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
  • omnibus

I had a nightmare (For friend/fellow Poet Genny Lim)
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
22 Apr 2020
🖨️ Print Article
I had a nightmare (For friend/fellow Poet Genny Lim)
I had a nightmare (For friend/fellow Poet Genny Lim)

I had a nightmare
that down in Mississippi,
its governor having his lips 
dripping with words of Social Darwinism,
Herd immunity and Mengele Medicine,
Defied COVID-19 and hosted his own
Houston-style “Howdy Modi” Rally—
A gathering of strongmen—
not wrong men 
A gathering of right men
for the white men 
in the white house

A gathering of asymptomatic 
autocrats from around the
World—Brazil, India, the Philippines,
Saudi Arabia and the UK lead
Neoliberal, anti-science, climate deniers; anti-
Abortion thugs; anti-Asian, anti-Muslim, anti-
Communist; homophobic, nazi, klansmen and
their war-profiteer, private prison paymasters

Their bright banners: bars, stars and swastikas
festooned the roaring SRO stadium punctuated 
by humongous signs: 
A NO MASK, GLOVES, HAND SANITIZER ZONE
ABSOLUTELY NO SOCIAL DISTANCING ALLOWED
NFL-sized men with earpieces enforced it
confiscating gloves, masks, hand sanitizer—
But allowing big bottles of booze, kegs of beer
and mammoth slabs of tailgate burnt beef and pork

Jumbotron shots of southern senators wind-
surfing on raw sewage drew double-decibel cheers 
And Kid Rock’s rousing rendition of “The Star
Spangled Banner” swept over the stadium like
Super Storm Sandy—detonating loud, raucous
““U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!” and “We’re # 1!” chants!
Dr. Goebbels gas-lighting contests were the bomb; and
Big lie-1/2 truth-misinformation-disinformation cyphers rocked;
Waterboarding and confederate statue-climbing contests were hot!

I tried talking one ol’ varmint—prairie dog— 
out of the circular firing squad. He
spat tobacco and the N-word at me.
I tried warning a smug cowboy volunteering for
“some Saudi head” that it wasn’t what he thought 
it was. 
I avoided those lining up for
“Using Your 2nd Amendment Rights Defending the Right To Work”
“Racialized Medicine Good/Socialized Medicine Bad” TED Talks.

I also skipped the Semi-Main Event 
Razor Bladed Wrestling: 
Modi versus Bolsonaro 
and 
The Main Event: A Pistol Duel: 
Duterte versus Boss Tweet 
(A tie at the end of regulation would
go into Sudden Death Overtime…)

In this open-carry-stand your ground
gathering—good ol’ boys packed slave ship
Tight—looking for pots of gold, or white light
at the end of the tunnel; I feared for my life!
I quickly slipped from the stadium, walking
North—fast—through unlit, unfamiliar woods
And—whew— found my way back to Harlem…

Woke…

© 2020. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.                   

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

Editors, The Black Agenda Review
POEM: Poem for Walter Rodney, Edward Kamau Brathwaite, 1981  
11 June 2025
“any where or world where there is love there is the sky and its blue free
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
A few lines for the Poet Ojenke...
21 May 2025
RIP: Rise In Poetics to Ra
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
POEM: Reflections after the June 12th March of Disarmament, Sonia Sanchez, 1982
18 December 2024
“I have come to you tonite not just for the stoppage
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Love My Black Job
11 September 2024
Love my Black Job— Black Student Union Job! Hired at L.A. City College As “The Peoples Poet!”
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
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
POEM: Enemy of the Sun, Samih al-Qasim, 1970
29 May 2024
Read against the terrible incineration of Rafah today, this poem of resistance and refusal, by Pa
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.
Protest for Palestine at the White House
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Trigger Warning
22 November 2023
Trigger Warning Palestine’s the Answer— What was the Question?

More Stories


  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    Whitewashed, Bleached, and Alabastardized: How White “supremacy’s” Subjective Identification of War Criminals Reveals its Deeper Psychopathology
    20 Aug 2025
    The manufactured outrage over Vladimir Putin's presence at the Alaska summit was an attempt to reinforce a global racial order. The rules-based international order has always been a hierarchy of who…
  • Clau O'Brien Moscoso
    US Counterinsurgency Wins in Bolivia: Intentional Factionalism Within MAS and the Capture of the Lithium Triangle
    20 Aug 2025
    Missing the enemy, or how Western leftists fail in their analysis yet again. Bolivia is the latest example.
  • PACA protest
    Pan-African Community Action PACA
    The Federal Takeover of D.C.: The Colonial Occupation Disguised as “Public Safety”
    20 Aug 2025
    The deployment of federal agents and National Guard troops to Washington, D.C. is a militarized occupation disguised as a public safety initiative. This move weaponizes the state's power to…
  • Black Alliance for Peace Haiti/Americas Team
    BAP Haiti/Americas Team Condemns US Government Attack on Venezuelan Sovereignty
    20 Aug 2025
    The US issues a $50 million bounty on President Maduro while Sanctioning the Venezuelan people and starving Gaza.
  • x
    Palestine Chronicle Staff
    Responding to Mohamed Salah: Who Killed the ‘Palestinian Pelé’?
    20 Aug 2025
    Al-Obeid, 41, was killed on Wednesday, August 6, 2025, in an Israeli attack on civilians waiting for humanitarian aid in the southern Gaza Strip.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us