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

Oink
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
28 Oct 2015
🖨️ Print Article

by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

in which the poet muses upon the landscapeve in which urban pioneers thrive

Oink

by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

I saw Satan high on Seconal—‘Red
Devils’—zap an app for zombie-settlers.
Then they came by covered wagon,
stagecoach, horseback—bathed, and
reinvented themselves as programmers,
humans, condo-owners.

I saw rent refugees morph into miserable
Monsters—vapid vampires sucking soul,
air and chocolate out Tha Town. I saw them
turn into werewolves on Lakeshore, pushing
porcelain babies in thousand dollar strollers;
stressed-out Yogis practicing purse-clutching,
street-crossing, stink-eye Spiritualism on children
and grand-children of seventy-year residents.

I saw Dadaists driving drunk the wrong way on
10K gold-paved streets, killing dance masters,
like  policemen gunning down painters as a form
of critique

I saw the Best Burrito Shop, The5th Amendment,
and Africa By The Bay run off The Ave; their places
Taken by caffeine shooting galleries and Boer beer
bars for rent refugees trekkking 13 miles, bringing
Butte with them.
I saw nextdoor.com Nazi-NSA impersonators circle
laager between OPD cruisers and string yellow tape
around drumming, dancing, BBQing, singing Gospel
and other verbs modified by the phrase: “…while Black”

Raymond Nat Turner © 2015 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


  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Johanna Fernández and her Unrelenting Advocacy for Mumia Abu Jamal
    19 Aug 2026
    The late Dr. Johanna Fernández left an awesome intellectual and activist legacy that includes her 2010 documentary film “Justice on Trial: The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal.”
  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    White Supremacy and Climate Change: A Sinister Symbiosis
    19 Aug 2026
    The climate movement will never be effective as long as it refuses to confront white supremacy within its own organizations and as a belief system which is unconcerned about Black and brown death.
  • Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    They Wear The Masks
    19 Aug 2026
    "They Wear The Masks" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
  • Wolfgang Bronner
    North Nashville's Reckoning: The Fight for Sovereignty in the Shadow of a Data Center
    19 Aug 2026
    Fisk University, an HBCU, is presenting a $400 million A.I. data center as progress for the North Nashville community. In truth, it means more pollution, more surveillance, and another chapter in a…
  • Ryan Kost
    A Judge Said Queens Prosecutors Hid Evidence. A Secret Committee Cleared Them Anyway.
    19 Aug 2026
    The mass incarceration system demands thousands of Black bodies behind bars. That system is maintained by prosecutorial misconduct which goes unpunished. That impunity is integral to keeping the…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us