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Red Alert
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
14 Dec 2016
🖨️ 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:

“He’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 “regime change”,

“regime change” “regime change” “regime change”?

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 ‘surge’—‘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 “Native American Month”—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 ‘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 © 2016 All Rights Reserved

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

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