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

Circus on Capitalist Hill (Comey don’t play that…)
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
13 Jun 2017
🖨️ Print Article

by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

Big doings this week up there between the War House and the Rogues Garden. Our poet reports on the show, clowns, cloven hooves and all.

 

Circus on Capitalist Hill (Comey don’t play that…)

by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

A senile clown questions the wind
Hearing what he’s heard
hundreds of times before:
Step right up, ladies and gentlemen
into the smoke and
mirror swamp, draining
Anything not nailed down

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen
to sideshow puppetry
Millionaire-billionaire buffoonery
Crooked clowns hiding behind corkscrews
Conniving clowns with
cloven hooves and horns
turning fruits of our labor
into ATMs

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen
suspend disbelief,
Don’t follow the money
pay No attention to
1% pickpockets
Working the perimeter

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen
enter the Capitalist Hill,
War House, Rogue Garden,
Offal Office, White
Supreme Court matrix—
Big Top, bleaching brains,
fooling fools and babies
Riding bareback and backwards
on donkeys and elephants
Babbling ‘bout “our democracy”

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen
See the greatest show on turf
pebbles posing as diamonds,
Fascism as ‘democracy’
with redacted rights…

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen
See the clown trick
Un-framing, freeing an Indigenous
Warrior caged four decades

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen
See the clown trick
sliding cells open pneumatically,
Freeing COINTELPRO, Black Power
political prisoners, prisoners of war—

“I didn’t think so— Comey don’t play that…”

Raymond Nat Turner © 2017 All Rights Reserved
Raymond Nat Turndr is an acclaimed poet and performance artist. find much more of his work at http://upsurgejazz.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


  • BAR Radio
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Report October 9, 2026
    09 Oct 2026
    In this week’s segment, we discuss student protests by Black and brown youth in France against austerity measures and race-based inequality in the education system. But we begin with a discussion of…
  • Lula and Bolsonaro
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Lula vs. Bolsonaro in Brazil's Presidential Election
    09 Oct 2026
    Brazil's incumbent president Lula da Silva finished second behind Flavio Bolsonaro in the first round of the presidential election. Because neither man received at least 51% of the vote, a run-off…
  • Protest
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    French Youth Rise Up Against Racism, Austerity, and the Rising Right Wing
    09 Oct 2026
    Students in France are engaging in mass protests. Hundreds of them have been arrested and injured by police, and many schools are closed. Annick Metefia joins us from Paris. She is a member of the…
  • x
    ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist , Dimitri Lascaris
    The Time for Polite Protest Is Over | Ajamu Baraka & Dimitri Lascaris
    07 Oct 2026
    Ajamu Baraka of the Black Alliance for Peace joins Dimitri Lascaris on BettBeat Media for a conversation about something Western publics have not yet come to terms with — the fact that resistance to…
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Mamdani and the Zionist Shakedown
    07 Oct 2026
    Progressive candidates rarely remain so after winning public office. Zohran Mamdani is no exception, but his capitulation to New York zionists angered his supporters, and the people he hoped to…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us