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

If The Shoe Fits...
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
05 Sep 2012
🖨️ Print Article

 

by Raymond Nat Turner

“In our marching shoes, yes, we can

Discover trails less traveled

Connecting us with sage spirits

Sampling James Brown with John

Brown”

 

If The Shoe Fits...

by Raymond Nat Turner

 

Shoe leather was once

Voting's egg, blood, its sperm...

Shoe's on the other foot, now

So, to vote, or not to vote

Is not the question---the

Commander even chided and

Derided us: Swap "bedroom

Slippers" for "marching shoes"

 

In our marching shoes, yes, we can

Click our heels like children

Catching burnt orange and ebony

Butterflies filled with freedom to fly

 

In our marching shoes, yes, we can

Conjure comets and name them

"Rebellion," "Underground," "Utopian,"

"Civil," "Survival" and celestial bodies coming...

 

In our marching shoes, yes, we can

Scale the Shangri-la where

Seventy-five year olds march like

Twenty-five year olds and

Twenty-five year olds orate like

Seventy-five year olds,shoulder

To shoulder striking, sitting-in,

Picketing, teaching and taking 

Care of one another on filaments

Of shoestring budgets...

 

In our marching shoes, yes, we can

Discover trails less traveled

Connecting us with sage spirits

Sampling James Brown with John

Brown, disturbing the universe, questioning

Everything about a corrupt, rotten pyramid

Scheme stitched together with tear gas,

Bullets, bombs and LIES...

 

In our marching shoes, blisters and all,

We're the ones we've been waiting for---

Cast Prada, Nike, Reebok ballots

At bought and bossed footmen!

Raymond Nat Turner can be contacted at Raymond (at) upsurgejazz.com.

(c) 2012 All rights Reserved

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


More Stories


  • Fight Between PSUV and PCV is Unnecessary, Untimely, and Alien
    Clodovaldo Hernández
    Fight Between PSUV and PCV is Unnecessary, Untimely, and Alien
    07 Jun 2023
    Venezuela's governing United Socialist Party of Venezuela, PSUV, has a complicated history with the Communist Party of Venezuela, PCV. A recent public dispute between the two parties has…
  • Black Agenda Radio June 2, 2023
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio June 2, 2023
    02 Jun 2023
    African journalists strive to decolonize their work, and the struggle to free the Pendleton 2.
  • The Pendleton 2: They Stood Up
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    The Pendleton 2: They Stood Up
    02 Jun 2023
    The Pendleton 2: They Stood Up is a new documentary about political prisoners held in Indiana.
  • Breaking The Colonial Grip On African Journalism
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Breaking The Colonial Grip On African Journalism
    02 Jun 2023
    Decolonizing African journalism.
  • Robert F. Kennedy Jr.:  Sheepdogging and Liberal Fantasy
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: Sheepdogging and Liberal Fantasy
    31 May 2023
    There is an understandable yearning for a progressive president. But like dreams of happily ever after endings, the fantasy is just that.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us