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


  • Palm Springs Survivors
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Descendants and Survivors of the Displaced Palm Springs Black Community Demand Restitution
    22 Dec 2023
    The Black families of Palm Springs' Section 14 were forcibly displaced from their community when city officials developed the area for luxury tourism. Section 14 survivors and their descendants are…
  • Haitian flag
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Construction of the Ouanaminthe Canal in Haiti, Part 2
    22 Dec 2023
    Dahoud Andre joins us from KOMOKODA, the Committee to Mobilize Against Dictatorship in Haiti.
  • PAIGC
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    The PAIGC Struggle for Democracy in Guinea-Bissau
    22 Dec 2023
    We're joined by Imani Umoja of the PAIGC (African Party of Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde) and the All-African People's Revolutionary Party, the steering committee of the Black Alliance for…
  • Image of the CARICOM headquarters
    Isabelle Papillon
    The Great CARICOM Bluff
    20 Dec 2023
    The presence of CARICOM in Haiti to mediate talks is believed to be merely a smokescreen to further deceive the popular masses and continue the ruin of the country.
  • Collage saying "we are the union"
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Southern Human Rights Organizing and the Amazon Workers' Struggle
    20 Dec 2023
    Margaret Kimberley spoke with Jennifer Bates, an organizer with the BAmazon Union, at the Southern Human Rights Organizers Conference (SHROC) which was recently held in Nashville, a…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us