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

For the Planet and Humanity to Survive / can't make this up
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
19 Apr 2017
🖨️ Print Article

by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

This week our poet in residence offers a brief meditations upon where and what sorts of bombing ought to be allowed, if any, and upon the lapse of White House mouthpiece Sean Spicer's descent from manufacturing fake news into promulgating fake history....

For The Planet and Humanity 

To Survive

BOMBING
must
be
Abolished
or
Forever
restricted
to
Borscht
Belt
Chitlin’
Circuit
Sunset
Strip
theaters—

KILLING
lives
in
.
.
.

Raymond Nat Turner © 2017 All Rights Reserved

 

can’t make this up

If you needed a nosh
or just wanted to schmooze;
If you needed directions,
or  wished to swap work
Assignments;
If you had problems
with passport papers,
or profiling by the Gestapo;
If you needed a new
yellow star—or just needed
to know if
Kristallnacht was on—
The Holocaust Center
was the spot!

Raymond Nat Turner © 2017 All Rights Reserved

Raymond Nat Turner is an acclaimed poet and performance artist. 
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


  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    No Kings and the Lure of Spectacle
    22 Oct 2025
    The most recent No Kings march will hopefully be the last. A Democratic Party get out the vote effort is a show that obscures and obstructs the real work of organizing. 
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    SPEECH: Cuba, Nicaragua, Grenada Together We Shall Win, Maurice Bishop, 1980
    22 Oct 2025
    “Long live the Grenadian revolution! Long live the militant unity and solidarity of workers internationally!”
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    A Tale of Two Ceasefires: Gaza and DRC
    22 Oct 2025
    The US has negotiated ceasefires in Gaza and the DRC’s eastern Kivu Provinces, but the killing, displacement, and devastation in both continue.
  • Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Did you see an infantile, juvenile flight of fancy?
    22 Oct 2025
    "Did you see an infantile, juvenile flight of fancy?" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    Stuck in a Neutral Gear of Watered Down and Whitewashed Prefigurative Politics: How “No Kings” Takes the “Move” Out of Movements
    22 Oct 2025
    You cannot defeat a king with a parade. The failure of "No Kings" is the refusal to build real power beyond a single day of protest.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us