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

2/4 Dance Don’t Cut It
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
18 Jan 2018
🖨️ Print Article
2/4 Dance Don’t Cut It
2/4 Dance Don’t Cut It

“Pay, or die…” the Death
Sentence Big Pharma-
Insurance Mob just issued
a neighbor; and a Frankenfood
experiment’s irritating my gut

The water smells swampy some days,
like bleach others; Tents grow in night
air like multi-colored mushrooms—crazy
cancer cells; Another school’s shuttered,
its teachers scattered in the wind, like
pencil sharpener shavings—Money for
Bombs, not for books—Wow, the wars
went from seven to nine this week…

Here they come again with Fear:
‘Freedom of Choice,’ binary bad
or worse options—hiking uphill
barefoot, in elephant excrement,
donkey dung to take one—with or
without Vaseline—from the1% again

I’m not sure I have another 8 yrs
for translating, deciphering slogans:
“Regime…change you can believe in!”
“Yes, we can…and bottle Jim Jones Juice!”
as silly spoils of celebrity-worship;
Isn’t it time for Adult Politics?

Isn’t it time to abandon Infantile
Exercises—searching for saviors
Every 2 to 4 yrs—and Nominate
Meeting More Than Four Corners;
Donate to Door-To-Door; Phone Bank
for Boycott; Campaign for Consciousness;
Support Shoe Leather-Street Heat running for
Raising roofs, planting food, curing cancer?

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


  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: Calypso as Comment, Gordon Rohlehr, 1979
    21 Oct 2026
    “So the calypso ceases to be entertainment on a trivial level and becomes a vehicle whereby the society is going back and searching for its soul.”
  • Jacqueline Luqman
    The World Rises Up Against the U.S. Neoliberal Order
    21 Oct 2026
    The protests spreading across Spain, India, France, Chile, and other countries are responses to the global neoliberal order of austerity, privatization, and deregulation.
  • Belen Fernandez
    Israel’s Lebanese Land Grab
    21 Oct 2026
    Under the guise of a farcical “pilot zone” project to restore Lebanon’s sovereignty, Israel is pursuing a scorched-earth strategy while entrenching its occupation.
  • Joshua Reaves Charmelus
    At the "Foro Internacional Por La Paz," delegates from around the world demand an end to US Interference in Latin America
    21 Oct 2026
    Chile, Colombia, Bolivia, Honduras, Peru, and Costa Rica have all elected right-wing presidents in the past year, and most are open Trump allies. Brazil's runoff between Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro is…
  • Gerald Perreira
    October 7, 2023: The day that changed the world
    21 Oct 2026
    October 7, 2023, was not an isolated attack, but the culmination of generations of Palestinian imprisonment and resistance in Gaza, comparable to Nat Turner's rebellion. History will record the Al…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us