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

Slick Willy and the sandwiches
BAR Poet-in-Residence Raymond Nat Turner
18 Sep 2019
Slick Willy and the sandwiches
Slick Willy and the sandwiches

Slick Willy swears he 
only took four flights
and gorged himself on
peanut butter and jelly 
Sandwiches—take off to 
landing…

Slick Willy says he flew
for the sandwiches—the 
sandwiches roused him—
Got him out of the house.
The sandwiches showed
him just how much he 
needed to 
Fly—breathe rarified air—
33,000 feet up in the wild
blue yonder, and clear his 
Head…bird of paradise had
the best peanut butter and
jelly sandwiches in the hemi-
sphere, if not the world! Slick 
Willy’s sandwicheswere served 
on white bread with crunchy 
Skippy’s, and Smuckers grape jelly, 
Always.
The green tea too was great—its
young, tender leaves, electric color
and robust flavor…but the sandwiches
rocked!

Slick Willy said the sandwiches
reminded him of simpler, innocent
times—Mickey Mouse Club, Mouseketeer
ears, cold war, drop drills after Hiroshima
and Nagasaki; and niggers knew their place—
black lives mattered: if the Sheriff said so…
He’s so sorry so many of our people are be-
hind bars—but someone had tobring super 
predators to heel,and be tough on crime…

Slick Willy said the sandwiches were worth
all the TSA (Theater Security Actors) screening, 
searching, patting him down—strike that!
That’s not his recollection. He did say the
sandwiches reminded him of how far he’d 
Come—white trash to First Black President—
Remember the saxophone and shades?
Fast foodto Foundation—Beltway outsider to
Viceroy of Haiti and Secret Service detail to 
Ditch

Slick Willy said he only flew four times—
As for manifests, memory refreshing flight
logs, etc.…Well, maybe he flew four x four +
four times—give or take a few? Hey, what’s
with all the hair-splitting?

Slick Willy said he recalls—
to the best of his recollection—
He recalls Tattoo shouting, “De plane, de plane!”
and correcting him harshly with the back of his 
hand,“Nah, nah, lil silly muthafucka—
it’s the sandwiches, the sandwiches!”

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

Neoliberals

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles. Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Graylan Hagler: Capitulation Masquerading as Political Thought
30 April 2025
Liberals continue to condemn anyone who didn’t support Kamala Harris and the latest iteration of neo-liberal treachery.

More Stories


  • Vijay Prashad
    Unilateral and Illegal Sanctions – Mainly by the United States – Kill Half a Million Civilians Per Year: The Thirty-First Newsletter (2025)
    06 Aug 2025
    A study in The Lancet estimates that unilateral sanctions have caused as much death as wars, with an estimated half a million deaths per year.
  • Pindiga Ambedkar , Arnold August
    Were Canadian Elections Existential in the Context of US-Canada Tensions? (Part 2)
    06 Aug 2025
    Interview with Arnold August, writer, political commentator, and analyst of the North American continent, on the political situation in Canada and its relationship to the US.
  • Khaled Barakat
    Saudi Arabia and France are Leading a ‘Political Genocide’
    06 Aug 2025
    The New York Declaration doesn't merely betray Palestine. It weaponizes the language of statehood to formalize the suppression of a people's right to exist without colonial rule.
  • Nicholas Mwangi
    Youth-led anti-corruption movement surges in The Gambia
    06 Aug 2025
    Gambians from all walks of life – led by the youth-driven GALA movement mobilized across the country on July 23 in an anti-corruption protest as momentum for change grows.
  • Isabel Lourenço
    The Only Fair Negotiation Between Morocco and the Polisario: When, Not If, to End the Occupation
    06 Aug 2025
    Morocco's colonial project in Western Sahara has persisted not through legitimacy, but through the complicity of other nations and United Nations inaction.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us