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


  •  Half of Brazil’s Black ā€œQuilombosā€ Denied State Recognition
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Half of Brazil’s Black ā€œQuilombosā€ Denied State Recognition
    01 Dec 2020
    The autonomous settlements established by Black and indigenous Brazilians to escape slavery and ongoing oppression number between 3,000 and 5,000, ā€œbut the Brazilian government only recognizes abou
  •  Racism and Violence Against Blacks Endemic to US
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Racism and Violence Against Blacks Endemic to US
    01 Dec 2020
    Critical Race Theory holds that racism is endemic to US society, while Afropessimism and Social Death ā€œsuggests that, regardless of what Black bodies do, [they] will experience gratuitous violence,
  •  Racist Imperialism Killed Millions in Congo
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Racist Imperialism Killed Millions in Congo
    01 Dec 2020
    ā€œMore than 5.4 million died in the DRC as a direct or indirect consequence of the ongoing racist, neocolonial policy imposed on the Congolese population in an attempt to dismantle the Congo,ā€ said
  • Biden, the Emcee at the Billionaires’ Ball
    Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor
    Biden, the Emcee at the Billionaires’ Ball
    26 Nov 2020
    The Lords of Capital use periods of crisis to devour the less-rich and reshape the political economy to their further advantage, so that the Joe Bidens of the world jump higher and come quicker whe
  • Freedom Rider: Censorship in the Biden Era
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: Censorship in the Biden Era
    25 Nov 2020
    The corporate media have joined the incoming administration in deciding what we can and cannot see and hear.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us