F Train Lynching: Papa Cop’s wink and nod

I.
Blessed with beautiful voice, and chops for
Moonwalking moving trains. Trains and
train stations his stages, his concert halls.
Smiles, cheers, applause, crowds fed him.

He was 14 when death stole the show—
danced down his youth, his joy.
He was 14 when his Mother—the one he
Loved most—was murdered.

Plasticity of an un-molded mind: PTSD be-
came his dance partner after testifying
at his Mother’s murderer’s trial. He lived with
Aunts between peaks/valleys; between dances

II.
Broadway-Lafayette station. Yellow-taped F Train
car and platform. Organized crime-scene of cruel
Capitalism
revealing its rotten ass on International Workers Day.

Black Lives Matter again: cigarette butts on Minnesota
streets; Staten Island sidewalks; back roads of Georgia…
1st day of Mental Health Month: Young, gifted Black
man’s mentality’s treated on train floor.

Papa Cop’s ‘plan’ calls for criminalizing poverty—
1,000 Vitamin S-fueled badges—
Purging rolling refuge of unhoused ones:
‘Sweeping’ flesh and blood ‘trash’ off MTA trains.

Papa Cop’s ‘plan’ calls for not acting Amish—Raising roofs!
Calls for Gov. Hokum and he never drowning city noise with Go-
Go hammers; Screaming saws; Rebar-bending; Concrete pouring!
Never masking city air/Un-ceded Leni-Lenape land with sawdust scents!

Pentagon groomed, self-deputized, 2nd Amendment-minded
man. Blu gravitational pull toward policing Black bodies.
Killed in Kabul, Baghdad, Tripoli with impunity? Boarded air-
craft before farmworkers, teachers, nurses, nannies and cooks?

Chokehold concert? Vigilante law’s long white arm: 30-45 seconds…
Blood flow to brain stopped. Unconsciousness. Bravo! 6-15 minutes…
Dancer’s lean legs flailed.
Last sparks of life wrung from his hungry, thirsty, limp Black body

Parasitic, avaricious, ethnic-cleansing rentier class views lynching fondly.
Now’s the time: Unearth arrests! Dish dirt—Flip the script! Let character
Assassination games begin: Paper of record/Fox-box foot soldier-scribblers
Weaponizing Papa’s word picture: “He got what was coming to him!”

III.
F Train Executioner not charged like denizens of darker hue? Viral video?
Don’t trust your lying eyes! There are many, many things we don’t know,
says Papa Cop.
“Allow the investigation to run its course…”

People of All Seasons: Arab Spring, George Floyd Summer,
Strike-tober, Occupy respond—
Leveraging shoe leather leaps onto tracks—shutting down
Business as usual—their global warming, fiery Street Heat!

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.