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

STOP the killers!
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
07 Jan 2026
🖨️ Print Article
Fisherman

Burlap bags stuffed with tuna and blue marlin.
Catch of a lifetime! Juan’s already counting the
cash in his head. Visualizing pawn shop guitar
for Gabriel, his 10 yr old son, graduating to guitar
from ukulele. Gabriel’s greeted morning rooster-
like— since age 3—  with “Let’s practice, Papa!”

Before pushing off to sea Juan bought the computer 
Rosario wished for from a journalism student he met
at the fish market training fishmongers to compute. He
also bought the bicycle Maria longed and stashed it at
a neighbor’s house. Juan was out to make his young
family’s Christmas the best ever.

BOOM!
Bloody mess below his waist. Juan’s a strong swimmer. But
he can’t feel his legs. He quickly grabs on to fiery flotsam.
Is that Javier hanging on for dear life across from him?
He hears his children’s joyful shrieks. Sees them jumping
Up and down with joy. He kisses Lourdes long and tenderly …

BOOM!
A pomade man has amplified orders of
his demented Don into “Kill them all!”
Laughing, they dub it  a “double-tap 
strike —”
like some cool dance step
signaling mad moves to come …


© 2026. 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.

Venezuela
imperialism
US Military
Military aggression
extrajudicial killings
Caribbean

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


Related Stories

Editors, The Black Agenda Review
POEM: O.A.S., Roque Dalton, circa 1970
28 October 2026
“The President of the United States is more/ the President of my country/ than the President of my country.”
Ricardo Vaz
Western Media Accept Trump’s Plundering of Venezuelan Oil as Business as Usual
28 October 2026
Venezuelanalysis editor Ricardo Vaz exposes how the media establishment presents no principled opposition to the imperialist predation of Venez
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
ESSAY: Calypso as Comment, Gordon Rohlehr, 1979
21 October 2026
“So the calypso ceases to be entertainment on a trivial level and becomes a vehicle whereby the society is going back and searching f
Belen Fernandez
Israel’s Lebanese Land Grab
21 October 2026
Under the guise of a farcical “pilot zone” project to restore Lebanon’s sovereignty, Israel is pursuing a scorched-earth strategy whi
Issa G Shivji
Positioning Pan-Africanism In The Geopolitical Turmoil
21 October 2026
As we are experiencing a world order in disorder, with war and conflagrations and a shifting balance of power, Issa Shivji calls for a Sovereig
Stephen Millies
Don’t Let Them Kill Cilia Flores!
14 October 2026
While Trump pardoned an actual drug lord president, he keeps a kidnapped Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife, First Combatant Ce
Black Alliance For Peace
The Black Alliance for Peace Condemns Renewal of Neocolonial Gang Suppression Force UN Mandate in Haiti
07 October 2026
The UN's renewal of the Gang Suppression Force mandate is part of a wider hemispheric project to reassert military control across the Americas.
Berthony Dupont
How the OAS Works for Imperialism in Haiti
07 October 2026
The armed groups in Haiti are not a spontaneous wave of banditry, but a scheme orchestrated by imperialist powers in concert with a reactionary
Abel Prieto
Venezuela: It Is What You See
30 September 2026
A photograph of Delcy RodrĂ­guez smiling with Donald Trump after the U.S.
Pambazuka News Editors
TĂĽrkiye, UAE, and the Imperialist Chain: African Ports and War
30 September 2026
Imperialist competition and wars that facilitate extractivism have long shaped the use of seaports for access to resources, markets, and devalu

More Stories


  • Dhoruba bin-Wahad
    Guardian Foray: All That's Not Real Is Camouflage
    09 Sep 2026
    An Open Letter from the American "Left" allegedly on behalf of unnamed persons said to be Iranian political prisoners has provided cover for U.S. imperial aggression against Iran by refusing to…
  • Imani Nile
    Don't Bring None of Your Anti Anti-Imperialist Bullshit to Cuba
    09 Sep 2026
    Empire taught us what to believe about the Global South. It also taught us how to move through it, and being colonized here does not exempt us from carrying those beliefs with us.
  • Glen Ford , BAR executive editor
    9/11 and the Great American Decline
    09 Sep 2026
    The Bush administration had long planned a global war for U.S. hegemony, and the attacks of September 11 provided the perfect pretext to put those plans into motion.
  • J.C. Hallman , Keaton Ross
    Who's Calling?
    09 Sep 2026
    Oklahoma prison inmates were making political calls for a conservative Super PAC during the primary.
  • Michael Steven Smith
    Meet the Radical Legal Collective That Won Justice for Fred Hampton and Continues Fighting to This Day
    09 Sep 2026
    Longtime attorney Flint Taylor’s new book tells the story of the People’s Law Collective, which grew out of the radical movements of the late 1960s.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us