Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire
  • omnibus

…For Brother Glen
BAR Poet-in-Residence Raymond Nat Turner
04 Aug 2021
🖨️ Print Article
 …For Brother Glen
…For Brother Glen

…For Brother Glen 

“When an elder dies, a library burns to the ground…”

—African proverb (gender-adjusted)

 

I.

No bald “Build Back Better” slogans for

a burned Bruce library—

a Glen library gone—Pick up the ashes, 

Carry on… spreading them on new crops…

 

II.

I couldn’t breathe…

black cat dander, goober dust, rabbit foot

spook-ism; viral droplets of Madison Ave.

messaging: “Yes, we Can and bottle Jim

Jones Juice for regime Change you can

believe in…”

 

I couldn’t breathe…

droplets of dung from charlatans riding

bareback/backwards on donkeys

Every 2-4 years—Trapping Negroz in pigment

of their imaginations—whooping, hollering, 

Happy dancing on ice…for The Audacity of Dope

 

I couldn’t breathe…

Ecstasy/rhapsody of nodding icons—swept up

in rapture of Kool-Aided colonial euphoria—

Mentors becoming bus brutes when facts f-up

their highs…

 

I couldn’t breathe…

quarantined, on timeout, socially-distanced, isolated; 

Unappreciated—wasting away out West—killing me

softly for my words, my poem “**The Coming of Christ”

 

Yet, one slow blues Saturday a steel, velvet-wrapped

Voice of spirit-stirring

North Star stripe issued from the radio snapping me

to attention!

It possessed  thunderous timbre—Freedom’s Journal, 

Liberator, Emancipator tone snatching my collar!

It held Douglass DNA infecting my marrow! It had

Shedded—reading newswire copy on-the-air at age 11—

it harnessed horsepower even the Godfather of Soul

had to “Say it loud!” when rechristening it: “Ford!”

Ida B-like it commanded KPFA’s colossal signal—

showering ice-cold Wikileaks over 1/3 of the Golden 

State

It flared up in hot blue flames melting masks of mis-

leaders guarding freezers stuffed with corporate cash…

 

It possessed laser precision—surgically removing word

walls metastasized in the mind of a slutty professor; And

Taught lil’ Negroz in Teddy P-tones,“You gotta let him go,

if he looks like another Booker TKO—Or, more effective Evil!”

 

And it crescendoed from studios, stages, street corners, churches,

bookstores, bars, lecture halls, flatbed trucks—speaking truth to

The People 

igniting conscious explosions with its 4 word fuses:

“POWER TO THE PEOPLE!!” 

“POWER TO THE PEOPLE!!” 

 

Well done, Brother! May the Ancestors be pleased

with you kneeling near the 7 mounds; saluting the

7 trees guarding them on African Burial Ground; as

You leave Lower Manhattan, seeing Sun Ra, Saturn/beyond…

 

**https://youtu.be/XfHYkoMUOk4

 

 © 2021. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.

Glen Ford

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


More Stories


  • Austin Cole
    Demanding More in the Struggle for Collective Liberation – A Conversation with Nicholas Richard Thompson, Part II
    30 Oct 2024
    As part of his research on grassroots economic projects toward Black Liberation, Austin Cole spoke with Nicholas Richard-Thompson about his community organizing, expanding definitions of economic…
  • Socialist Movement of Workers of the Dominican Republic
    We Condemn the Executions of Haitian Workers Within the Framework of the Official Racist and Xenophobic Policy
    30 Oct 2024
    Attacks by the fascist government and its supporters against Haitian people and those of Haitian Heritage in the Dominican Republic have become more and more brutal, resulting in the outright…
  • Ramzy Baroud
    ‘Text Me You Haven’t Died’ – My Sister was the 166th Doctor to Be Murdered in Gaza
    30 Oct 2024
    Since the beginning of this genocidal assault on Gaza, the Israeli entity has targeted Palestinian medical workers and hospitals to destroy the healthcare infrastructure and cause maximum damage on…
  • Sam Biddle
    U.S. Military Makes First Confirmed OpenAI Purchase for War-Fighting Forces
    30 Oct 2024
    The Pentagon explored the AI software for research, but the new deal is the first by a combatant command whose mission is one of killing.
  • Black Agenda Radio
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio October 25, 2024
    25 Oct 2024
    In this week’s segment, we hear about protests in Martinique, an overseas department of France, where the people struggle against economic oppression and discriminatory treatment. But first, we…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us