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

If all options are on the table…
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
13 Feb 2019
🖨️ Print Article
If all options are on the table…
You mean ALL options on the table.... seriously???

If “all options are on the table”
Let’s hear filters usurping skull and
crossbones drinking water 400 times
before it flows from a single faucet
If “all options are on the table”
Let’s hear boots on the
ground and on ladders, meddling smoggy
skies with windmills and solar panels

If “all options are on the table”
Let’s hear screaming propaganda of
Saws, and chants of Hammers, connecting
2x4s— Overthrowing tents, sleeping bags,
cardboard mattresses metastasizing as
Terror beneath bridges, freeways and
on cold streets across the country

If “all options are on the table”
Let’s hear stock market-like chatter,
Humanitarian Intervention making
medical appointments for millions—Free—
Toppling infant mortality, cancer, heart
attacks, strokes— Coup d’ etat blockading
buckets of weaponized chicken; Sanctioning super-sized
sugary cannons of colored water; Overthrowing dictatorial
Colonels and Kings … Removing millions of obese,waddling
overweight, malnourished Americans from harm’s way

If “all options are on the table”
Let’s hear Regime Change squealing and
giggling from public school playgrounds
Surrounded by well-supplied, well-paid
Public Teachers flashing strobe light
smiles, seconding emotions of children
If “all options are on the table”
Let’s hear tellers counting currency
and ATMs belching backpay
at furloughed federal workers…
If “all options are on the table”
These are our appetizers… Otherwise, STFU
finger-pointing, posturing, ‘bout… ‘democracy!’

© 2019. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.

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


  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    The Beautiful Game Can’t Hide the Ugly
    10 Jun 2026
    The United States should never host the World Cup because it is a country built on racism, repression, and endless war. FIFA and its leaders ignored international demands to host the matches…
  • Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Gambling Man
    10 Jun 2026
    "Gambling Man" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
  • Clau O'Brien Moscoso
    Bolivia in Crisis pt 2: In Conversation with Evo Morales
    10 Jun 2026
    In a Black Agenda Report exclusive on May 29, 2026, former Bolivian president Evo Morales Ayma spoke with correspondent Clau O’Brien Moscoso.
  • Francis Phillip
    Security Crises Around the Sahel: Nigeria and the Alliance of Sahel States
    10 Jun 2026
    The Alliance of Sahel States are fighting against western backed terrorists. But neighboring Nigeria is a western puppet state and does not protect its own people or territorial integrity, choosing…
  • Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez
    Cuba will not surrender! Cuba persists and resists! And that persistence is intolerable to the empire!
    10 Jun 2026
    Speech delivered by Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and president of the Republic, at the commemoration of the 95th birthday…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us