulers have erased anti-colonial history, enacted neo-liberal policies, and welcomed Israeli occupation…
