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

Halloween
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
15 Nov 2023
🖨️ Print Article
Child's funeral in Deir al-Balah, Gaza strip.
Child's funeral in Deir al-Balah, Gaza strip. (Photo: AFP)

“You belong to us, body and belongings, and we can dispose of them and do with you as we please.”

Holy Roman Emperor Louis VI in 1343. 

Curtain of darkness drops on ominous orange sky;
on Jack-o’-lantern lit electrically-starved strip—
on smothered civilian sounds; on slashed signals
of cellphone towers creating a
media-less moat of Blacked out lights/Redacted rights…
Perfect shroud for evil spirits, spooks, vengeful skeletons
sashaying from closets, spilling rivers of tears into oceans of
Blood

Halloween’s perfect for degraded devils dressed as Manifest Destiny—
whirling like dervishes —Door-to-door
Perfect for night vision-goggled goblins, goose-stepping genocide to
Gaza. Perfect for hunting houses haunted with ghosts of
Resistance…
Perfect for costumed settlers, soldiers, snipers deployed to trigger-treat!!

Trigger-treat!!
Who’s there in chain shirt? Pot helmet? Breast plate with blood-red
cloth cross—Coming to convert this house to Christianity?
Who’s in Inquisition costume, applying thumb-screw as religious
test? Who’s in Cossack costume practicing pogroms on the West Bank?
Who’s Kristallnacht-costumed…leaving shops shards of shattered glass?

Trigger-treat!!
Who are the ghouls? 3rd Reich realtors? Who’s in crimson-stained
closing clothes—’48 fatigues— going door-to-door… Who’s offering
Lead for land?

Who’s regaled as Goering? Luftwaffe overhead hitting hospitals
with Hellfire missiles? Pockmarking ambulances? Softening up
bakeries with bunker buster bombs? Who’s strafing streams of
traumatized travelers: Declaring babies “bug-splat,” families roadkill?

Trigger-treat!!
Who’s made up as Mengele? Hovering helicopter-like over hospitals?
Prescribing white phosphorus for melting incubator babies’ bones?
Who’s in Goebbels garb bobbing for Big Lies and 1/2 truths?
Whose sack’s filled with heel-clicking high fructose corn syrup goodies—
sending listeners and viewers to bed with scary, sugary, Psy-Op highs?

Trigger-treat!!
Who’s the acne-faced teen—bass finally entering his voice—
with mumbling muzzle recoiling, reddening stolen soil?
Who’s the Eichmann-costumed settler spraying automatic
weapon fire—then holding his bloody hand out for house keys?
Who’s the Wehrmacht-macho marauding as refugee camp re-
enactor, re-slaughtering women and children of Sabra and Shatila?

Trigger-treat!!
Who’s watching this colorized horror film, “Long, Looped Night
of Nakba” by burning book light?
Who’s lighting candles on graves of the dead and commemorating
Martyrs?
Who’s organizing full-throated, hoarse voice chanters; blistered feet
Shoe leather-legislators to drown mass murderers in our atmospheric
River of tears?

© 2023. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.

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 and PayPal.

Gaza
Palestine

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


Related Stories

Roberta Rivolta
Western Activism and the Axis of Resistance
23 September 2026
Western pro-Palestinian activism isolates Palestine from its regional allies, depoliticizing its struggle and reinforcing colonial
Dhoruba bin-Wahad
Guardian Foray: All That's Not Real Is Camouflage
09 September 2026
An Open Letter from the American "Left" allegedly on behalf of unnamed persons said to be Iranian political prisoners has provided co
Libertad para Fergie
Free Fergie Chambers: Solidarity Is Not a Crime
09 September 2026
Fergie Chambers is an American philanthropist who was arrested on July 10 in Ibiza, Spain, by order of the Trump Administration.
Anti-Imperialist Scholars Collective
AISC Red Paper #2: The Multiple Fronts of Iranian Anti-Imperialism
26 August 2026
The Anti-Imperialist Scholars Collective (AISC) offers an analysis of the Ramadan War and the multiple fronts of Iranian anti- imperi
Ramzy Baroud
Solidarity Is Not Enough
19 August 2026
Why the world must force accountability on Gaza now.
Natalia Junquera , Elena Reina
Fergie Chambers, the Millionaire Activist Arrested in Ibiza: “I am a human rights advocate”
19 August 2026
The American's lawyers, led by Baltasar Garzón, denounce a "political persecution" by Trump for his support of Palestine.
x
Craig Mokhiber
No, Israel does not have ‘a right to exist.’ Quite the contrary, actually.
04 August 2026
"Unlike the Zionist claim that 'Israel has a right to exist,' my assertion is rooted in international law.
Nicaragua
Becca Renk Foster
Nicaragua to Raise Its Voice for Palestine in Another Landmark Case at the ICJ
04 August 2026
Against the backdrop of Israel’s renewed attacks on Palestine, the World Court is set to hold public hearings in Septembe
Ramzy Baroud
The Spark in Tell: How a Village Resistance Disrupted Israel’s West Bank Strategy
29 July 2026
Palestinians have the right to defend themselves under international law and they exercised it in the town of Tell on the West Bank. 
Noah Hurowitz
Trump’s Sanctions Against the ICC Are Unconstitutional, Rights Groups Say
22 July 2026
The human rights groups’ suit came as the Trump administration vowed to destroy the International Criminal Court entirely.

More Stories


  • BAR Radio
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Report September 25, 2026
    25 Sep 2026
    In this week’s segment, we discuss events in the Horn of Africa as the Somaliland region requests U.S. recognition and the Trump administration ends some sanctions against Eritrea. But we begin by…
  • United Nations General Assembly
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    U.S. Exerts Its Influence Over the United Nations as General Assembly Meetings Convene
    25 Sep 2026
    Ajamu Baraka discusses U.S. influence over the United Nations and its Security Council as the 81st General Assembly high-level meetings take place.
  • Israel and Somaliland
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    U.S. and Israeli Interference in Somalia, Eritrea, and Ethiopia
    25 Sep 2026
    Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African Newswire, discusses Israeli recognition of the Somaliland region, the US reduction of sanctions on Eritrea, a new anti-government alliance in Ethiopia, and…
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    The U.S. Determination to Achieve Full Spectrum Dominance is Not In Decline
    23 Sep 2026
    The trope of the United States being in a state of decline is a common one, but it should not be accepted without scrutiny. The U.S. faces crises but remains dangerous, powerful, and single-minded in…
  • Ajamu Baraka , BAR editor and columnist
    Waging War Against the People on Behalf of Capital: The Roots of U.S. Domestic Repression
    23 Sep 2026
    The "Antifa summit" and the NSPM-7 represent another institutional step toward consolidating fascism in the United States by criminalizing opposition to fascism itself.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us