by BAR poet-in-residence Raymond Nat Turner
Still the syn-tactical surgeon
With precision pen, atomic tenor,
Suturing my severed tongue
AB
by BAR poet-in-residence Raymond Nat Turner
Ho Chi Minh penned in
Prison Poems, the
Poet must also
Know how to lead an attack
Not a god or stamp, you
Are still my father, son and
Holy-ghost, post-Langston,
Sterling poet warrior
Still the syn-tactical surgeon
With precision pen, atomic tenor,
Suturing my severed tongue
Still the armory
Issuing anti-fracking ordinance
For strikes on Mengeles
At Monsanto
Still the arsenal
Supplying smart bombs for
Our war on government-guided
Attack-Negroz like
Da Men of Steele — Shelby and
Michael — Long Dong Silver, AKA,
Thom-Ass Clarence, Ward Connerly,
Colin Powell and dem imperialist Rice wenches…
I searched frantically for you at the end
Of the Apollo’s Sekou Sundiata celebration;
I jumped over a chair, just missing you, at
The Harlem Stage tribute to Abbey Lincoln;
Finally, caught you at the Schomburg’s
Langston Hughes Auditorium, at the
Fidel-Malcolm Meeting book talk—
Forgave you for slipping
On Iceberg Slim, and
Told you, “I LOVE YOU…”
Raymond Nat Turner © 2014 All Rights Reserved
For the past 30 years, no matter which party has been in power, the US economy has produced more and more “bad” jobs – because the Race to the Bottom is ruling class policy.
It is true now just as when Glen Ford wrote these words in 2019. In any alliance with corporate oppression and militarism, Black America squanders reservoirs of respect among the Earth’s peoples.…
The U.S. has used its influence to steal another country’s oil revenues. Venezuela is in the crosshairs because it dares to be socialist in the hemisphere the U.S. claims as it’s “backyard.”
The late Glen Ford would probably refer to events in Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea, and elsewhere as the “blowback” from France’s colonial past.
“The structural crisis of capitalism in its neoliberal form has created a legitimacy crisis for the capitalist rulers, making the use of force a permanent strategy for maintaining their dominance.”
