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
It is true now just as when Glen Ford wrote these words in 2019. In any alliance with corporate oppression and militarism, Black America squanders reservoirs of respect among the Earth’s peoples.…
The U.S. has used its influence to steal another country’s oil revenues. Venezuela is in the crosshairs because it dares to be socialist in the hemisphere the U.S. claims as it’s “backyard.”
The late Glen Ford would probably refer to events in Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea, and elsewhere as the “blowback” from France’s colonial past.
“The structural crisis of capitalism in its neoliberal form has created a legitimacy crisis for the capitalist rulers, making the use of force a permanent strategy for maintaining their dominance.”
It would be a bad look for the U.S. or a European nation to be the public face of the impending occupation of Haiti. That's why Kenya was asked to help the make case for a new invasion.
