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

Reading, writing, ‘rithmetic of rifles (for Uvalde and other schools…)
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
01 Jun 2022
🖨️ Print Article
Reading, writing, ‘rithmetic of rifles (for Uvalde and other schools…)

                                                                              Reading, writing, ‘rithmetic of rifles
                                                                                (for Uvalde and other schools…)

I.
Blood-splattered backpacks and papers strewn beneath
overturned desks—
Summer dreams blasted out orange-sized exit wounds.
High velocity .223s chased children into “harm’s
way;” “wrong place, wrong time—” last school
days—first double digit years of their lives.

Gut-punched parents receive swabs matching DNA with
powder-burned bodies. Instead of reviewing report
cards And smiling ear-to-ear.
Terror-etched faces—emptied eyes—listen to doctors
'bout 'bleeding out’ in 5 minutes. 'Bout cold store whole
blood transfusions…Must parents master this
information?

Warfare-failed state, carnage curricula, forces
teachers to teach to tests: Safe words. Hand signals.
Switched off lights. Locked doors—blocked with desks. Hiding
silently. Climbing over classmates’ bullet-riddled bodies;
crawling/running/slipping on scarlet floors— ‘snuff porn targets’
in capitalist video games…

“Good guys with guns”…arrive… Yellow tape, Blue Lives
Matter Most mindsets...Fabulous strike- breakers who strike
marchers; pepper-spray protestors; knee necks—And
Sauntering and loitering overtime. “Good guys with guns,” fully
funded/trained—Tackling, tasering, cuffing salt of the earth;
Lunch bucket parents, Suspected of attempted life saving...

Moments of silence…Semi-automatic “thoughts and prayers;”
Hollow-point “horrific and heart-breaking” blast from muzzles of
merchants of death. Market shares skyrocket as platoons of copy
cat killers
groomed by Grandma Genocide/Grandad Slavery line up
to Serve…

II.
(I close my eyes and imagining 400 million guns tumbling—like
uranium raindrops—
on Costa Rican,
Ghanaian, Swiss streets…
Weekly mass murders? Cops killing a thousand a
year? “That’s ‘life’” shrugged shoulders?)

Say it’s ae terrible dream…shooter downstairs—lower
grades — where lil’ Elijah sometimes says, “I’m sad…” as we check
in, serving snacks. Shooter storms the school farm—
Blasting Farmers Ben and Beth and children pulling greens from
black soil— Enters classroom off cafeteria, Chef Kathy’s
teaching salads/cooking skills…

Shooter storms Ms Cross’s 4th grade class—I’m tutoring the lil
mocha brown sister in aunt’s custody; Berkeley High basket
ball star-to-be;
blonde, blue-eyed twins; Yemen’s Ayat reading out from
under Bombs
of beheading embassy butchers…

I jackknife up! Woke with gnarled NRA images: Ms Johnson
after lunch. Long-gun strapped across shoulders managing
her class! Ms Logan, chalkboard, Glock hugging hip. And
Ms Wilson,
Principal, flaunting sidearm—rather than love detecting
Arms, hugging her students mornings at playground
gate…

© 2022. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All RightsReserved.

 

Former forklift driver/warehouse worker/janitor, Raymond Nat Turner is a NYC poet;

BAR's Poet-in-Residence; and founder/co-leader of the jazz-poetry ensemble UpSurge!NYC.

You can Vote for his work at: GoFundMe PayPal: paypal.me/towncrierRNT

Mass Shootings
Militarized Police

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


More Stories


  • Sentencing Reform Bill Moves Forward on Capital Hill
    Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
    Sentencing Reform Bill Moves Forward on Capital Hill
    19 Feb 2018
    The Senate Judiciary Committee’s passage of a drug sentencing bill is a significant step forward for criminal justice reform, said Kara Gotsch, of The Sentencing Project, especiall
  • U.S. Prepares Armed Intervention in Venezuela
    Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
    U.S. Prepares Armed Intervention in Venezuela
    19 Feb 2018
    Ajamu Baraka, lead organizer for the Black Alliance for Peace, believes the U.S. is actively preparing a military intervention against the elected government of Venezuela.
  • intersectionality a path to power?
    Bruce A. Dixon , BAR managing editor
    Are Intersectionalism Or Afro-Pessimism Paths To Power? Probably Not. Part 3 of 3
    16 Feb 2018
    In parts one and two of this series I’ve talked about the fact that there are two conflicting versions of intersectionality, one employed by some honest to god leftists who reach backward across de
  • jackson ms
    Adofo Minka
    Jackson MS: Police Killings Continue Amid Mayoral Silence in the "Most Radical City on the Planet"
    15 Feb 2018
    In the last few months Jackson's supposedly radical mayor has lifted residency requirements for city police officers, and remained silent on a wave of officer involved shootings
  • Bandit Baltimore Cops and the Black Misleadershp Class
    Glen Ford , BAR executive editor
    Bandit Baltimore Cops and the Black Misleadershp Class
    15 Feb 2018
    “The nominally Black-controlled local government is incapable of meaningful response.”
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us