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A Poet's Proposal for DT's Inauguration
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
10 Jan 2017
🖨️ Print Article

by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

Word is that president-elect Donald Trump still has performance openings for next week's inaugural. In the selfless and noble spirit of public service, our poet kindly offers his own services, and anxiously awaits a response from Rump tower.

A Poet's Proposal for DT's Inauguration

by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

Bet you wonderin’ how I knew

Few are willin’ to perform for you?

I heard it through the grapevine

Also on TV, radio and online…

I ain’t A-list—

F-list, maybe?

Not a seven-figga n**** or War House Hoet in the

Retinue the Drone Ranger plays like plastic kazoos—

Yet, I’m willing to serve, sir:

Call it Patriot Act III!

Willing to audition, practice, rehearse—gratis—

get on the back of a Greyhound bus, brown bag,

greasy fried chicken, like the good ol’ days…

Apply a plastic smile, applaud on cue, shuffle, shake hands with

Strong-arm Williams, Sheriff Stephen Judas Clarke, Thom-ass

Clarence, and other warlike Bassackwards Tribal leaders

I’m willing to get William Withers with you, sir:

It’s my appointed duty

To let you use me

Get me in a crowd of right-wing racists and act real rude to me—

‘Cause I wanna spread the news:

That if it trends this good gettin’ used

Come on, use me ‘til you use me up—

My fifteen-minutes of FLAME!!

Raymond Nat Turner is an acclaimed poet and performance artist. Find more of his work at http://upsurgejazz.com.

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