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…In his head
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
10 Mar 2014
🖨️ Print Article

by Raymond Nat Turner

Dr. King’s Dream come true,

In his head! Black folks way better

Off, in his head, Rev. Wright was

Wrong, in his head!

 

…In his head

by Raymond Nat Turner

 

Headin’ downtown on the D train

The other day I overheard oration—

By a fella, to a fella, from a fella 51/50

“Mexicans takin’ our jobs; they hate

Our freedoms— but blurred lines,

Beyonce’s booty, NAACP Image

Awards, Robin Thicke & recovery

Jus’ roun’ the corner; smart phone,

Dr. Dre headphones lift me outta

Poverty; smart bombs protect my

Freedoms; I got 2,000 Facebook

Friends, a poke away, who gimme

My kidney & bone marrow transplant!”

 

Booming baritone thundering in

Harmony with the train, he continued

His melodious, rhythmic catechism,

“Since ’08 things been Great,” in his

Head, Dr. King’s Dream come true,

In his head! Black folks way better

Off, in his head, Rev. Wright was

Wrong, in his head! “Yes, we can,”

In his head, mo’ Black folks have

Homes since World War II, in his

Head! Mo’ Black wealth than ever

Before, in his head; fewer Black folk

Dyin’ fo’ they 70th, in his head; mo’

Black men goin’ to college than jail,

In his head, liars figure but figures

Don’t lie, in his head, in his head,

“Change we can believe in,” in his

Head, police stopped shootin’ us

Since that beer, in his head; we

Cool, long as Big Brother brown, in

His head! Oratory swelling like a

Dark cumulus cloud, lookin’ me

Dead in the eye, “This election the

Mos’ important election ever…”

 

“The rich say that every time,” I snapped.

He leapt up like a man possessed, banshee-

Rebel- wailing, “What, you ain’t votin’?

Nigger, get away from me, you is cra-aaa-zy!”

 

Raymond Nat Turner can be contacted at upsurgejazz.com

 

Raymond Nat Turner © 2014 All Rights Reserved

 

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