Make America Great Again

by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

.44

.45

Sonny

Succeeding

Michael?

Gangsters still in power

State muscle for

Fossil Fuel Families; War-Profiteer Families;

Big Pharma, Protection, Bankster Families...

Iron fist beneath velvet glove, carrot and stick—

Mike and Ike: Good cop, Bad cop—

Force and deception:

Sweet nothing promises wafting with

Water hose, pepper spray, tear gas, rubber bullet

Bill of Rights

With snarling dog investigations-hearings—

Hearing what’s been heard ten-thousand times...

Two years of absurdist theater

spasming to its temporary halt—

Curtain call—The Drone Ranger (bowing; solemn)

“We’re all on one team.”

Golda-plated Iron Lady (resigned)

“Have an open mind; give him a chance to lead.”

Sheep Doggy Dogg (eager; co-signing)

“He’s a man who can be worked with.”

A smoking gun, mushroom cloud, puffed up

Pillsbury Doughboy—Cheato Bandito—rises

on hot air, unstable, unpredictable,destructive

like capitalism: “To Make America Great Again!”

I say, “Go ahead, make my day—

Make Amerikkka, great again”—

When Underground Railroad tracks

criss-crossed the countryside for splintered

Families’ auction blocked aspirations

When rebellions and war

Overthrew torture, murder, rape,

Liberating labor in all hues...

When at the Battle of the Greasy Grass,

Indian-killer, Custer, met tough-love Lakota,

Northern Cheyenne, Arapaho-style...

I say, “Go ahead, make my day—

Make Amerikkka, great again”—

When streets were class struggle universities:

Communists, socialists, anarchists, labor leaders,

Professors;

When Flint struck a thousand points of light—

40 day, 40 night sit-down strike;

When self-help movements: Sharecropper Unions,

Worker Alliance Groups, Unemployed Councils

Metastasized through ‘30s veins:

Organizing unemployed, tenants, farmers

Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked,

putting those evicted Back in their homes;

When Longshore Workers tied up two

Thousand miles of Pacific Coast; and

San Francisco, Minnesota General Strike

Concessions trickled down like magic bullets

I say, “Go ahead, make my day—

Make Amerikkka, great again”—

When African-Americans boycotting

Montgomery’s apartheid busses 381days

walked and car-pooled;

When students rode busses up south, down south

through savage southern gauntlets;

Sat-in at lynch mob lunch counters; and braved

Murderous heathens registering elders to vote;

When students shut San Francisco State down

four months, birthing Black Student Unions—

Black Studies programs;

When Chinese and Vietnamese sent statements

supporting struggles of African-American fighters;

When Brown Berets, Young Lords, AIM, SDS, Anti-War

Activists were born...

I say, “Go ahead, make my day—

Make Amerikkka, great again!”

As an embryonic world reveals

Itself, its power

Protecting Water,

Fighting For Fifteen,

Occupying Wall Street,

Making Black Lives Matter—

With it we live—with you we cannot...

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