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
  • omnibus

Disposable Killing Machines R US
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
01 Oct 2013
🖨️ Print Article

by BAR poet-in-residence Raymond Nat Turner

The wakeful sleep of the 1% is

Haunted by long shadows of

Conscious soldiers, progeny

Of militant mass movements —

 

Disposable Killing Machines R US

by BAR poet-in-residence Raymond Nat Turner

 

12, 23, 32, 300, 3,000;

Long gun, handgun, back

Pack, Ryder rental truck;

Shopping mall, movie-theater,

Naval facility, army base—

A thousand to choose from—

D.C., VA, CT, CO, CA, Texas;

Aaron, Adam, James, Timothy,

Nidal, disposable killing machines…

 

Nightmares looped over

Murder manuals memorized,

Looped over recorded command voices,

Looped over clanging pots and pans

Piped through vents, driving

Pharma’s sleep deprivation

Psychotropic drug playthings mad!

 

Disposable killing machines

Sometime short-circuit, suffer

Insomnia, anxiety, depression

Hurting themselves with

Programming for hurting

“Bug splat,” “sand nigger” others

 

The wakeful sleep of the 1% is

Haunted by long shadows of

Conscious soldiers, progeny

Of militant mass movements —

Avatars of Aaron Alexis,

Christopher Dorner, Timothy

McVey and other disposable

Killing machines, morphing

Into Marilyn Buck, Geronimo

Ji-Jaga, John Brown action-

Figures, armed with semi-

Automatic Marxist analysis,

Weapon of mass instruction,

Trained to “drain the swamp”

Of its sulfur stench and war

Criminal curriculum, gassing minds…

 

Raymond Nat Turner can be contacted at upsurgejazz.com.

 

Raymond Nat Turner © 2013 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


  • Tracie Canada
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Tracie Canada’s Book, “Tackling the Everyday”
    10 Sep 2025
    In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book. This week’s featured author is Tracie Canada.  Canada is the Andrew W. Mellon Assistant Professor of…
  • Jill Clark-Gollub
    Why the SanctionsKill Campaign Supports BDS
    10 Sep 2025
    The SanctionsKill campaign exposes how US economic warfare kills civilians across the Global South. Meanwhile, the Palestinian-led BDS movement represents a legitimate tool of grassroots resistance…
  • Joshua Reaves
    From Refusal to Resilience: How Hurricane Katrina Birthed A Global Health Vanguard
    10 Sep 2025
    The US government left Black residents to die after Hurricane Katrina, refusing Cuba's offer of emergency doctors. This racist neglect exposed a truth that the US state would rather sacrifice its own…
  • Jacqueline Luqman
    The Military Occupation of Washington, DC: Then and Now
    10 Sep 2025
    The current military occupation of DC is not an anomaly but an escalation of a long war on Black communities, a more visible form of ongoing political subjugation.
  • Sarah B.
    Gaza to Donbass: How Israel and Ukraine Built a Fascist, Transnational War Machine
    10 Sep 2025
    From Bandera to Ben-Gurion, an axis of ethno-supremacy is rising, fueled by U.S. backing. Same guns. Same flags. Same ideology. Gaza and Donbass are not separate wars. They are one machine.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us