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

Birmingham On The Hudson
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
28 Aug 2012
🖨️ Print Article

 

by Raymond Nat Turner

“Another generation of Gordon Gekkos

Parasitic, psycho, thug CEOs

Funny money men, where anything goes

Republi-crats and Demo-con echoes”

 

Birmingham On The Hudson

by Raymond Nat Turner

Jazz Ballad Chorus

Headed for CUNY with dreams and hope

'Til gettin' swept up in Rope-and-Grope

Tuggin' down his testes on the street

Body-slammed, cursed and browbeat 

Meeting N-Y's finest's fists and feets

Given blurred vision of hoods and sheets

Bruised, bloodied victim of violent scam--

The Hudson banks on Birmingham

The Hudson banks on Birmingham.... 

Hip Hop Feel

Bull Kelly cut fire hoses and cattle prods

For Glockmiesters runnin' in death squads

Protecting and serving corporate masters

The privilege and supremacy of alabasters 

Guarding Merrill-Lynch and Killer Coke

Fighting crime's mirrors and smoke

Drivin' out the poor from dusk to dark

Like smashing Spring in Zucotti Park

 

After the Schultzes seized Native Land

Manhattan real estate rose in demand

They cashed the stolen land into rent

Maintained violently by the 1%

 

In this Age Of Metastasized Cash-ism

Wall Street's Kleptocratic Stash-ism

Mayor Bilbo's businesses blooming brisk

His real estate-driven Stop-and-Frisk

American-styled apartheid pass law

Bilbo's Gestapo's a blue cat's-paw

 

After the Schultzes seized Native Land

Manhattan real estate rose in demand

They cashed the stolen land into rent

Maintained violently by the 1%

 

Another generation of Gordon Gekkos

Parasitic, psycho, thug CEOs

Funny money men, where anything goes

Republi-crats and Demo-con echoes

Putting our lives and health at risk

Run these cons through Stop-and-Frisk

Provocateurs and pundits in cahoots

Will look hip in orange jumpsuits!

Raymond Nat Turner can be contacted at Raymond (at) upsurgejazz.com.

Raymond Nat Turner (c) 2012 All Rights Reserved

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


More Stories


  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    SPEECH: Everybody is Quiet But the Nationalist Party, Pedro Albizu Campos, 1950
    30 Oct 2024
    Hardly a “floating island of garbage,” Puerto Rico remains a colony, treated like trash by the US. Read this ledger of the cost and crimes of the US colonial project.
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Jean Leonard Teganya Faces Torture in Rwanda
    30 Oct 2024
    Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s regime continues its lawfare against Rwandans in the Western diaspora.
  • Abayomi Azikiwe, Black Agenda Report Contributor
    BRICS Declaration Reinforces Call for Multipolarity
    30 Oct 2024
    Kazan summit rejects unilateralism advanced by the West.
  • sputnik
    Jamarl Thomas
    The Life and Times of a "Russian Propagandist"
    30 Oct 2024
    RT and Sputnik weren’t closed for getting it wrong. They were closed for getting it right.
  • Tunde Osazua
    Weaponizing Aid: How USAID and the Global Fragility Act Sustain U.S. Imperialism in Libya
    30 Oct 2024
    The Global Fragility Act is a mechanism through which the US gives itself the authority to utilize soft power in Africa through organizations like USAID. The act places a specific focus on Libya,…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us