by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner
Our poet in residence muses upon the collective madness engendered by the quadrennial presidential election.
Breathe the Bern…
by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner
Right around this time ‘left’ pundits and
Pontificators hitch worn star-spangled
suspenders to an ol’ mule and pretend they’re
Alcoholics— invoking the serenity prayer:
“God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things that I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.”
They claim theirs is the highest form of self-
discipline; like a form of Yoga, a sacred set of
Breathing exercises in 4yr-cycles—foundation of
their practice is regulation of oxygen to brain cells…
But it looks like the Hokey-Pokey:
You clamp your left nostril down,
Until it feels like you’ll drown…
You clamp your right nostril down,
Until your ‘hood’s like Jonestown—
Then you do the shit again in 4 yrs
As the wily 1% stokes your fears…
Set yourself back another decade
With the practicing of this charade…
Raymond Nat Turner © 2016 All Rights Reserved
The Supreme Court has always been a political institution. Racism, political expediency, and outright corruption have always dictated its decisions.
A poem from the late Amiri Baraka questions the myths of U.S. exceptionalism that engulfed the nation after 9/11 attacks, contextualizing them with a history of the West’s centuries-long…
A UN "peacekeeping" mission continues operations in Somalia.
This week’s featured author is Psyche A. Williams-Forson. Williams-Forson is Professor and Chair of American Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her book is Eating While Black: Food…
