The Supremes
Mary was mysterious,
but the best dancer
Diana, the magnetic,
cooing romancer—
But, here’s a secret I know:
cats like me dug Miss Flo—
And the 4th Supreme’s ‘fro!
The 4th Supreme came
Singing tones ‘tween
Douglass and Carmen McRae—
Malcolm X and Lady Day
The 4th Supreme came
Singing “Stop In The Name Of Love!”
by way of Brandeis/Bombing-ham—
hitting Dynamite Hill high notes
The 4th Supreme came
Singing “Reflections”
in silver bracelets, on a
Newsweek cover captioned:
“Red, Black and Wanted!”
Hoover hated her harmonies with millions…
But I heard, “Set me free, why don’t you, babe?”
Rocking me to “ …Try Something New:”
Dialectics…
The 4th Supreme came
Singing, “I Hear A Symphony—”
“No Matter What Sign You Are,”
in ’08—but I
forgive her and comrades
and friends for singing flat
Madison Avenue smash hits: “Yes,
we can and bottle Jim Jones Juice;”
“regime Change you can believe in—”
delivering “Nothing But Heartaches” to
Honduras, Libya, Syria, Mother Africa…
© 2018. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.
Raymond Nat Turner, our poet in residence, is an accomplished performing artist. You can find much more of his work at http://upsurgejazz.com.
As settler-colonial violence escalates from Kanaky to Palestine, Fanon’s century-old warnings are critical today—capitalism’s genocidal expansion demands revolution.
Kenya's Gen Z uprising is met with live bullets and a US-funded police crackdown. The brutal repression exposes the reality of neocolonialism, where Western 'aid' arms murderous regimes and IMF…
Dr. Marwan Al-Hams, Director of Field Hospitals at the Ministry of Health in Gaza, warned that nearly half, 47%, of essential medicines are now completely depleted.
Western cameras frame this as Israel vs. Iran—but African analysts see through the script: another case of ‘rules for thee, not for me’ in a system built to punish the Global South.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution never stopped printing racist lies—it just upgraded its fonts.
