Sugar Hill Play-date v. Oz-low Piece Plan

Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence

26 Aug 2014

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by BAR poet-in-residence Raymond Nat Turner

Oz-Low Piece Process allows bombing hospitals, patients in

Surgery, just as it allows bombing schools, shelters,

Mosques, electric and water treatment plants and homes!

Sugar Hill Play-date v. Oz-low Piece Plan

by BAR poet-in-residence Raymond Nat Turner

He refers to me as, “My friend,

Raymond,” and I feel honored…

Gael, my three year-old Sugar Hill

Harlem neighbor’s an “old soul,” a

A 35 lb question mark, eyes sparkling

With curiosity, chasing life down the

Street like a 3 ft exclamation point!

His mommy’s a surgeon, studying

For her boards, his granny’s a Rutgers

Professor working on her book, and I,

I am awarded a play-date with Gael…

He has that spark, that curiosity,

Relative peace blesses few of the

World’s children with; he also has

Every truck under the sun and knows

Precisely what each truck does, and why!

He’s more than willing to teach me

Tonight, but first, he warns that work

Cannot begin before jamming his

Bright yellow hardhat securely over

His jet black curls and buckling his

Utility tool belt, low and tight—

Clearly, he’s studied style and moves

Of the working-class and has them

Down, looking up to and mimicking neighbor-

Hood men who work on Abuela’s brownstone

Gael’s brilliant imagination’s creating

Useful tasks, needed work, for each truck,

Maintenance for himself and showing me

How the crane on one truck in his fleet works—

It’s becoming clear he doesn’t trust me with the trucks,

If I were Gael I wouldn’t trust the trucks or other

Equipment in grownup hands— even his brilliant

Imagination cannot comprehend the twisted, burning,

Bloody hulk of metal, mixed with pieces of cloth,

Shoes, driver and assistant once called an ambulance…

Gael’s blessed to believe Abeula and his

Mommy will protect him from harm, feed

Him when he’s hungry, hydrate him with

Cool, clean, clear water after he’s played

Hard and is thirsty, they will read to him,

Sing sweet, sleepy time lullabies and put

Him down for a safe, peaceful nap when

War with the Sandman proves hopeless…

G doesn’t cringe at loud sounds and

No nightmares haunt him, making him

Pee in the bed, so I must spare him the

Fractured Fairytale of the ambulance,

The Fractured Fairytale of Oz, where one

Group’s told, “Follow the Frankenstein

Road,” where Gael’s trucks would get

Different color license plates, travel

Apartheid roads, in shadows of an apartheid

Wall bisecting the land like a jagged Frankenstein

Scar, and his trucks would be stopped at checkpoint

After checkpoint, after checkpoint, after checkpoint

By heavily armed, hostile teenaged thugs vibrating

Bigotry/hatred through iron domes and hankering to

Cast lead, perforating colorful skins of G’s trucks like

Swiss Cheese, with armor-piercing bullets from

White Knights of The Five-Side Kingdom; traveling Oz by

Truck, Gael would learn strange new words, old words

Used in strange new ways: “occupation,” “relocations,”

“Put ‘em on a diet;” “mow the grass,” “ethnic-cleansing,”

“Genocide,” “war crimes,” “crimes against humanity,”

“Collateral damage,” “targeted killings,” I spare him the

Fractured Fairytale of Oz, where Caterpillars crunch on

Homes, toys and olive trees, crush activists and call it: “Security”

I spare him the Fractured Fairytale where Third Reich

Impersonators order cowards at consoles to send

Featherless birds shitting fire, shrapnel and white

Phosphorus storms with errant precision and call it “Defense”

I spare him the Fractured Fairytale of Oz leaving little

Ones like him piled in ice cream freezers, slowing their

Decomposition, and others shredded, sliced and diced so

Badly that even his surgeon mommy could not— like

Humpty-Dumpty— put their tiny heads, arms, legs and

Faces back together again; even if she could, the

Oz-Low Piece Process allows bombing hospitals, patients in

Surgery, just as it allows bombing schools, shelters,

Mosques, electric and water treatment plants and homes!

I spare him the Fractured Fairytale of, once upon a time

“A land without people, for a people without land—” like

Oz, an “unsinkable aircraft carrier,” weapons lab and

Biennial trade-show for White Knights of the Five-Side Kingdom—

WMD gods and profits reigning green for

Every overloaded donkey cart squealing and moaning like

Mothers of the itty-bitty, teensy-weensy, bloody bodies

Piled in them— Karen Bass can’t hear them, Barbara Lee

Can’t hear them, John Conyers can’t hear them,

Charlie Wrangel, Judas Quisling Congressional Black Caca can’t

Hear them while crying Raytheon war profit-tears into Swiss bank accounts…

I spare my friend Fractured Fairytales of Oz where the

Heart and “prayers” of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue’s

Resident “go out,” “feel your pain,” except on Tuesdays,

When Hellfire Missiles go out…inflicting pain, breaking Hearts…

I spare my friend Fractured Fairytales of Oz where

Cauliflower eared Barbara Boxer can’t hear squealing,

Moaning wheels of overloaded donkey carts, and Ms

Enhanced interrogation technique-Di-Fi only wants to be

Kept in the loop— what weapons systems logged the most

Kills— forget halting the Oz- Low Piece process allowing

Oz to stoop low as it dares, filling donkey carts with little

Bodies, checkpointing trucks like my friend’s and stealing

The land they travel—piece, by piece, by piece, by Piece…

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

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