Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Cranes and Tents
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
05 Dec 2018
šŸ–Øļø Print Article
Stable working class neighborhoods are the bane of speculators, developers and capitalist politicians.
Stable working class neighborhoods are the bane of speculators, developers and capitalist politicians.

Lording over the landscape like giant
Insects sucking soul, blood, chocolate
into multi-colored mushrooms
Metastasizing citywide.
Officers ordering vacant storefronts,
lined up like soldiers, to make money,
while brothers with cupped hands
platoon on plastic crates at entrances to
$4-a-cup coffee shops with belligerent baristas.

Beneath fiery crimson skies,
afternoon freeways are fuming parking lots.
Capitalism’s poisoning water and air,
and ignorant exploiters don’t care!
Pyramids and huts; tuxes and tails,
unwashed butts—tents and jails.
First come the cranes—then the
Tents, skyrocketing mortgages—then the
Rents… money, money, money for military
Bases in far off places—but, it’s ā€œPie in the
sky,ā€ to demand affordable living spaces!

Basketball team’s outgrown The Town,
football team’s slipping off to Sin
City after slurping at the trough…
Capitalism’s poisoning water and air,
and ignorant exploiters don’t care!
Pyramids and huts; tuxes and tails,
unwashed butts—tents and jails.
First come the cranes—then the
Tents, skyrocketing mortgages—then the
Rents… money, money, money for military
Bases in far off places—but, it’s ā€œPie in the
sky,ā€ to demand affordable living spaces!

And we play dress-up in grown folks’ clothes—
Tiny red, white and blue stickers— pretending
we’re fixing it in 20 minutes… every 2-4 years …

 

Ā© 2018. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.

Raymond Nat Turner is an acclaimed poet and performing artist. You can find much more of his work at http://upsurgejazz.com.

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


More Stories


  •  Black Agenda Radio for Week of Monday, March 22, 2021
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Black Agenda Radio for Week of Monday, March 22, 2021
    22 Mar 2021
    Cuban Socialist Internationalist Medicine Puts Capitalist Countries to Shame
  •  Criminal Imperial Nations Deport Their Colonial Victims as Criminals
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Criminal Imperial Nations Deport Their Colonial Victims as Criminals
    22 Mar 2021
    Citizenship laws in the West are ā€œabout reproducing and managing colonially partitioned populations,ā€ said Luke de Noronha, a teacher at the University of Manchester, in the UK, an
  •  Quest for ā€œBlack Faces in High Placesā€ Deceives the People
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Quest for ā€œBlack Faces in High Placesā€ Deceives the People
    22 Mar 2021
    ā€œIf we believe thatā€ achieving ā€œthe first Black woman this, and the first Black woman that, will consolidate gains for our community, then we are deceiving ourselvesā€ and ā€œwe might as well say, ā€˜I’
  •  Cuban Socialist Internationalist Medicine Puts Capitalist Countries to Shame
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Cuban Socialist Internationalist Medicine Puts Capitalist Countries to Shame
    22 Mar 2021
    So few of its own citizens have contracted Covid-19 – less than 300 -- that Cuba must test its vaccines in other countries, said Dr Layla Brown-Vincent, professor
  • Freedom Rider: Ending Poverty in the United States
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: Ending Poverty in the United States
    17 Mar 2021
    President Franklin Roosevelt made profound changes in the US political-economic structure, while Joe Biden only does temporary patchwork on the late-stage capitalist carcass. 
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us