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

Dis-honest Broker (for my friend Farid)
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
25 Oct 2023
🖨️ Print Article
Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, Israel
Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, Israel (Photo: Evan Vucci/AP)

 

Dis-honest Broker

(for my friend Farid)

 

Metallic music of shovels; Abrasions on bare hands
Digging, digging, digging through twisted bones and
busted bricks of buildings. To backpacks, blankets, baby
body parts to free tiny arms and legs emitting whispers…

Obese bulldozers munching homes and olive trees;
Settlers snacking on bones of the evicted;
Aquifer flooded with sea water and sewage are G-
Rated nightmares and matter not to NFL, NBA bi-partisans

Forked tongue, dis-honest broker, fluent in ancient language
Genocide
Trots tattered tropes for terror out. Swears another Offal Office
Oath on War House Bible—bathed in blood of 10s of millions—
Wounded Knee to Trail of Tears; Tulsa to Hiroshima; Korea to
Vietnam to Afghanistan…

Riddler/Joker—Dis-
honest broker: “You have a right to”
Be an aircraft carrier on the desert
Acting as a weapons lab conducting
Trade shows; Disguised as democracy
Acting as an apartheid state; Concealing
Third Reich real estate practices—Go on
Step on the gas—and
“Mow the grass!”

“You have a right to” quell them/Shell
them! Bombard them/boneyard them!
Snipe them/wipe them! Un-home them/Pogrom them!
Expel them/Farewell them!

“You have a right to” strangulate them/Annihilate them!
Bomb roads they’re instructed to travel— Let them eat
Lead and gravel!

“You have a right to” kill them One-a-Day… for years—
Daily… for decades… Until bloody bootprints become
Normal as “Ironclad!” Normal as Baghdad…
“You have a right to” 22 days of carnage; provided
you Madison Avenue it: “Operation Caste-Lead!”
“You have a right to” Step on the gas—and
“Mow the grass!“

“You have a right to” 51 days of slaughter—if
you market it as: “Operation Protective Edge!”
“You have a right to” Step on the gas—and
“Mow the grass!”

"You have a right to” Dr. Goebbels’ white phosphorus
prescriptions for human animals holding human shields;
Holding hostages; Holding hospital hideouts; Holding
House keys—for… 3/4 of a Century…

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

Raymond Nat Turner is a NYC poet; BAR's Poet-in-Residence; and founder/co-leader of the jazz-poetry ensemble UpSurge!NYC. You can Vote for his work at: GoFundMe and PayPal.

Israel
Palestine
Joe Biden
Apartheid Israel
US Imperialism

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


Related Stories

Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Denial is Not a River in Egypt, or in Venezuela
03 June 2026
The U.S. regime change plot against Venezuela succeeded and created a puppet state.
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
POEM: To The Aircraft Carrier Intrepid, Pedro Mir, 1962
03 June 2026
Oh, carrier Intrepid/you in these torrid waters of Santo Domingo/only out of fear.
Sam E. Anderson
Beyond the Algorithm: Defending the Cuban Revolution’s Record Against Ahistorical Attacks
03 June 2026
A critical analysis of the U.S.
Ramzy Baroud
Why Didn’t Iran Put Gaza on the Table? A Difficult Answer
03 June 2026
From Gaza to Tehran, from the politics of resistance to the limits of regional diplomacy, a pressing question has resurfaced amid the 2026 war:
Hanna Eid
Imperialism and the Arab World: An Interview with Tara Alami
27 May 2026
Compliant Arab regimes spent decades spreading anti-Iran propaganda, but the current assault on Iran is shattering those lies.
Joshua Reaves Charmelus
Unity and Sovereignty: Cuba’s True ‘Threat’ To US Interests
27 May 2026
The U.S.
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
ESSAY: The Palestine Question: Background and Solution, Edward Atiyah, 1946
20 May 2026
“It is impossible to make a national home for one people in a country inhabited by another, except by dislodging the latter.”
Black Alliance For Peace
Move the Games: No World Cup for Genocide, Ecocide, or State Thuggery
29 April 2026
A celebration of the most popular sport in the world can't be held in a country that commits genocide, ecocide, and daily state violence.
Joshua Reaves Charmelus
Exporting Apartheid: Israel’s Role in Haiti’s Water Crisis
29 April 2026
Behind the Dominican Republic’s assault on Haitian water sovereignty stands an Israeli Occupation apparatus – arming border forces, training po
Zeinab Al Saffar
Negotiations or Annihilation: Can the Resistance Be Talked Away?
29 April 2026
Israel's diplomacy with Lebanon is a fiction.

More Stories


  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    The EPA’s Zero Sum Game Surfaces a Dialectical Paradox That Should Be Celebrated, Not Decried
    04 Feb 2026
    The debate over the EPA's new math misses the point. The agency hasn't changed its values, it has simply stopped pretending to account for communities it was never built to protect.
  • Isaac Saney
    Cuba Must Not Fall! Imperialism, Resistance and the Global Stakes of Defending the Cuban Revolution
    04 Feb 2026
    The survival of Cuba's socialist project remains one of the most critical holdouts against hemispheric domination, making its defense a global litmus test for sovereignty.
  • Black Alliance For Peace
    On the Anniversary of the Declaration of a ‘Zone of Peace’, the U.S. Heightens its Murderous Assault on the Cuban People and Revolution
    04 Feb 2026
    Branding Cuba an "extraordinary threat" on the anniversary of a regional peace declaration, the U.S. has escalated an assault designed to destroy hemispheric solidarity and justify hybrid war.
  • Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement
    Georges Ibrahim Abdallah: “Together, and only together, do we win.”
    04 Feb 2026
    After 41 years in French captivity, revolutionary militant Georges Ibrahim Abdallah speaks, offering an analysis of October 7th, global fascism, and the Palestinian resistance.
  • Prince Kapone
    Reuters’ ‘Market Story’ and the American Pole: PetroChina, Venezuelan Oil, and the Siege That Calls Itself Trade
    04 Feb 2026
    Reuters sells custodial plunder as a pricing issue, turning blockade into “market caution.” We restore the missing record: seizures, supervision, and the re-routing of Venezuelan oil revenue through…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us