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

Lament for the Late, Great African-American People…
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
05 Nov 2013
🖨️ Print Article

by Raymond Nat Turner

Stop our brothers from

Talking superfluous

Shit, gratuitous

Violence, fratricide…

Like Monsanto madmen,

Killing and polluting

Everything they touch…

 

Lament for the Late, Great African-American People…

by Raymond Nat Turner

 

Stentorian voices

Snuffed like birthday

Candles by alphabet

Assassins, ’63-’69…

Ebony toast of the

World being birthed,

Now the laughingstock

With star-spangled

Quislings running on

Alcohol, Geritol,

And protocol,

Huffing and puffing

Hot air in our name

 

Darling young people

I can’t claim, “You

Dropped a bomb on me,”

Chemical warfare

Using crack cocaine

To wipe out consciousness

Wasn’t your doing and

Of course you didn’t

Conjure tumbleweed

Ghost towns, rust brown, gut

Factories and shutter schools

 

You didn’t

Robo-steal homes with

Sub-prime loans from

Families living for

Four generations in them

 

You didn’t

Create death panels

Tearing tender flesh

Off babies baking on spreadsheets—

 

Still, I’m pissed and

Disappointed in you…

Sometimes I feel like

A simple infant,

A whining baby

Crying over and

Over again and

Again the same wants

Writing over and

Over again and

Again the same poem:

 

WAKE UP BLACK PEOPLE

WAKE UP BLACK PEOPLE

WAKE UP BLACK PEOPLE

WAKE UP BLACK PEOPLE

 

Wishing I was Trane

Or Wayne, turning licks

Inside out, outside in, up-

Side down, downside up,

Spinning straw into gold,

Lemons into fresh

Lemonade every night,

Splashing in your faces

Like wet, cold Wikileaks

 

WAKE UP BLACK PEOPLE

WAKE UP BLACK PEOPLE

WAKE UP BLACK PEOPLE

WAKE UP BLACK PEOPLE

 

Like lightening bolt, taser

Alerts through Dr Dre

Headphones wrapped ‘round

Your heads, through Snitch

Phone, tablet, notebook,

Game boy, Play Station

Stigmata burned in your

Anesthetized hands

 

WAKE UP BLACK PEOPLE

WAKE UP BLACK PEOPLE

WAKE UP BLACK PEOPLE

WAKE UP BLACK PEOPLE

 

Sistas step into

Fannie Lou panties—

Lysistrata licks—

No pussy for provocateur,

Black Klansmen running

Ruthless, like BP oil,

Killing and polluting

Everything they touch…

Stop our brothers from

Talking superfluous

Shit, gratuitous

Violence, fratricide…

Like Monsanto madmen,

Killing and polluting

Everything they touch…

 

Make them strap on their

Balls, pull up their pants,

Put down their pop guns,

Practice with Pumas,

Nikes and Adidas—

Scoring bull’s-eyes—not

 

Bullshit…

WAKE UP BLACK PEOPLE

WAKE UP BLACK PEOPLE

WAKE UP BLACK PEOPLE

WAKE UP BLACK PEOPLE…

 

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


  • Michael Steven Smith
    Meet the Radical Legal Collective That Won Justice for Fred Hampton and Continues Fighting to This Day
    09 Sep 2026
    Longtime attorney Flint Taylor’s new book tells the story of the People’s Law Collective, which grew out of the radical movements of the late 1960s.
  • Logan McMillen
    After Blocking Fuel, the US Turns to Cuba’s Food Supply
    09 Sep 2026
    The Trump administration has already cut off Cuba’s access to oil. Now it’s attempting to starve the Cuban people, targeting the country’s capacity to grow, process, and import food — unless it buys…
  • Libertad para Fergie
    Free Fergie Chambers: Solidarity Is Not a Crime
    09 Sep 2026
    Fergie Chambers is an American philanthropist who was arrested on July 10 in Ibiza, Spain, by order of the Trump Administration.
  • Luciano Vasapollo
    Cuba Stands Firm, Venezuela Risks Losing its Sovereignty
    09 Sep 2026
    Cuba's leadership has chosen resistance over subordination as the blockade tightens, but Venezuela's sovereignty is being stripped away.
  • BAR Radio
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio August 28, 2026
    28 Aug 2026
    In this week’s segment, we hear about the crisis in northwest Indiana, including the city of Gary, where some residents have gone more than two weeks without power after a storm. As in the rest of…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us