A Li'l Somethin' for Dick Gregory
A Li'l Somethin' for Dick Gregory
by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner
Our white-bearded cannon
fell silent—
The day became grayer…
I know, I know, I know, I know…
He was my Mom’s favorite funnyman—
She bought his books, his vinyl
Speaking to her like Malcolm
(who she shared Turkish Coffee
with on his trips west, fishing for men)
I remember his mantra
He chanted like a Buddhist Priest:
“You youngsters got a lotta work to do…”
“You youngsters got a lotta work to do…”
Doubling us over,
splitting our sides, shaking our cores…
I remember his mantra
He chanted like a Buddhist Priest:
“You youngsters got a lotta work to do…”
“You youngsters got a lotta work to do…”
Piercing steel veils with X-ray vision
puncturing absurdities with barbed tongue—
Soul-ar powered bullshit detector
administering smell tests
I remember his mantra
He chanted like a Buddhist Priest:
“You youngsters got a lotta work to do…”
“You youngsters got a lotta work to do…”
while coming as close as we’ve come to
Having a Super Hero
putting his body
On the line running,
Marching, fasting, speaking,
Teaching us to follow
the money where the
bodies are buried…
Raymond Nat Turner © 2017 All Right Reserved
The Democratic Party is useful only to the oligarch class, who give them their marching orders. Doing anything that serves the people is never on their agenda. They will not address the ICE…
“We forget easily in America. We have forgotten the story of the Palmer Raids.”
"For an ICU VA Nurse" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
The grassroots resistance against data centers is about more than zoning. It is the latest front in America’s war against the people over land, sovereignty, and who controls the future.
To understand the violence of contemporary immigration enforcement, one must trace its lineage directly to the slave patrols of the antebellum South—a system founded on racial terror and the…
