by BAR Poet-in-Residence Raymond Nat Turner

I’d rather see hit men from the Five Families

Lecturing gang-bangers on gun violence,

Than see the U.S. prancing ‘round the world

Like a peacock, pontificating ‘bout democracy!

Mummies

by BAR Poet-in-Residence Raymond Nat Turner

“For my own part I would as soon be descended from that 

Heroic little monkey, who braved his dreaded enemy” - Charles Robert Darwin 1809-1882

I’d rather see a pack of pedophile priests

Supervising Boys Club during a blackout…

I’d rather see klansmen teaching Post Traumatic

Slave Syndrome at Historically Black Colleges …

I’d rather see R. Kelly chaperoning a dozen 

Brownies traveling cross-country selling cookies…

I’d rather see Karl Rove teaching working-

Class ethics at Malcolm X Middle School…

I’d rather see Rush Limbaugh as Principal of 

The New Montessori School down the street…

I’d rather see BP baking gluten-free bread for 

Celiac sufferers and Monsanto making baby food…

I’d rather see Arthur Anderson Accounting and

Al Sharpton administering Social Security…

I’d rather see hit men from the Five Families 

Lecturing gang-bangers on gun violence, 

Than see the U.S. prancing ‘round the world

Like a peacock, pontificating ‘bout democracy!

How dare murderers of Mohawk, Huron,

Shawnee, Shinnecock, Seminole, Apache,

Comanche, Navaho, Shoshoni, Chicasaw, 

Choctaw; murderers, enslavers of Mandenka, 

Asante, Fante, Fulani, Woloof, Fon, Susu, 

Senufo, Housa, Kuranko, Tukulo, Mende—

Thieves of a third of Mexico, preach democracy?

How dare those with political prisoners dying

In their dungeons, those whose sun never sets

Without Black and Brown dying at the hands of

Their centurions circle the globe crying freedom?

How dare jackbooted crushers of Occupy, 

Feeders of mummy movements, roam the

Four corners demanding space, and openings 

Shelf life of white supremacy’s measured in 

Millenniums, racism has no expiration date under

Capitalism—but didn’t the masses millions teach

You and your milk-face ghosts that 16th century

Notions are null and void? Didn’t the dark ones

You call monkeys teach you and your alabaster 

Mummies 10 times that they’re politically dead?

Dead as The Fuhrer, Nathan Bedford Forrest, Bull

Connor, dead as the Great Communicator and his

Bastard freedom fighter children in their hot place!

Guess10 elections are meaningless to the dead?

To ghost-face killers, mummies disguised as democratic 

Protestors, blowing up electric grids, assassinating 

Elected officials, setting fire to forests, burning down

Schools, supermarkets and medical clinics—wrestling 

Clock hands counterclockwise, back to Standard Oil time,

Charred buildings and smoldering ashes their calling cards

Guess pale-face assassins and cutthroats won’t cease

Kristallnacht, Caracas-style, and slither back into cold 

Mummy cases, commit Hara-kiri drink Kool-Aid, hang

Their selves, self-immolate, or even let the working-class 

Unceremoniously cremate their carcasses properly; they

Will not make their last curtain calls, last roundups in 

Capital’s class struggle, voluntarily, they will not pay the 

Debt, which cancels all others without tsunamis of lead, 

Torrents of blood, stacks of bodies, they won’t do the right thing,

Voluntarily stepping off the stage of history, moving over—

So you can get back to Monkey Business

Siphoning oil monies to people’s power: communes, collectives

Cooperatives and councils for land reform, literacy, health care, culture…

Raymond Nat Turner can be contacted at upsurgejazz.com.

Raymond Nat Turner © 2014 All Rights Reserved