by BAR Poet-in-Residence Raymond Nat Turner
When our giants go down, our spines must straighten up and create new beginnings.
Redouble our efforts…
(For Robert Knight, Chokwe, Amiri,
And others known and less known…)
by BAR Poet-in-Residence Raymond Nat Turner
When our Knights are captured
Or fall on battlefields, as they
Surely must, and we lose their
Brilliant lights and we are
Scrambling to pry pens,
Swords, spears, bread and
Roses from stainless steel
Grips of their icy hands—
Scrambling to hoist our
Fallen banners, temporarily
Mired in mud and blood,
Even higher, scrambling
To staunch rivulets of
Brine from our sweetly
Shattered hearts…
When our giants — in
All sizes — go down,
Our spines straighten
Honoring, immortalizing,
Their legends, burnished
Names, by divvying up
Cosmic, ancient, work
Creating them in the
Beginning…
Raymond Nat Turner © 2014 All Rights Reserved
“I was deported from the U.S.A, because as a Negro woman Communist of West Indian descent, I was a thorn in their side…”
The records of the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda should not be surrendered to the Rwandan regime led by President Paul Kagame.
Iran's 1979 revolution was a victory for national sovereignty which also forged solidarity with African people.
The U.S. and Israel treat negotiations as a weapon to destabilize and disarm the region, but Iran and Hezbollah have shown that real sovereignty requires connecting every front in a unified anti-…
Activists gathered from various areas of Michigan to report on the excesses and brutality of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and local police, which…
