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

Everything they touch turns to rubble
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
11 Mar 2026
🖨️ Print Article
Caracas, Venezuela after bombing
Smoke rises in Caracas, Venezuela on January 3, 2026 following a US bombing campaign. Photo via X

Saddest symphony on Earth. Trembling notes, harrowing screams, wails,
moans. Same timbre, same tones. Same saline Palestine tears as Sudan.
Same as Ukraine, Lebanon, Venezuela, Iran. Same 1% at war with
workers of the world — and Everything they touch turns to rubble

Tiny backpacks, bloody body parts litter pulverized apartment and charred-
car streets. Stolen lives litter flattened hospitals and schools. Litter crimson
coffee shop floors. Litter blackened fields of vaporized crops.
Everything they touch turns to rubble

They bomb, they strut. They prance and ‘dance,’ and bomb and bomb again.
Their lucrative explosions silence music of whining saws, pounding hammers 
raising roofs to house the unhoused. While abroad they shout, “stay sheltered!”
Everything they touch turns to rubble

High off homeland invasion hubris, hostile takeovers weeks before, they
dream of easy money. Quick work of a weekend war. But weekend morphs
into weeks. And weeks into months. And months into the longest leanest years.
Everything they touch turns to rubble

Pyrite wrecking balls revolving around orange planet, Pedophilia. ‘Round its Epstein
news cycles. ‘Round its smell of death, scent of sulphur, white phosphorus fragrance
anointing them. They send holy warriors to strike Saturdays, Sundays and holidays; and
Everything they touch turns to rubble

They strike when Essential Workers catch fleeting winks on speeding trains roaring
beneath snoring cities. When countrymen and women dreaming of better worlds are
not yet woke. Cruel Reich Cult strikes under cover of darkness over and over again
Everything they touch turns to rubble

Cruel Reich Cult strikes weekends when working ones double over panting,
catching blitzkrieg breaths. Or meditate, chant, or pray protecting their souls,
spirits and minds from repeated trauma of terrorist Psy-Ops on our damn dime.
Everything they touch turns to rubble

Body count from One Big Beautiful Bank Job. Wreckage, wake of DOGE:
Department Of Grifter Enrichment. Frozen, drowned, burned bodies pile up at
feet of foolish climate deniers; with roadkill credited to Mengele medicine men
Everything they touch turns to rubble

J6 white supremacists storming Capitalist Hill, ransacking offices, shitting in its halls —
ugly omen — foreshadowed shredded social safety net. Scuttled science and education.
War House-Offal Office grifted in gold. Kennedy Center shuttered; Bill Of Rights redacted.
Everything they touch turns to rubble


© 2026. 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.

MAGA
Donald Trump
Iran
Palestine
Venezuela
Sudan
imperialism
War
Corruption
Epstein Class

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


Related Stories

Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
In the same boat?
09 September 2026
BOOM goes tuna and swordfish stuffed brown burlap bags aboardboats blown to smithereens. Presto! Fishing is now narco-trafficking.
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.
Luciano Vasapollo
Cuba Stands Firm, Venezuela Risks Losing its Sovereignty
09 September 2026
Cuba's leadership has chosen resistance over subordination as the blockade tightens, but Venezuela's sovereignty is being stripped away.
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
A People(s)-Centered Human Rights Critique of “An Open Letter to Iran’s Political Prisoners”
26 August 2026
A People(s)-Centered Human Rights framework rejects the liberal abstraction that makes a false symmetry between Iranian authoritarianism and U.
Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
U.S. Liberal Media Literacy Guide: The World Bank and the IMF
26 August 2026
The IMF and World Bank are not subjects the corporate media cover in any real sense.
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
Black Alliance For Peace
Declaration of a Zone of Peace
26 August 2026
From the blockade of Cuba to the kidnapping of Venezuela's president, U.S.
Kimberly D. Miller
Beyond the "Delcyification" of Analysis
19 August 2026
Siege, survival, and the dialectics of Venezuelan sovereignty.
Ramzy Baroud
Solidarity Is Not Enough
19 August 2026
Why the world must force accountability on Gaza now.

More Stories


  • BAR Book Forum: Yelena Bailey’s “How the Streets Were Made”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Yelena Bailey’s “How the Streets Were Made”
    16 Dec 2020
    The streets permeate dominant understandings of Blackness, and the life-and-death consequences of these perceptions are at the heart of this book.
  • BAR Book Forum: Grace A. Musila’s Book, “Wangari Maathai's Registers of Freedom”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Grace A. Musila’s Book, “Wangari Maathai's Registers of Freedom”
    16 Dec 2020
    Maathai’s approach to environmental conservation centers poor rural communities, especially women, and their need for fuel, fodder and income
  • On Afropessimism by Frank B. Wilderson III
    Selamawit D. Terrefe
    On Afropessimism by Frank B. Wilderson III
    16 Dec 2020
    Afro-pessimism theorizes slavery as a social relation which distinguishes Blackness as a paradigmatic position antithetical to humans. ​​​​​​​
  • The Myth of the Perfect Victim
    Too Black
    The Myth of the Perfect Victim
    16 Dec 2020
    The denial of Black humanity is essential to the order of racial capitalism, and dictates that Blacks deserve whatever treatment they get.
  • Biden’s Victory Was Hardly a Win for “Democracy.” It Was Another Win for the 1%.
    Rajko Koundzic
    Biden’s Victory Was Hardly a Win for “Democracy.” It Was Another Win for the 1%.
    16 Dec 2020
    An authentic and organized mass movement is the only way to combat money-power and make progressive policies possible.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us