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

2/4 Dance Don’t Cut It
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
18 Jan 2018
🖨️ Print Article
2/4 Dance Don’t Cut It
2/4 Dance Don’t Cut It

“Pay, or die…” the Death
Sentence Big Pharma-
Insurance Mob just issued
a neighbor; and a Frankenfood
experiment’s irritating my gut

The water smells swampy some days,
like bleach others; Tents grow in night
air like multi-colored mushrooms—crazy
cancer cells; Another school’s shuttered,
its teachers scattered in the wind, like
pencil sharpener shavings—Money for
Bombs, not for books—Wow, the wars
went from seven to nine this week…

Here they come again with Fear:
‘Freedom of Choice,’ binary bad
or worse options—hiking uphill
barefoot, in elephant excrement,
donkey dung to take one—with or
without Vaseline—from the1% again

I’m not sure I have another 8 yrs
for translating, deciphering slogans:
“Regime…change you can believe in!”
“Yes, we can…and bottle Jim Jones Juice!”
as silly spoils of celebrity-worship;
Isn’t it time for Adult Politics?

Isn’t it time to abandon Infantile
Exercises—searching for saviors
Every 2 to 4 yrs—and Nominate
Meeting More Than Four Corners;
Donate to Door-To-Door; Phone Bank
for Boycott; Campaign for Consciousness;
Support Shoe Leather-Street Heat running for
Raising roofs, planting food, curing cancer?

poetry

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


More Stories


  • Black Agenda Radio
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio February 14, 2025
    14 Feb 2025
    In this week’s segment, we discuss the commutation of Leonard Peltier’s sentence from life in prison to house arrest. But first, we hear an analysis of U.S. relations with South Africa and discuss…
  • Trump and Ramaphosa
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Trump Attacks South Africa
    14 Feb 2025
    In a recent executive order, President Donald Trump condemned the Republic of South Africa claiming that “... its recent land confiscation act to seize disfavored citizens’ property without…
  • Leonard Peltier
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Freedom for Leonard Peltier
    14 Feb 2025
    We are joined by Kalonji Changa, a co-founder of Black Power Media and host of RSTv on YouTube. He is also the founder and national coordinator of the FTP Movement. Jenipher Jones is the founder and…
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    The Power of Black Self-Defense in Lincoln Heights
    12 Feb 2025
    When Nazis appear in public they must be quickly dispatched. The people of a Black town in Ohio did just that and then acted to arm and defend themselves.
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: White Racism and Black Consciousness, Stephen Bantu Biko, 1971
    12 Feb 2025
    Steve Biko long ago diagnosed the pathological cruelty and rot of white society.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us