Elegy for Terry Collins
Oh, Terry
Tip of spear
Look of Lion King
Dapper Swagger Classic
Like yr uncle Malcolm X
Yo Mama Ella Collins bad too
Didn’t she run Boston?
Collins family owned land in dirty South
no share-croppers jim crow slaves
black land owners shot back
better ax somebody
Ella Collins bout it bout it
Paid Malcolm’s way to Mecca
You and brother Rodnel
Royal brothers I say
Glad to know you both
Wife Cat Cecelia
daughters too, Renya, Kiara
KPOO family royal
We know JJ got the baton
Joe Rudolph taught us all
how to talk on radio
Let me throw in some JB funk
John D taught, "Don't go on no talk show
without the Black woman
yen-yang woman
Ma-at woman. Pass ball back'n forth!"
Who John D John Douimbia
If you a Frisco Negro
you remember John D
Like Terry a classic
Hustled in Harlem with Malcolm
On release from prison, Malcolm told John D
help organize San Francisco Mosque #26
Only one man dressed better'n John D
The Most Honorable Willie Brown
Can I get amen, ache', hotep
But Joe Rudolph taught One more
No matter how many takes
One more Joe said
you be tired wanna get out that hot room
Joe said one more
Oh, Terry You interviewed me so many times
I know we got book in KPOO archives
So many nights so many subjects
world events
Africa, Palestine Iran Syria Afghanistan
You my draft counselor when I refused to fight in Vietnam
I did exile twice listening to you, Canada, Mexico City, Belize
Terminal Island Federal Prison too
Oh, Terry changing of the guards
Soldier, you relieved of post
Let the new generation soldiers carry your coffin
Let them know weight of revolutionary love action
study your life
revolution beyond color class sex gender
Change is revolution nada mas
Oh, Terry, you did all to make change
chains off brains
preached til you could say no more
do no more
What shall we do without you
alone exhausted
solitude of our lives
inundated with isolation
terrified in rooms
scared of virus vaccine too
watching elders dancing daily into ancestor land
We must catch and hold high torch of revolution
Oh, Terry your team were true troopers at San Francisco State
University Strike for Black Third World Studies
Joe, Corbett, Benny, Jerry, JoAnn, Ramona
Danny, Crutchfield, Arnold, Bernard, Jimmy, Mar-yam, Charlotta
Victory is your legacy for us to grow
Oh, Terry, you did 85 in Babylon
Old New York Communist Party women told me
Better be a Communist
We Communists live long time
You did your revolutionary duty
for all to see
freed everybody
wife, children, comrades, community, world
and me!
a friend to the end
true friend
Love you, Terry
heart broken
want to cry
Tears don't come
May come today
I cry for your love
tenacity lessons
for generations to come.
Hip Hop generation say 60s revolution failed
We broke heroes, Askia Toure' son said
Was revolution about money or freedom?
Is revolution about branding bling bling?
Dr. Cornel West said you got branded when you landed!
Francis Bacon said, "Truth will not make you rich
but it will make you free."
Bible say people were destroyed for lack of knowledge
not lack of money.
How you ignut with global wisdom on yo cell phone?
All you wanna know is "Where you at, where you?"
Ask yoself where YOU at?
Fanon said the oppressed man/woman is disoriented
are you west east north south
You gotta ask Siri Karen Becky
Yo phone is a weapon of knowledge to free yo mind
Google Africa, Reparations, Sovereignty Self Determination
Land, Equity, Pan Africa, Five states to be free
Google voting rights, George Floyd, 1619 History Project
Critical race theory
Google mass incarceration
Figure out when we be free
240 years before economic equity
What Ancestor Amiri Baraka say
Don't let them take yo um boom ba boom
you be in deep trouble let them take yo um boom ba boom
take you centuries to get out"
Be in harmony with Indigenous peoples
Reparations, Sovereignty Self Determination
National Liberation
no eternal suffering in pseudo democracy
languishing eternally between
Tweedledum and Tweedledee
vote for me I set you free
good cop bad cop mystery
Didn't Uncle Malcolm say Revolution is land
You wanna vote or you want land
voting ain't endgame
voting a process to freedom
Land is the endgame
When they took us from land
they took our minds too
Malcolm said you left you mind in Africa
it's still there in the bush somewhere
how we go be free at the whim of gentrification
Free the Land
Free the Man/Woman
Don't say black lives matter
then buy the hood
blacks in tents under freeway
you got they house
black lives matter sign in window
blacks walk they old hood
you watching with binoculars
call 911
suspicious persons in the hood
Free the land
free the land
Elijah said, Republic of New Africa said
Ancestor Amiri Baraka asked long ago
When white power falls where will you be
What land shall you seize when America Balkanizes
when every ethnicity grabs their share of cherry pie
what part of the pie do you want
Sun Ra said in Space is the Place
"You don't want nothin'!"
Texas long been wantin' to be
Lone Star Nation
Bloods better want Houston Nation
Better Ax Somebody
California wanna break into three nations
have you heard
What part for North American Africans
Where we go be
we go be where we wanna be or where somebody else want us to be nowhere stuck under freeway in tents
We want The North American African
People's Republic of Oakland Houston Brooklyn Harlem
Fillmore Hunters Point
whites with strange habits
go your way be free
you black white people go your way too
We go our way
Ma'at Sankofa we Africans say
Oh, Terry remember the Black Arts Movement 50th Celebration
at Laney College
Intergenerational Discussion with your daughter, Phavia's child and my daughter Nefertiti
whose words went viral
"Dad, you say you gonna pass the baton
but you won't pass the baton
we qualified and ready
so pass the baton!"
Oh, daughters Renya and Kiara
Dad passed the baton
you feel it in your hands?
run for your life to finish line of liberation
see him there
If you fall he will catch you
time after time!
We elders will catch you
time after time
feel like you slipping into darkness
give us a call
Oh, Terry, our work is not in vain
Children grandchildren coming strong
Like Garvey said
Look for them in the Whirlwind!
--Marvin X
7/8/21
Revised 7/22/21
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