Last Days of Pompeo…or of ‘Identity’ Politics?

Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence

21 Mar 2018

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It's not waterboarding if it's deisel, and it's not torture if she's leaning in.

His lips gurgled watery words,
his nostrils were an aching incinerator…
Still, she taunted and tormented him about
his acting; after she’d ordered him
Water-boarded for the 83rd time…

Screams were symphonies when she ran
her Black Site—and NO, Negroz, it wasn’t
a place you could go get your groove on—
Wasn’t Cloud 9, or Psychedelic Shack—and NO,
Negroz, these mad monsters are not nice, like in
Movies…Wrecking central nervous systems,
Demolishing personalities, making healthy people
Helpless ain’t nothin’ but a party to them…

and when her confirmation hearing comes,
You may wanna ask Lady Sadist: Does she
Pine for rack and wheel, thumbscrew times?
Would she have personally presented Natives with
smallpox-enhanced blankets; presided over Tuskegee
syphilis experiments—or been a gleeful guard at Auschwitz
or Buchenwald?
Does she meditate watching Mengele movies? Does she
Masturbate to torture tapes—cackling, “Who says
Torture doesn’t work?” Does she devour human flesh,
sans Hannibal Lecter mask?

There’s blood on her hands—
is it from smashing the glass ceiling?

Raymond Nat Turner is BAR's poet in residence. You can find much more of his work, and how to contact or book him at http://upsurgejazz.com.

poetry

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