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

Breathe the Bern…
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
20 Apr 2016
🖨️ Print Article

by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

Our poet in residence muses upon the collective madness engendered by the quadrennial presidential election.

Breathe the Bern…

by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

Right around this time ‘left’ pundits and
Pontificators hitch worn star-spangled
suspenders to an ol’ mule and pretend they’re
Alcoholics— invoking the serenity prayer:

“God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things that I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.”

They claim theirs is the highest form of self-
discipline; like a form of Yoga, a sacred set of
Breathing exercises in 4yr-cycles—foundation of
their practice is regulation of oxygen to brain cells…

But it looks like the Hokey-Pokey:

You clamp your left nostril down,
Until it feels like you’ll drown…
You clamp your right nostril down,
Until your ‘hood’s like Jonestown—

Then you do the shit again in 4 yrs
As the wily 1% stokes your fears…
Set yourself back another decade
With the practicing of this charade…

Raymond Nat Turner © 2016 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


  •  Massive Resistance to Austerity Regime in Colombia
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Massive Resistance to Austerity Regime in Colombia
    11 May 2021
    Broad sectors of Colombian society continue a national strike against the US-backed regime’s attempt to impose harsh austerity measures.
  •  Latinos and the Shrinking White Majority
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Latinos and the Shrinking White Majority
    11 May 2021
    The Census Bureau predicts that Anglo whites will become a minority in the US by 2145 -- but, what if significant numbers of Latinos embrace whiteness, and Anglo whites welcome them into the fold?
  •  Who Cleans the Country?
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Who Cleans the Country?
    11 May 2021
    The Covid-19 pandemic has wrought vast changes in US lifestyles, but one aspect remains unchanged: housework is still a mostly a female domain and minorities and immigrants clean up the country, sa
  • ho steadfastly refuse to fight for what they know to be right.
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: Progressives Capitulate to Biden
    06 May 2021
    There can be no more excuses made for Democratic “progressives,” who steadfastly refuse to fight for what they know to be right.
  • Lebron James in the Eye of White Supremacy's Storm
    Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
    Lebron James in the Eye of White Supremacy’s Storm
    06 May 2021
    No one, not even Lebron James, is immune to the disciplinary process meted out by the ruling class to maintain the lie of American exceptionalism on a mass scale,
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us