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 The Shoe Fits...
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
05 Sep 2012
🖨️ Print Article

 

by Raymond Nat Turner

“In our marching shoes, yes, we can

Discover trails less traveled

Connecting us with sage spirits

Sampling James Brown with John

Brown”

 

If The Shoe Fits...

by Raymond Nat Turner

 

Shoe leather was once

Voting's egg, blood, its sperm...

Shoe's on the other foot, now

So, to vote, or not to vote

Is not the question---the

Commander even chided and

Derided us: Swap "bedroom

Slippers" for "marching shoes"

 

In our marching shoes, yes, we can

Click our heels like children

Catching burnt orange and ebony

Butterflies filled with freedom to fly

 

In our marching shoes, yes, we can

Conjure comets and name them

"Rebellion," "Underground," "Utopian,"

"Civil," "Survival" and celestial bodies coming...

 

In our marching shoes, yes, we can

Scale the Shangri-la where

Seventy-five year olds march like

Twenty-five year olds and

Twenty-five year olds orate like

Seventy-five year olds,shoulder

To shoulder striking, sitting-in,

Picketing, teaching and taking 

Care of one another on filaments

Of shoestring budgets...

 

In our marching shoes, yes, we can

Discover trails less traveled

Connecting us with sage spirits

Sampling James Brown with John

Brown, disturbing the universe, questioning

Everything about a corrupt, rotten pyramid

Scheme stitched together with tear gas,

Bullets, bombs and LIES...

 

In our marching shoes, blisters and all,

We're the ones we've been waiting for---

Cast Prada, Nike, Reebok ballots

At bought and bossed footmen!

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

(c) 2012 All rights Reserved

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


More Stories


  • Pan-African Community Action PACA 2568)
    Pan-African Community Action Condemns the U.S. Settler State for the Murder of Sonya Massey
    31 Jul 2024
    The murder of Sonya Massey by the Illinois police is a symptom of a larger, deeply rooted, systemic assault on Black and Brown working-class communities. The only way to protect the people and resist…
  • Cira Pascual Marquina
    Multipolarity, Internationalism and Tomorrow’s Elections in Venezuela: A Conversation with Carlos Ron (Part II)
    31 Jul 2024
    The Instituto Simón Bolívar president places Venezuela’s July 28 presidential election in the global context.
  • Malaika Jabali
    In Milwaukee, Many Black Voters Aren’t On Board With Either Party
    31 Jul 2024
    The city’s abstainers could determine who wins Wisconsin, a critical swing state, this November.
  • Philippe Rosenthal
    France in Africa: “ New Partnership Model ” and Revenge Projects
    31 Jul 2024
    Despite the well-known political instability of the Fifth Republic, caused by the results of the recent legislative elections, the continuity of Paris' military-political path in Africa seems…
  • The Cradle
    One third of the world under US sanctions: Report
    31 Jul 2024
    Four consecutive US governments have incrementally expanded their reliance on using the US dollar as a weapon of war, forcing nations across the world to create alternative financial systems and…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us