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

Music in Montreal: Our song, “The Internationale!”
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
23 Nov 2022
🖨️ Print Article
Music in Montreal: Our song, “The Internationale!”
Protest in Haiti (Photo: AP)

                                                                            Music in Montreal: Our song, “The Internationale!”

The world was pregnant

with two revolutions—fraternal twins—

Newborns cresting, crowning—pushing violently

from contracting wombs…We rejoiced, showering

them with

Revolutionary love!

Morphing, miraculously in tune;

the hungry hundreds’ voices rose

on salt swollen feet

In French, Farsi, Spanish, Russian, Tagalog,

Arabic, Hindi, Punjabi, Portuguese, Japanese,

Mandarin, Cantonese, Creole, Korean, English, etc.

Piston fists pumping to sun, stars, moon—

Our universe. Majestic incantation, “We have

been naught,

We shall be all…” Multilingual blending, crescendoing

like tympani spreading spinal chills—Then snatching

breath from our chests with mighty, wow finish:

“The Internationale shall be the Human race!!”

Too soon we’d see these infant revolutions ripped

from their cribs—from their

Mothers’ and

Midwives’ lactating breasts—And inexperienced

Arms…

And, yet, our song still resounds in jungles,

clandestine forests, barren deserts. Still echoes

off barbed wire and blackened bars of torture

chambers in filthy hellholes…

Our song’s polyglot harmony occasionally rising in

Surprising spaces;

belted out sometimes over orchestration of the world’s

‘richest’ men’s space boy-toys. Over Intelligence

Kings of white nationalist internationals’ Multi-polar

missile music/nuclear nightmare suites conducted by

Truncheon.

Our song still cuts through capitalist-roader nights

with a thousand eyes and facial recognition. Surveillance

state symphonies composed on elephant-eared walls and

eagle-eyed streets, scored on bloodstained rectangular rags

Our song still cries out, “Arise ye prisoners of

starvation…” Not, “ye yachtsmen flying the Jolly Roger for

spheres of Influence…”

Not, “ye capitalist-roaders becoming billionaires on pearls of

Toilers’ sweat…”

Our song still cries out, “A better world’s in birth…” And

“ The earth shall rise on new foundations…”

suggesting cooks can govern—the “human race” includes

Women, Black, Brown, LGBTQ+-And

Toilers must be deciders!



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.

Revolutionary movements

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


More Stories


  • According to one real-time price data aggregator, inflation has slowed to its lowest level since 2020. Getty/Newsweek
    Jon Jeter
    Will Trump’s Tariffs Trigger a Second Great Depression?
    09 Apr 2025
    The Trump administration’s escalating trade war has sent shockwaves through the global economy, with Wall Street giants sounding the alarm over an imminent recession. As markets reel and experts warn…
  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    From Uncle Tom to Cousin Cory: (Or, The Curious Case of Mr. Booker’s Senate Floor Minstrel Show)
    09 Apr 2025
    Senator Cory Booker’s recent 25-hour Senate speech is hailed by some as an act of resistance. Really, it exposes the moral bankruptcy of neoliberal politics, as his performative progressivism clashes…
  • Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    One Spring Day …
    09 Apr 2025
    "One Spring Day …" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
  • Oliver Robinson
    Trump Terror, Complicit Local Leadership, and the Assault Against Southeast D.C.
    09 Apr 2025
    Donald Trump’s new “Safe and Beautiful” task force is little more than a thinly veiled assault on Black working-class communities in Southeast D.C., accelerating policing, displacement, and white…
  • Orinoco Tribune
    Ecuador’s Ex-Diplomat: Far-Right Can Do Anything to Sway Election (Interview)
    09 Apr 2025
    As Ecuador heads into a pivotal runoff election, left-wing candidate Luisa González emerges as the favorite—but the shadow of foreign interference and political violence looms large. In an exclusive…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us