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Incarceration Nation

Ruchell Magee Must Be Set Free!

Poem By Raymond Nat Turner

Elder, brother, comrade…Been gone

too long…

Wanted in the Black Community—

Watts writ large!

Elder, brother, comrade…Been gone

too long…

Wanted in the Black Community—

Watts writ large!

If 1619 started it—ebony/ivory—

teenage attraction

Jim Crow’s watch—upped the ante!

Deep South apartheid stench/Emmett

Till terror/pitched battles on blood rivers…

What could the boy be but Black rapist?

Bullwhip warped minds of white men—

What could this be but ‘Master’s’

midnight visits to slave quarters—Prying

apart Black thighs—overruling cries, pleas,

Love?

What could the boy be but Black rapist?

Crackers coveted Choctaw land—

Black soil mattered…

More than visiting terror—or

Another muddy, mutilated body in Mississippi

or other Dixie river. Crackers coveting

Choctaw land put boy in plantation place…

Gifted 8 Angola yrs…Under King Cotton’s rule…

Under horseback-ridin, shotgun-totin, tobacco-

spittin gaze… Gifted target embroidered

Jacket— Gifted exile: City of Angels/ruled by devils…

Elder, brother, comrade…Been gone

too long…

Wanted in the Black Community—

Watts writ large!

Elder, brother, comrade…Been gone

too long…

Wanted in the Black Community—

Watts writ large!

His numbers are no longer:

“6-3-4-5-7-8-9”

no longer:

“Beechwood 4-5-7-8-9”

far too long his numbers been:

#A92051 #T115— 83—Caged since ’63—

60 yrs vengeance-driven torture!

Elder, brother, comrade…Been gone

too long…

Wanted in the Black Community—

Watts writ large!

Elder, brother, comrade…Been gone

too long…

Wanted in the Black Community—

Watts writ large!

Visualize him home—sun splashing light comic

book bright colors of L.A. murals!

Visualize him home, holding youth centers,

Senior centers, libraries, bookstores

Captive. Pulling three-deep lines snaked ‘round

crooked corners…

Space, light, air, freedom to stretch out in sensory

overload!

Elder, brother, comrade…Been gone

too long…

Wanted in the Black Community—

Watts writ large!

Elder, brother, comrade…Been gone

too long…

Wanted in the Black Community—

Watts writ large!

No mo’ Golden State gulag/COVID

concentration camp—

No mo’ Octogenarian barrister behind bars

law book-lifting—iron-pumping mind:

No mo’ memoranda, motion, writ and plea

No mo’ heroic, litigious—War of the Flea—

No mo’ symbol of strength/wisdom of tree—

People, Ruchell Magee must be set Free!

Governor, Ruchell Magee must be set Free!

People, Ruchell Magee must be set Free!

© 2023. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.