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

Puerto Rico: Shock and Awe Exposing Capitalism’s Criminality
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
04 Oct 2017
🖨️ Print Article
poet

Water is life…and
even saliva’s in short supply…
For drum-tight mouths, sandpaper throats.
Yodeling bellies cave in on spines,
as evil scents of sewage and death float in,
Refashioning an island into a spreadsheet

Cell towers, power lines snapped like
legos—electricity’s a distant memory—
Refrigerated insulin’s useless.
Oxygen tanks ran out eons ago—
Generators and motorboats are
Music where ATMs froze and
Desperation’s setting in…
celebrity charity’s touching—
But, not the Billions needed…

Cuba’s been ready with doctors—
Venezuela offered oil,
Jamaica wants to jump in—
Even earthquake-ravaged
Mexico lined up supplies!
But, an embargo of greed,
masked in maritime law,
Blocks arteries of foreign-
flagged ships, primed to pump
Blood to Puerto Rico’s body—
food, fuel, water, medicines—
Once again exposing capitalism’s
Bankruptcy

Is there a method to
Boss Tweet’s madness, his
Shock and awe? His
0 empathy, victim blaming,
As animals and people perish; his
cruel, callous debt sermons while
His sordid career floats on
Bankruptcy?

Maybe there’s a method to
his five day fusillade of
Tweets at NFL kneelers;
NBA War House-no shows?
Maybe fire and fury,
Killing 25 million Koreans, makes better
Business sense than delivering food and water,
Saving 3 million Puerto Ricans?
Perhaps “it’s business, not personal—“
Regime change in Venezuela
Trumps diaper change
for Boricuan babies?

Isn’t it elegant,
Gnawing Wall Street’s pound of flesh—
Katrina-style—from island bones?
Succulent FEMA cost-sharing;
Juicy PREPA electrical grid;
Tender teacher pensions;
Storm-skewered Commonwealth
Shish kabob for bondholder,
Bankster, disaster capitalist
contractor/sub-contractor jackals—
How refined!
And for dessert:
Puerto Rican-free Pudding—
Served on high-rise
luxury hotel, golf course,
Post-hurricane playground for the
Rich parasite sponge cake—yum…

Don’t Blame Maria—blame
Hurricane IMF; Hurricanes World Bank,
Goldman-Sachs, Citbank… Blame
Hurricane Financial Management Oversight Board;
Hurricane Taxation Without Representation—
Begging the question:
“Is they is, or is they ain’t citizens?”
Debt cancellation/Reparation/Self-determination
Now!

Raymond Nat Turner © 2017 All Rights Reserved.

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

poetry

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


Related Stories

Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Army of Artists (For My Friend Horace Silver)
17 December 2025
Harmony of a hug,Rhythm of a rose,Melody in the mirror
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
MrJoeSam’s Text Messages
12 June 2024
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR’s poet-in-residence, pays homage to San Francisco’s shipyard artist JoeSam who died peacefully on June 1, 2024, surroun
Raymond Nat Turner
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Dis-honest Broker
01 May 2024
"Dis-honest Broker" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence, recently performed at UpSurge!
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Raymond Nat Turner at the UpSurge Jazz Celebration
03 April 2024
 
Image of Refaat Alareer sitting in a crowd of graduates
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
POEM: If I Must Die, Refaat Alareer, 2023
13 December 2023
Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer, a martyr of zionist state genocidal violence, has left us with a tale of resistance and hope.
Reese Piece…
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Reese Piece…
15 April 2021
Salute to City of Angels’ son! He wrote, he wrote, he wrote And he wrote… Ramparts, The Progressive, The
First 100 Daze: A ‘new’ dance craze
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
First 100 Daze: A ‘new’ dance craze
27 January 2021
Everybody’s wild ‘bout this ‘new’ dance craze— this lewd, crude dance called “The 1st 100 Daze…”
mashing the state— Kristallnacht-style
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
mashing the state— Kristallnacht-style
20 January 2021
Kristallnacht came casting lead ballots, overthrowing Black elected officials and Massacring those that VOTED for them— 
This is what hypocrisy looks like…
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
This is what hypocrisy looks like…
13 January 2021
“It's like writing history with lightning.“ — Woodrow Wilson on Birth of A Nation
Think…
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Think…
06 January 2021
Think of peoples having the most tanks, the most drones, the most missiles, bombs, aircraft carriers, 

More Stories


  • Chicago Teachers Score a Historic Victory
    Peoples Dispatch Staff
    Chicago Teachers Score a Historic Victory
    06 Nov 2019
    The city’s Black-led union, with potent support from the city’s Black and brown communities, faced down the new Black mayor.
  •  Black Agenda Radio for Week of November 4, 2019
    Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
    Black Agenda Radio for Week of November 4, 2019
    05 Nov 2019
    Black Voters Won’t Save the Democrats
  • Mumia: Even Angela Davis Shocked by US Mass Incarceration
    Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
    Mumia: Even Angela Davis Shocked by US Mass Incarceration
    05 Nov 2019
    Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation’s best known political prisoner, notes that even trailblazing prison abolition scholar Angela Davis, herself a former political prisoner, underestimated
  • Green New Deal vs White Supremacy
    Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
    Green New Deal vs White Supremacy
    05 Nov 2019
    The fight for a Green New Deal is bringing together a “multiracial, multiclass coalition” that is meeting their environmental, economic and psychological needs “in a far more efficient and better w
  • Fundamental Black and Native Opposition to White Setller State
    Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
    Fundamental Black and Native Opposition to White Setller State
    05 Nov 2019
    Blacks and Native Americans continue to pose a threat to the “conquistador white settler nation,” agues Tiffany King, author of “The Black Shoals: Offshore Formations of Black
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us