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 it takes 100 years
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
06 Dec 2017
🖨️ Print Article
if it takes 100 years

I am the North Star—
Hope; Never wavering, organizing,
burning thorough bars, walls, wire—
I am consciousness of all
creatures, crystalline water,
clean, sweet air, black soil
From forgotten reservations

I am non-GMO, organic apples,
pears, lettuce, tomatoes, spinach
Springing from beads of sweat
mixed with midnight oil—
I am not the latest sneakers, phones
from Black Friday Madness,
Celebrity Worship or
Dumbed-down gossip ‘bout ‘stars’

I am coagulated blood
of gunned down doctors wafting from
Women’s reproductive rights—
Flowering from fertilizer of guilt
I am freedom, loving
Whomever I choose…

I am single-payer
Healthcare rising from Big Pharma
body-slams/lies of lobotomized politicians;
I am affordable housing
clubbed from corrugated cardboard sleep;
I am free education—
Peace studies writhing free of
handcuffs, cutting off circulation…
I am smoldering ashes of a
burned down Black Baptist Church
Repudiating ‘race’ with pain

I am revolution—
Socialism passing freely, back and forth
between metal detectors/bomb-sniffing dogs—
Arriving just moments ago:
…Having been here forever…

Raymond Nat Turner © 2017 All Rights Reserved
Raymond Nat Turner is an acclaimed poet and performing artist. Find much more of his work at http"//upsurgejazz.com.

poetry

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


More Stories


  • MANIFESTO: Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female, Frances Beal, 1969
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    MANIFESTO: Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female, Frances Beal, 1969
    06 Sep 2023
    Revisiting Frances Beal’s Black feminist theoretical tour-de-force.
  • Regionally Integrating the Horn of Africa and the Nile Basin
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Regionally Integrating the Horn of Africa and the Nile Basin
    06 Sep 2023
    ​​​​​​​BAR Contributing Editor Ann Garrison spoke with Amanuel Biedemariam, author of The History of the USA in Eritrea, about regional integration in the Horn of Africa and the Nile Basin among…
  • Little Rock Antioch’s RICO blu klux klan
    Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Little Rock Antioch’s RICO blu klux klan
    06 Sep 2023
    Little Rock Antioch’s RICO blu klux klan (For Franklin, the Families, and Antioch’s Fightback)
  •  BAR Book Forum: Rima Vesely-Flad’s Book, “Black Buddhists and the Black Radical Tradition”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Rima Vesely-Flad’s Book, “Black Buddhists and the Black Radical Tradition”
    06 Sep 2023
    This week’s featured author is Rima Vesely-Flad.
  • How Joe Biden and The Democratic Party’s Climate Agenda Increases Environmental Racism More Than It Reduces Emissions [A Three Part Series]
    Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    How Joe Biden and The Democratic Party’s Climate Agenda Increases Environmental Racism More Than It Reduces Emissions [A Three Part Series]
    06 Sep 2023
    The environmental benefits of Biden's Inflation Reduction Act are non-existent for Black and other marginalized communities.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us