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
  • omnibus

Poem For Zigi
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
05 Jul 2017
🖨️ Print Article

by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

This week's offering from BAR's poet in residence was also published this week at Dissident Voice.

 

Poem For Zigi

by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

“…the greatest thing you’ll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return…”
‘Nature Boy’ by Eden Ahbez

Jet black gondola
2017-07-05 11:54:34 -0400glides across the resting lake
to Bata drumming dock,
African ritual;
Double rainbow of
Family and friends,
Connect like braided bread,
Waiting to share coconut,
white chocolate, lemon zest treat—
Our seven hour chat
“covering everything
from Ellington to
Engels…” earned Us…

Steamed tears stream on
Bent notes of
“The Nearness of You”
Blue glass explodes beneath
my white shoe;
Rich in Bandmates,

“…the greatest thing you’ll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return…”
‘Nature Boy’ by Eden Ahbez

Jet black gondola
glides across the resting lake
to Bata drumming dock,
African ritual;
Double rainbow of
Family and friends,
Connect like braided bread,
Waiting to share coconut,
white chocolate, lemon zest treat—
Our seven hour chat
“covering everything
from Ellington to
Engels…” earned Us…

Steamed tears stream on
Bent notes of
“The Nearness of You”
Blue glass explodes beneath
my white shoe;
Rich in Bandmates,
Best Man Son, Daughter,
Sistars; Ancestors bear
bouquets emblazoned,
“Mazel Tov!”
and crowd gold chuppah—
more beautiful than perfect

Reaching into Van Gogh
skies—plucking the
left-handed, curly-topped
Angel I’d asked for,
For a trek across
the heavens; After
decades daydreaming,
decades longing
for my Soulmate—a
Brother caught a break—
Flourishing in her
Galaxy of Love

’Twas Fathers Day too—
Papi growled, per usual,
“Take care of each other…”
Champagne whispering—
“Don’t fuck it up,”
Shooing us off to Tour Eiffel…

Best Man Son, Daughter,
Sistars; Ancestors bear
bouquets emblazoned,
“Mazel Tov!”
and crowd gold chuppah—
more beautiful than perfect

Reaching into Van Gogh
skies—plucking the
left-handed, curly-topped
Angel I’d asked for,
For a trek across
the heavens; After
decades daydreaming,
decades longing
for my Soulmate—a
Brother caught a break—
Flourishing in her
Galaxy of Love

’Twas Fathers Day too—
Papi growled, per usual,
“Take care of each other…”
Champagne whispering—
“Don’t fuck it up,”
Shooing us off to Tour Eiffel…

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


More Stories


  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    If We Respond to the Genocide in Palestine the Same Way We’re responding to the Climate Crisis, We Should Expect Many More Loss of Lives
    23 Jul 2025
    The climate crisis and genocide in Gaza share the same root: capitalism’s willingness to sacrifice the masses. Yet, the institutions built to resist have instead become accomplices.
  • Imani Nile
    The Scramble for Mount Vernon? How Capitalists and their Black Middlemen are Colonizing the Jewel of Westchester County, New York
    23 Jul 2025
    A majority Black city in Westchester County, a northern suburb of New York City, suffers from years of Black political misleadership and is now under threat by real estate developers who envision the…
  • Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    The Bad Hombre Defense?
    23 Jul 2025
    "The Bad Hombre Defense?" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
  • High Crimes
    ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    High Crimes and Misdemeanors – Not by Trump but Obama and Democrats
    23 Jul 2025
    The real collusion wasn’t between Trump and Putin; it was between intelligence elites and a Democratic establishment.
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    STATEMENT: Without Immediate Intervention, the Last Reporters in Gaza Will Die, Agence France-Presse/Société de Journalistes, July 21, 2025
    23 Jul 2025
    “Since AFP was founded in August 1944, we have lost journalists in conflicts…but none of us remember seeing a colleague die of hunger.”
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us