Mayday 2020

(For Ferguson, Baltimore, Million Workers March, Arab Spring, Standing Rock, Occupy, Jackson Rising, Fight for Fifteen, Extinction Rebellion, #Me Too…)

Magnolia scents of class
Struggle fill early morning air.
Rippling heat waves of resistance
rise up, up, up in refreshing spring
breezes from the Black Belt south
Coronavirus is lighting
Wildfires in eyes of fighters—
130 wildcat strikes in two months!

Sans eloquent arguments;
blockbuster books; clever
conversations appealing to
sleazy senator so and so—
Young class struggle students are
Mastering more in a month than
in a business as usual decade.
Normal
Ain’t welcome here anymore…

They’re refusing to be slaughtered
as sacrificial lambs on gilded
altars of obscene profits!
They’re choosing, instead, to
Organize
Organize
Organize
Themselves—
By any means necessary…

Former forklift driver/warehouse worker/janitor, Raymond Nat Turner is a NYC poet; BAR's Poet-in-Residence; and founder/co-leader of the jazz-poetry ensemble UpSurge!NYC. Read other articles by Raymond Nat, or visit Raymond Nat's website.