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


  • Is a Court Case in Texas the First Prosecution of a “Black Identity Extremist”?
    Martin De Bourmont
    Is a Court Case in Texas the First Prosecution of a “Black Identity Extremist”?
    07 Feb 2018
    “Daniels’s arrest poses the even more troubling possibility that his case could be just the first of many.”
  • Scandalize my Name… New York Review of Books Slimes Paul Robeson
    Greg Godels
    Scandalize my Name… New York Review of Books Slimes Paul Robeson
    07 Feb 2018
    “To fail to acknowledge the fact that Robeson and his work were virtually unknown, were erased by the thought police, underscores Callow’s unfitness to discuss
  • The 'Slave Power' Behind Florida's Felon Disenfranchisement
    Garrett Epps
    The 'Slave Power' Behind Florida's Felon Disenfranchisement
    07 Feb 2018
    “Of those Americans who have completed all their punishments but still cannot vote, 48 percent live in the Sunshine State.”
  • What Students Are Taught About Slavery
    Jacob Sugarman
    What Students Are Taught About Slavery
    07 Feb 2018
    “Nearly half of the teachers failed to teach their students that protections for slavery were enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.”
  • Chicago Teachers Union and Charter School Teachers Have Joined Forces
    Jeff Schuhrke
    Chicago Teachers Union and Charter School Teachers Have Joined Forces
    07 Feb 2018
    “Leaders of both union locals say they don’t have a problem with charter schools per se, but rather they oppose the proliferation of the charter system of mana
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us