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

If all options are on the table…
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
13 Feb 2019
🖨️ Print Article
If all options are on the table…
You mean ALL options on the table.... seriously???

If “all options are on the table”
Let’s hear filters usurping skull and
crossbones drinking water 400 times
before it flows from a single faucet
If “all options are on the table”
Let’s hear boots on the
ground and on ladders, meddling smoggy
skies with windmills and solar panels

If “all options are on the table”
Let’s hear screaming propaganda of
Saws, and chants of Hammers, connecting
2x4s— Overthrowing tents, sleeping bags,
cardboard mattresses metastasizing as
Terror beneath bridges, freeways and
on cold streets across the country

If “all options are on the table”
Let’s hear stock market-like chatter,
Humanitarian Intervention making
medical appointments for millions—Free—
Toppling infant mortality, cancer, heart
attacks, strokes— Coup d’ etat blockading
buckets of weaponized chicken; Sanctioning super-sized
sugary cannons of colored water; Overthrowing dictatorial
Colonels and Kings … Removing millions of obese,waddling
overweight, malnourished Americans from harm’s way

If “all options are on the table”
Let’s hear Regime Change squealing and
giggling from public school playgrounds
Surrounded by well-supplied, well-paid
Public Teachers flashing strobe light
smiles, seconding emotions of children
If “all options are on the table”
Let’s hear tellers counting currency
and ATMs belching backpay
at furloughed federal workers…
If “all options are on the table”
These are our appetizers… Otherwise, STFU
finger-pointing, posturing, ‘bout… ‘democracy!’

© 2019. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.

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


  • ESSAY: New Creation or Familiar Death? An Open Letter to Black Students in the North: Vincent Harding, 1969
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: New Creation or Familiar Death? An Open Letter to Black Students in the North: Vincent Harding, 1969
    05 Apr 2023
    Vincent Harding’s reflections on the expansion of Black Studies in the 1960s offers an ominous warning on the hiring of Black faculty and administrators today.
  • Paul Rusesabagina is free after being kidnapped and taken to Rwanda in 2020. But Rwanda's president Kagame no doubt exacted a high price from the U.S. in exchange for his freedom and will resume pillaging Congo with no fear of interference.
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    US Uses Rusesabagina’s Release to Whitewash Its Decades of Support for the Kagame Regime
    05 Apr 2023
    Paul Rusesabagina is free after being kidnapped and taken to Rwanda in 2020. The US claims credit for pressuring Rwanda to release him, hoping to distract the world from its decades of support for…
  • U.S. Push to Strip China's Developing Country Status an Attack on Development Itself
    Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
    U.S. Push to Strip China's Developing Country Status an Attack on Development Itself
    05 Apr 2023
    The U.S. attempt to diminish China's economic success is a bipartisan project, and a unanimous congressional vote to strip China of developing nation status is just the latest act in the…
  • Whoppers of Boss Tweet...
    Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Whoppers of Boss Tweet...
    05 Apr 2023
    Whoppers of Boss Tweet…
  • BAR Book Forum: Brittnay L. Proctor’s Book, “Minnie Riperton’s Come to My Garden”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Brittnay L. Proctor’s Book, “Minnie Riperton’s Come to My Garden”
    05 Apr 2023
    This week’s featured author is Brittnay L. Proctor. Her book is "Minnie Riperton’s Come to My Garden."
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us