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

What did low Barr know?
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
17 Feb 2021
🖨️ Print Article
What did low Barr know?
What did low Barr know?

Liars, liars your loaded dice/tilted table theater’s
on fire—
But prosecutors and gas-lighting lawyers concur on 
Empire… 

Questions are swirling in your gaseous Van Gough sky
senatorial cesspool, home of the bribe, land of the lie:
What did low Barr know and when did he know it?
who does Boss Tweet owe—and when does he owe it?
Why has a petite, pink-clad protester more arrests
on Capitalist Hill than the state made on 1/6?
Questions that must be put to your slimy bipartisan 
Politics…

II.

I look at all the ugly people snarling and storming
Capitalist Hill like Louisville—or some “shit-hole” 
country; And I can see clearly: music of shattering
glass military men love—its crunch beneath boots
slogging over chocolate cities; Flashbacks for “bad 
hombres” urinating on bodies; cutting fingers off
for souvenirs; defecating on the Koran; raping women
and men wearing uniforms the same color as their own—
white supremacist death squads melting back into ICE,
‘black’ sites and Hood-ish bases bearing bloody names— 
Back into prisons and patrol cars…

I look at all the ugly people snarling and storming
Capitalist Hill like Louisville—or some “shit-hole”
country; And I can see clearly: Clubber Williams
and Chokehold Johnson of the PBA; 
Officers Rotten and McNasty of FOP flashing badges; 
A machine gun-less Gloves Davis clone “boots on the
ground…” Not the first windows they’ve smashed or
doors they’ve kicked in …Flashbacks of ‘lighting up’
Families before ransacking/looting their homes—
before children Sandman mischief from their eyes…

I look at all the ugly people snarling and storming
Capitalist Hill like Louisville—or some “shit-hole”
country; And I can see clearly: monsters mutating
into men boarding planes before farmworkers, baby-
sitters, nurses and teachers— ‘Heroes’ empire lovers
go gaga over before football games; tripping over their 
“Thank you” for your ‘services’ like tongue-tied teens…

I look at all the ugly people snarling and storming
Capitalist Hill like Louisville—or some “shit-hole”
country; And I can see clearly: Mad Mike morphing
back into misogynist manager in his ‘right to work’
state—weekend warrior tailgating for Amerikkka’s
Team—or the Patriots or Jets—one keg away from… 
Lynch 
Mob…

© 2021. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved

BAR’s poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner is an accomplished performing artist. You can find much more of his work at https://www.youtube.com/user/zigilow

COMMENTS?

Please join the conversation on Black Agenda Report's Facebook page at http://facebook.com/blackagendareport

Or, you can comment by emailing us at comments@blackagendareport.com 

poetry

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


Related Stories

Editors, The Black Agenda Review
POEM: Poem for Walter Rodney, Edward Kamau Brathwaite, 1981  
11 June 2025
“any where or world where there is love there is the sky and its blue free
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
A few lines for the Poet Ojenke...
21 May 2025
RIP: Rise In Poetics to Ra
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
POEM: Reflections after the June 12th March of Disarmament, Sonia Sanchez, 1982
18 December 2024
“I have come to you tonite not just for the stoppage
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Love My Black Job
11 September 2024
Love my Black Job— Black Student Union Job! Hired at L.A. City College As “The Peoples Poet!”
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
POEM: Enemy of the Sun, Samih al-Qasim, 1970
29 May 2024
Read against the terrible incineration of Rafah today, this poem of resistance and refusal, by Pa
Image of Refaat Alareer sitting in a crowd of graduates
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
POEM: If I Must Die, Refaat Alareer, 2023
13 December 2023
Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer, a martyr of zionist state genocidal violence, has left us with a tale of resistance and hope.
Protest for Palestine at the White House
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Trigger Warning
22 November 2023
Trigger Warning Palestine’s the Answer— What was the Question?
Another June 1
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Another June 1
07 June 2023
                                       
BAR Book Forum: Jon Jon Moore’s “The Calling: Poems”
Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
BAR Book Forum: Jon Jon Moore’s “The Calling: Poems”
16 February 2022
In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book.
Our ‘democracy’
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Our ‘democracy’
23 July 2021
Shangri-La—untaxed, socially-distanced champagne- caviar, Cayman Island, yacht crowds who

More Stories


  • Rep Rashida Talib speaking at her censureship hearing
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Gaza War Crimes Make a Mockery of Western "Democracy"
    08 Nov 2023
    The "democracies" of the world don't live up to this concept they claim is so important to them.
  • Lesser evil political cartoon
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Biden is the Greater and Less Effective Evil
    01 Nov 2023
    The trope of lesser evilism has died with the Joe Biden presidency.
  • STOP COP CITY
    Efia Nwangaza
    Smash Kop City Atlanta: A Hub In The National White Supremacist Bulwark for White Minority Rule
    01 Nov 2023
    Atlanta's proposed Cop City project is just the latest iteration of militarized policing which enables state repression.
  • Dr. Charisse Burden-Stelly next to her book, Black Scare/Red Scare
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor , Charisse Burden-Stelly, PhD
    BAR Book Forum: Charisse Burden-Stelly’s Book, “Black Scare / Red Scare”
    01 Nov 2023
    This week’s featured author is Charisse Burden-Stelly. Burden-Stelly is Associate Professor of African American Studies at Wayne State University. Her book is Black Scare / Red Scare: Theorizing…
  • Children flying over a destroyed Gaza
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    Statement from the Afro-American Committee Against Genocide, 1982
    01 Nov 2023
    In the 1980s, African Americans understood the war on Palestine as one of genocide.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us