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

Red Alert
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
14 Dec 2016
šŸ–Øļø Print Article

by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

Now that Democrats are practically out of office, corporate donors are sponsoring empty spectacles of their own design, including another Climate March.

Red Alert

by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

A Love Supreme,

A Love Supreme…

For Mother Earth and

Her creatures, her gifts

A Love Supreme,

A Love Supreme…

Dangerous dance, lethal songs,

Powerful prayers—

From the four directions—

First Nations’ Spirit

Weapons of Mass Instruction

Amassing the world’s

Hearts and minds on the Cannonball…

A Love Supreme,

A Love Supreme…

For Mother Earth and

Her creatures, her gifts—

Water is life…

Capitalism death:

Profaning, poisoning, weaponizing water—

Greasy Gulf water wiping mussel, crab, shrimp out

brownish Flint water bearing brain-damaged babies

black Pennsylvania prison water causing

Cancer; and young inmates hair to fall out…

Calling all R2P People

Come in R2P People!

Calling all Sanctions People

Come in Sanctions People!

Calling all No-Fly Zone People

Come in No-Fly Zone People!

Calling all Blockade People

Come in Blockade People!

Where’s the hue and cry:

ā€œHe’s using chemical weapons—

Gassing, torturing his own people;

Cracking down on dissent, freedom

of speech, freedom of expression?

Where’s the tom-toms pulsing ā€œregime changeā€,

ā€œregime changeā€ ā€œregime changeā€ ā€œregime changeā€?

Calling all People’s Climate Marchers—

All 300,000 of you

Come in People’s Climate Marchers

Maybe you’re busy since Matthew hit Haiti—

Killing over a thousand?

Calling all People’s Climate Marchers—

All 300,000 of you

Come in People’s Climate Marchers—

Your Cochabamba moment flares up like

Ken Saro-Wiwa’s spirit in Ogoni water warriors

In Water Protectors fighting Flint

Terror on the Missouri, protecting our

Lifeblood 7 generations deep—

Needing a ā€˜surgeā€™ā€”ā€˜boots on the ground’

Money for fighting absurd arrests

Medical supplies for tending class-war wounds…

Fluent in Forked Tongue—the Drone Ranger declares

November ā€œNative American Monthā€ā€”morphing into

cross-dressing klansmen, reenacting hi-tech

Attacks taking down Occupy

Calling all People’s Climate Marchers—

All 300,000 of you

Come in People’s Climate Marchers:

come make me eat crow—make me a liar;

Make me apologize

for saying you were ā€˜white’ folks first—

Lovers of land, peoples, creatures last…

For saying the prison-industrial-complex was

Cool with you, if only inmates wore

Recycled rubber sneakers; orange jumpsuits of

Organic cotton; beatings with bamboo batons only

Make me apologize

For saying you were OK with

Empire if electric Humvees and tanks, and

Solar-powered aircraft carriers were deployed

Calling all People’s Climate Marchers—

All 300,000 of you

Come in People’s Climate Marchers:

Forgive me, for a few of you have gone—

From the four directions—

Smuggling Sitting Bull spirit salve, love balm, in

Eyes of Ida, hearts of Harriet, spines of John Brown

Tongues of Douglass—

Metal detectors, strip searches

Rarely detect…

Raymond Nat Turner Ā© 2016 All Rights Reserved

Raymond Nat Turner is an acclaimed poet and performance artist. find much mopre of his work at http://usspurgejazz.com

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


More Stories


  • Jill Stein
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Jill Stein's Green Party Campaign
    30 Aug 2024
    Green Party nominee for president, Dr. Jill Stein, talks to us about her campaign and how she plans to surmount the challenges the Green Party faces from the Democratic Party.
  • Richard Medhurst
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Richard Medhurst Arrested and Facing Terrorism Act Charges
    30 Aug 2024
    Richard Medhurst joins us to discuss his recent arrest under the Terrorism Act for his journalism, his case, and the implications of prosecuting journalists.
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    "Democracies" Attack Journalism as They Attack Democracy Itself
    28 Aug 2024
    What does democracy mean if elections are ignored and journalists are charged as criminals? That is the case today, as western countries descend into crises of their own making and are more blatant…
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    REPORT: ā€œThe People Who Were Left to Die:ā€ Horrors Suffered by Orleans Parish Prisoners in Wake of Katrina, ACLU, 2006
    28 Aug 2024
    Remembering the terrible plight of the incarcerated during Hurricane Katrina.
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Protests for Palestine at the DNC
    28 Aug 2024
    DNC protest organizers kept Democrats’ responsibility for the Gaza genocide in the news from October to August.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us