Crazy Like a Woodfox

Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence

10 Aug 2022

Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox in the early 1970s. (Photograph: In the Land of the Free film still)

Crazy as a Woodfox...

I.
3:33 A.M. tears welling, cooling
queasiness, nausea, unsettling
Fire in my belly. Balm of Gilead
Soothing wounded spirits small
morning hours…

In the whistling teapot I hear
Mary Ann Fisher’s response
to interrogating Raelett calls:
“What kind of man are you?”

If I were a voting man, I’d vote for you
“What kind of man are you?”
If I were a betting man, I’d bet on you
“What kind of man are you?”
If I were a praying man, I’d pray to you
I’m a writing man:

Stealing your springs, your summers—42 winters; Locking you up in an
outhouse 23 hours a day, for four decades. Attempting to sand Oak into
sawdust; Puree heavy metal into mush—
Laboring to remake you into one of them—before aha moments of clarity
penetrated atrophied antebellum brains. Spiritually stillborn, your corrupt
captors were dead! ;

Concertina wire smiles, leaden eyes, miniature marble hearts—Monsters
masquerading as men… Their metal detectors missed North Star-calibrated
heart of Harriet smuggled between your ear/drums. Missed stainless steel
spine of Dessalines;
Titanium tenacity of Toussaint. Their strip searches Missed diamond will of
Douglass reading Baldwin, Malcolm and Fanon—teaching others—Missed
your connections to outside, objective, external minimum Security worlds.
Worlds of walls embedded with ears; poles with pupils and retinas. Worlds
of slave phone/handheld surveillance Worlds; beyond your corrupt captors’
slavers/sharpshooters world. Worlds beyond greasy-thumbed plantation
pilfering—
Enron ethics/Arthur Anderson accounting/Wall Street stealing everything
from toilet tissue to trucks. Living large on African labor: In their
DNA—Their God-given right—so Glad they found it and…Built their whole
world all around it…;/p>

II.
In your four decades away much has changed little— Though, a negro’s face
is that of empire’s! Po’negroz, mentally ill. Marshaling themselves as
volunteer secret service agents/Apologists for Imperialism! ;

Po’ negroz became accessories to war crimes! Crimes against humanity!
Why, I swear to you, Bro. Albert— You’d hardly recognize ‘em: curled in
fetal positions
at the feet of Wall Street thugs. Suicidal, suffering Stockholm Syndrome,
hallucinating—
Hurting and mutilating themselves—cutting off their own balls— And
throwing them through the bars!
Now, you, Bro. Albert? Sure,
you gotta be jus’ a lil’ bit crazy—Crazy as a Woodfox…?;

Bro. Albert, you remember model gas-powered planes with wires, cords,
cables? Well, the Luftwaffe has this cool new Killing machine. Goering
would’ve wet dreamed over it! They call it ‘‘Predator Drone,’’ Bro. Albert.
And, dig, the Commander does Takeout Tuesdays…Serving hot Hellfire
Missiles to poor peoples, unlucky enough to be on the menu…

Bro. Albert, were we rockin’ 4 or 8-track when you were Abducted?
Oh, yeah, lemme pull your coat. Don’t refer to abduction as “Kidnapping.”
There’s this cool new name for it now: “Extraordinary rendition.” And all
the bestial, barbaric shit they Did to You, Herman and Robert—Please, Bro.,
don’t date yourself calling it “torture!” “Enhanced interrogation’s” the
cooler way of saying it?

Bro. Albert, you remember Malcolm? Martin? Medgar? Muhammad Ali?
John Carlos and Tommy Smith? Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln and Oscar
Brown, Jr.?
Well, ready yourself for Lilliputians: Lil’ Wayne, Drake, Diddy…Prepare
yourself to witness Negroz chained to 2” pocket plantations, blabbin’ ‘bout
Beyonce’s Super Bowl show…
Yeah, I hear you, Bro. Albert. The language is indeed as tortured as Pat
Boone covering Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti” and Fats Domino’s “Blueberry
Hill.” But Bro., I’m hearing something else:

In the whistling teapot I hear
Mary Ann Fisher’s response
to interrogating Raelett calls:
“What kind of man are you?”

If I were a voting man, I’d vote for You,
Chip Fitzgerald, Maroon Shoatz, Leonard Peltier, Herman Bell— As I would
have voted for Marilyn Buck, Herman Wallace and Hugo Pinell to race to
congress Strap balls on black caucus-soids— at least make them appear as
ALEC adversaries! Better yet—take their Seats!
And far from “wasting” my vote, Honoring martyrs making voting
Possible—I’d exalt it!

“What kind of man are you?”
If I were a betting man, I’d bet on You
Like I would’ve bet on Ali; Bill Russell’s Celtics; Jim Brown’s Thousand
yards; Magic’s Lakers; Jordan’s Bulls; Plunk’s Raiders; The Steel Curtain;
Steph Curry’s Warriors…I’d bet on you leading and winning struggles for
$15 …in a world of workers needing $50…

“What kind of man are you?”
If I were a praying man, I’d pray to you
As I would’ve prayed to The High Priest, Monk; The High Priestess,
Simone; Paul; Pops; Lady Day; Sass; Trane; Bird; and Prez to play
something up tempo—Swinging furiously—for folks needing
Single-payer; Needing to run rote, cruel, heartless, soulless, “Pay or Die”
players off the bandstand!

I’m just a writing man, Bro. Albert,
it’s really about YOU—not me—
Tryin’, Tranein’/doin’ the Wright thing…;
© 2022. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved. Former forklift driver/warehouse worker/janitor, Raymond Nat Turner is a NYC poet; BAR's Poet-in-Residence; and founder/co-leader of the jazz-poetry ensemble UpSurge!NYC. You can Vote for his work at: GoFundMe and PayPal.

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