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

Dis-honest Broker (for my friend Farid)
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
25 Oct 2023
🖨️ Print Article
Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, Israel
Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, Israel (Photo: Evan Vucci/AP)

 

Dis-honest Broker

(for my friend Farid)

 

Metallic music of shovels; Abrasions on bare hands
Digging, digging, digging through twisted bones and
busted bricks of buildings. To backpacks, blankets, baby
body parts to free tiny arms and legs emitting whispers…

Obese bulldozers munching homes and olive trees;
Settlers snacking on bones of the evicted;
Aquifer flooded with sea water and sewage are G-
Rated nightmares and matter not to NFL, NBA bi-partisans

Forked tongue, dis-honest broker, fluent in ancient language
Genocide
Trots tattered tropes for terror out. Swears another Offal Office
Oath on War House Bible—bathed in blood of 10s of millions—
Wounded Knee to Trail of Tears; Tulsa to Hiroshima; Korea to
Vietnam to Afghanistan…

Riddler/Joker—Dis-
honest broker: “You have a right to”
Be an aircraft carrier on the desert
Acting as a weapons lab conducting
Trade shows; Disguised as democracy
Acting as an apartheid state; Concealing
Third Reich real estate practices—Go on
Step on the gas—and
“Mow the grass!”

“You have a right to” quell them/Shell
them! Bombard them/boneyard them!
Snipe them/wipe them! Un-home them/Pogrom them!
Expel them/Farewell them!

“You have a right to” strangulate them/Annihilate them!
Bomb roads they’re instructed to travel— Let them eat
Lead and gravel!

“You have a right to” kill them One-a-Day… for years—
Daily… for decades… Until bloody bootprints become
Normal as “Ironclad!” Normal as Baghdad…
“You have a right to” 22 days of carnage; provided
you Madison Avenue it: “Operation Caste-Lead!”
“You have a right to” Step on the gas—and
“Mow the grass!“

“You have a right to” 51 days of slaughter—if
you market it as: “Operation Protective Edge!”
“You have a right to” Step on the gas—and
“Mow the grass!”

"You have a right to” Dr. Goebbels’ white phosphorus
prescriptions for human animals holding human shields;
Holding hostages; Holding hospital hideouts; Holding
House keys—for… 3/4 of a Century…

Š 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.

Israel
Palestine
Joe Biden
Apartheid Israel
US Imperialism

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


Related Stories

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.
Hedelberto LĂłpez Blanch
A Shady Figure Will Preside Over Colombia
19 August 2026
Colombia's new president has ties to paramilitaries and drug traffickers, but Trump's endorsement swept his crimes aside as he embraces Washing
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 GarzĂłn, 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.
x
Gary Wilson
They came to Spain for work. Washington called it an invasion.
04 August 2026
"Israel and Washington use Ceuta and Melilla to attack Spain for naming the genocide in Gaza.
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
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Venezuela, Memory, and the Long Arc of U.S. Imperialism
29 July 2026
Memories of a sovereign Venezuela collide with the reality that it is now a U.S. vassal state.
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. 
Carlos AznĂĄrez
Zionist Expansionism in Latin America
22 July 2026
Free trade deals, water contracts, and military training programs are quietly binding one Latin American government after another to Tel Aviv.

More Stories


  • REFLECTION: Choosing Ourselves: Black Women and Abortion, Beverly Smith, 1989
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    REFLECTION: Choosing Ourselves: Black Women and Abortion, Beverly Smith, 1989
    18 May 2022
    A 1989 talk by Black feminist Beverly Smith reminds us that for Black women, the right to abortion can be a woman’s right to life.
  • Notes from Ethiopia, Part 4: The TPLF Destruction of Afar
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Notes from Ethiopia, Part 4: The TPLF Destruction of Afar
    18 May 2022
    Contributing Editor Ann Garrison continues her reporting from the Horn of Africa. She is once again in Ethiopia.
  • Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Camera and Pen
    18 May 2022
                                                         
  • Fact Finding Mission to Donbass
    John Parker
    Fact Finding Mission to Donbass
    18 May 2022
    John Parker is the Socialist Unity Party candidate for U.S. Senate in California on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket. Parker is on a fact-finding trip observing the U.S./NATO proxy…
  • BAR Book Forum: Nick Nesbitt’s Book, “The Price of Slavery”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Nick Nesbitt’s Book, “The Price of Slavery”
    18 May 2022
    This week’s featured author is Nick Nesbitt. Nesbitt is Professor of French and Italian at Princeton University. His book is The Price of Slavery: Capitalism and Revolution in the Caribbean.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us