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

Red Alert
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
14 Dec 2016
šŸ–Øļø Print Article

by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

Now that Democrats are practically out of office, corporate donors are sponsoring empty spectacles of their own design, including another Climate March.

Red Alert

by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

A Love Supreme,

A Love Supreme…

For Mother Earth and

Her creatures, her gifts

A Love Supreme,

A Love Supreme…

Dangerous dance, lethal songs,

Powerful prayers—

From the four directions—

First Nations’ Spirit

Weapons of Mass Instruction

Amassing the world’s

Hearts and minds on the Cannonball…

A Love Supreme,

A Love Supreme…

For Mother Earth and

Her creatures, her gifts—

Water is life…

Capitalism death:

Profaning, poisoning, weaponizing water—

Greasy Gulf water wiping mussel, crab, shrimp out

brownish Flint water bearing brain-damaged babies

black Pennsylvania prison water causing

Cancer; and young inmates hair to fall out…

Calling all R2P People

Come in R2P People!

Calling all Sanctions People

Come in Sanctions People!

Calling all No-Fly Zone People

Come in No-Fly Zone People!

Calling all Blockade People

Come in Blockade People!

Where’s the hue and cry:

ā€œHe’s using chemical weapons—

Gassing, torturing his own people;

Cracking down on dissent, freedom

of speech, freedom of expression?

Where’s the tom-toms pulsing ā€œregime changeā€,

ā€œregime changeā€ ā€œregime changeā€ ā€œregime changeā€?

Calling all People’s Climate Marchers—

All 300,000 of you

Come in People’s Climate Marchers

Maybe you’re busy since Matthew hit Haiti—

Killing over a thousand?

Calling all People’s Climate Marchers—

All 300,000 of you

Come in People’s Climate Marchers—

Your Cochabamba moment flares up like

Ken Saro-Wiwa’s spirit in Ogoni water warriors

In Water Protectors fighting Flint

Terror on the Missouri, protecting our

Lifeblood 7 generations deep—

Needing a ā€˜surgeā€™ā€”ā€˜boots on the ground’

Money for fighting absurd arrests

Medical supplies for tending class-war wounds…

Fluent in Forked Tongue—the Drone Ranger declares

November ā€œNative American Monthā€ā€”morphing into

cross-dressing klansmen, reenacting hi-tech

Attacks taking down Occupy

Calling all People’s Climate Marchers—

All 300,000 of you

Come in People’s Climate Marchers:

come make me eat crow—make me a liar;

Make me apologize

for saying you were ā€˜white’ folks first—

Lovers of land, peoples, creatures last…

For saying the prison-industrial-complex was

Cool with you, if only inmates wore

Recycled rubber sneakers; orange jumpsuits of

Organic cotton; beatings with bamboo batons only

Make me apologize

For saying you were OK with

Empire if electric Humvees and tanks, and

Solar-powered aircraft carriers were deployed

Calling all People’s Climate Marchers—

All 300,000 of you

Come in People’s Climate Marchers:

Forgive me, for a few of you have gone—

From the four directions—

Smuggling Sitting Bull spirit salve, love balm, in

Eyes of Ida, hearts of Harriet, spines of John Brown

Tongues of Douglass—

Metal detectors, strip searches

Rarely detect…

Raymond Nat Turner Ā© 2016 All Rights Reserved

Raymond Nat Turner is an acclaimed poet and performance artist. find much mopre of his work at http://usspurgejazz.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


  • The Break
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    The Break NYC and the Need for a Socialist, Independent Mayoral Candidate in New York City
    11 Apr 2025
    A new organization, The Break NYC, has recently formed and is dedicated to finding and endorsing an independent leftist committed to staying in the race and appearing on the ballot. Two members of…
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Cory Booker, Confused Liberals, Obama's Reappearance, and the Dangers of a Fake Movement
    09 Apr 2025
    Any ā€œmovementā€ that leads protest back to the Democratic Party is, by definition, dangerous. Criticism of Donald Trump cannot be a defining feature of change. 
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    SPEECH: White Supremacy in U.S. History, Theodore W. Allen April 28, 1973
    09 Apr 2025
    ā€œThe principal aspect of United States capitalist society is not merely bourgeois domination but bourgeois white supremacist domination.ā€
  • Hands Off protest
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    HANDS OFF NATO? Not Palestine? Who got the memo?
    09 Apr 2025
    The Democrats’ HANDS OFF rallies included ā€œHANDS OFF NATOā€ and excluded ā€œHANDS OFF PALESTINE,ā€ but not all rally goers got the memo.
  • According to one real-time price data aggregator, inflation has slowed to its lowest level since 2020. Getty/Newsweek
    Jon Jeter
    Will Trump’s Tariffs Trigger a Second Great Depression?
    09 Apr 2025
    The Trump administration’s escalating trade war has sent shockwaves through the global economy, with Wall Street giants sounding the alarm over an imminent recession. As markets reel and experts warn…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us