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
  • omnibus

Disposable Killing Machines R US
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
01 Oct 2013
🖨️ Print Article

by BAR poet-in-residence Raymond Nat Turner

The wakeful sleep of the 1% is

Haunted by long shadows of

Conscious soldiers, progeny

Of militant mass movements —

 

Disposable Killing Machines R US

by BAR poet-in-residence Raymond Nat Turner

 

12, 23, 32, 300, 3,000;

Long gun, handgun, back

Pack, Ryder rental truck;

Shopping mall, movie-theater,

Naval facility, army base—

A thousand to choose from—

D.C., VA, CT, CO, CA, Texas;

Aaron, Adam, James, Timothy,

Nidal, disposable killing machines…

 

Nightmares looped over

Murder manuals memorized,

Looped over recorded command voices,

Looped over clanging pots and pans

Piped through vents, driving

Pharma’s sleep deprivation

Psychotropic drug playthings mad!

 

Disposable killing machines

Sometime short-circuit, suffer

Insomnia, anxiety, depression

Hurting themselves with

Programming for hurting

“Bug splat,” “sand nigger” others

 

The wakeful sleep of the 1% is

Haunted by long shadows of

Conscious soldiers, progeny

Of militant mass movements —

Avatars of Aaron Alexis,

Christopher Dorner, Timothy

McVey and other disposable

Killing machines, morphing

Into Marilyn Buck, Geronimo

Ji-Jaga, John Brown action-

Figures, armed with semi-

Automatic Marxist analysis,

Weapon of mass instruction,

Trained to “drain the swamp”

Of its sulfur stench and war

Criminal curriculum, gassing minds…

 

Raymond Nat Turner can be contacted at upsurgejazz.com.

 

Raymond Nat Turner © 2013 All Rights Reserved 

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


More Stories


  • Nicholas Mwangi
    Youth-led anti-corruption movement surges in The Gambia
    06 Aug 2025
    Gambians from all walks of life – led by the youth-driven GALA movement mobilized across the country on July 23 in an anti-corruption protest as momentum for change grows.
  • Isabel Lourenço
    The Only Fair Negotiation Between Morocco and the Polisario: When, Not If, to End the Occupation
    06 Aug 2025
    Morocco's colonial project in Western Sahara has persisted not through legitimacy, but through the complicity of other nations and United Nations inaction.
  • Nicholas Mwangi
    Angola: 22 killed during mass protests against fuel prices
    06 Aug 2025
    Angola, one of Africa’s top oil producers, is in turmoil after protests erupted over a sharp fuel price hike driven by IMF-backed subsidy cuts.
  • BAR Radio Logo
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio August 1, 2025
    01 Aug 2025
    In this week’s segment, we discuss football, why it isn’t popular in the US, how it can be, sports as consciousness raising, and the nation of Brazil and its Black population. But first, we have the…
  • Erica Huggins
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Panther Woman: The Political and Spiritual Life of Ericka Huggins
    01 Aug 2025
    Mary Frances Phillips is an associate professor of African American Studies at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. She joins us from Detroit to discuss her biography of Ericka Huggins, "…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us