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Only WE Can Save US…
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
28 Sep 2016
🖨️ Print Article

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.

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