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

2/4 Dance Don’t Cut It
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
18 Jan 2018
🖨️ Print Article
2/4 Dance Don’t Cut It
2/4 Dance Don’t Cut It

“Pay, or die…” the Death
Sentence Big Pharma-
Insurance Mob just issued
a neighbor; and a Frankenfood
experiment’s irritating my gut

The water smells swampy some days,
like bleach others; Tents grow in night
air like multi-colored mushrooms—crazy
cancer cells; Another school’s shuttered,
its teachers scattered in the wind, like
pencil sharpener shavings—Money for
Bombs, not for books—Wow, the wars
went from seven to nine this week…

Here they come again with Fear:
‘Freedom of Choice,’ binary bad
or worse options—hiking uphill
barefoot, in elephant excrement,
donkey dung to take one—with or
without Vaseline—from the1% again

I’m not sure I have another 8 yrs
for translating, deciphering slogans:
“Regime…change you can believe in!”
“Yes, we can…and bottle Jim Jones Juice!”
as silly spoils of celebrity-worship;
Isn’t it time for Adult Politics?

Isn’t it time to abandon Infantile
Exercises—searching for saviors
Every 2 to 4 yrs—and Nominate
Meeting More Than Four Corners;
Donate to Door-To-Door; Phone Bank
for Boycott; Campaign for Consciousness;
Support Shoe Leather-Street Heat running for
Raising roofs, planting food, curing cancer?

poetry

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
    Christopher Black: Balancing the Unbalanced Scales of International Criminal Justice
    11 Jun 2025
    Christopher C. Black fought for justice in politically agendized international courts.
  • Jon Jeter
    Making a Mountain out of a Mole Hill, Trump Sends Troops to Los Angeles, Hoping to Energize His MAGA Base
    11 Jun 2025
    Trump deploys Marines against LA protesters, echoing Nixon’s Kent State crackdown. But this time, he faces a broader, greatly disaffected opposition ready to fight back.
  • Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Edna Bonhomme’s Book, “A History of the World in Six Plagues”
    11 Jun 2025
    This week’s featured author is Edna Bonhomme. Bonhomme is a historian of science, culture writer, and journalist based in Berlin, Germany. Her book is A History of the World in Six Plagues: How…
  • Jill Clark-Gollub
    Daniel Ortega is No Bukele
    11 Jun 2025
    Ortega and Bukele are polar opposites: one invests in dignity and democracy, the other in mass incarceration and imperial alliances.
  • Aiyana Porter-Cash
    False Promises of Protection Embedded in U.S. Militarism and Carcerality
    11 Jun 2025
    "Protection" is a lie—a pretext for state violence, militarism, and control, targeting the marginalized while masking harm as care. True safety comes not from oppressive systems, but from resistance…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us