by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner
As the farcial and nightmarish presidential contest winds into its final month, we try to make sense of the senseless, and point to the only avenue of possible salvation...
Only WE Can Save US…
by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner
If he farts before 6 it’s NEWS—
Trumping Standing Rock resistance,
Prison work stoppages nationwide,
Protests of police murders in Charlotte,
Tulsa, even football games—pro to
high school…
If she faints at 5 it’s NEWS—
If they ‘debate’
Resistance metastasizing like
Campaign lies—back to the back burner!
Every four-years,
Two years of
Dumbed-down,
Head-fixing, fear mongering sowing
Infantile illusions
Of bogeymen and women and
Mantras:
“Make us safe” “Save us”
Meditation pondering
Powerlessness…
We can do better
than planet-destroying parasites in
Pursuit of profits…
mystical market-driven men and
Women with mutilated imaginations
Who make bees and polar bears
disappear
We can do better
than poisoned water and
Poverty
We can do better
than porkers
Piggin’ out on pie charts
of our wealth for eternal war
We can do better
than worship violence—
Police state fundamentalism
Where, according to Old Testament,
they shoot ‘their own people’ and
Books become guns,
Traffic stops, CD sales… death sentences
We can do better
than stand-stolen-
Seminole-Sioux-Cheyenne ground with
concealed weapons on college campuses
We can do better
than prison-pipeline ‘schools’
Following money and blood
Crippling children’s spirits
We can do better
Taking to the streets,
Reservations, football fields, factories prisons—
universities where we teach ourselves to make
Revolution—taste paradise now—imagining
Socialist USA
Raymond Nat Turner © 2016 All Rights Reserved
BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner is an acclaimed poet and performance artist. Find more of his work at http://upsurgejazz.com.
The NYPD Gang Database profiles communities of color, Cleveland's mayor breaks a campaign promise for community control of police, and a conversation on which protests are considered legitimate, and…
Rigodis Appling has been a public defender in Manhattan for 17 years. She is currently working in the Special Litigation and Community Justice Unit at The Legal Aid Society. She is also a founding…
Taru Taylor is a freelance journalist based in Cleveland, where he focuses on the issue of police reform. He recently wrote an op-ed in the Cleveland Plain Dealer about that city’s mayor,…
Margaret Kimberley appeared on the November 30, 2022 edition of Sputnik's The Critical Hour with co-hosts Garland Nixon and Dr. Wilmer Leon. They discussed her latest Black Agenda Report column,…
Margaret Kimberley and Garland Nixon join Danny Haiphong on The Left Lens discussing social media censorship, Ukraine, China, and the contradictions of US imperialism
