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

AB
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
14 Jan 2014
🖨️ Print Article

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 can be contacted at upsurgejazz.com.

 

Raymond Nat Turner © 2014 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


  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    EXCERPT: Die Nigger, Die! H. Rap Brown, 1969
    26 Nov 2025
    “Blackness alone is not revolutionary.”
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    The United Arab Emirates Use a Black Sport to Whitewash a Genocide in Africa
    26 Nov 2025
    National Basketball Association (NBA) players are 70-75% Black, so the game is commonly referred to as “a Black sport.” Now the United Arab Emirates are using it to whitewash a genocide in Africa.
  • Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Blues for belligerent blonde Lil Eva Braun
    26 Nov 2025
    "Blues for belligerent blonde Lil Eva Braun" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
  • Black Alliance For Peace
    Imam Jamil Al-Amin, Presente!
    26 Nov 2025
    From the front lines of the Black Power movement to a Georgia prison cell, the life of Imam Jamil Al-Amin represents a continuous thread of resistance and the state's relentless retaliation against…
  • Jon Jeter
    Unable to Squeeze Another Dime From Black People, a Subprime Economy Runs Aground
    26 Nov 2025
    America's financial overlords are hooked on a subprime lending model that preys on the poor, and now this unsustainable system is crashing down.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us