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


  • Ol’ Schmo ‘negotiates’ Us a trillion dollar deal—  We started with TEN…
    Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Ol’ Schmo ‘negotiates’ Us a trillion dollar deal— We started with TEN…
    31 May 2023
  • Centering Imperialism in Libya: Implications for the African Continent
    Essam Elkorghli
    Centering Imperialism in Libya: Implications for the African Continent
    31 May 2023
    Libya exemplifies the terrorism inflicted upon African nations by US/NATO imperialism. Twelve years after the Libyan state was destroyed it is still under sanctions which devastate that country.…
  • Unity Is an Imperative: Reclaiming African Liberation Day, 60 Years On
    Tanupriya Singh
    Unity Is an Imperative: Reclaiming African Liberation Day, 60 Years On
    31 May 2023
    African liberation will not be realized without Pan-African unity and socialism, as Kwame Nkrumah made clear at the founding of the Organization of African Unity, the precursor to the African Union.
  • Violations Mar Sudan’s Soon-to-Expire Ceasefire, Paramilitary RSF Occupies Communist Party’s Office
    Pavan Kulkarni
    Violations Mar Sudan’s Soon-to-Expire Ceasefire, Paramilitary RSF Occupies Communist Party’s Office
    31 May 2023
    The ceasefire agreement between rival military factions in Sudan was extended on May 29 as it was on the verge of collapsing. Civilians are suffering, and the Sudanese Communist Party is under attack.
  • U.S. Government Approves Abinader's Racist Violence
    Babyson Pierre
    U.S. Government Approves Abinader's Racist Violence
    31 May 2023
    The Dominican Republic continues its policies of deporting Dominicans of Haitian descent, and discriminating against Black Dominicans, and it does so with the permission of the United States. The…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us