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

Ready for the Roaring ‘20s?
BAR Poet-in-Residence Raymond Nat Turner
08 Jan 2020
🖨️ Print Article
Ready for the Roaring ‘20s?
Ready for the Roaring ‘20s?

This Orange Age outrage—
Reich of the child’s cage
Cancer at fourth stage—
Rogue state’s rampage…
is a tiny blip on capitalism’s 
Continuum…
Its hypnotic ebb and flow,
distilled decades of woe—
decades of darkness,
Slowly bend in scalding
magma, bubbling up from below…
Sorry for the inconvenience—
the beginning is near…
Sweeping in the Roaring ‘20s…

Was it a Night in Tunisia? 
Ferguson? Occupy? Palestine? 
Baltimore? Madison?
A single spark in the dark
setting off prairie fire?
Was it Standing Rock, ‘Red’
State teachers’ strikes? Was it
the tick of Time’s Up-Me Too? The
Howl of climate chaos—Extinction 
Rebellion—Or harmony 
of… “All the above…”
Sweeping in the Roaring ‘20s?

Tsunamis of struggle sweep
World streets into 99% gyms—
Core/cardio spaces building big hearts;
Strength training, flexing, stretching—
muscling up militant mass movements
Against corporate olympics: Race to the 
bottom!
Strength training, squeezing concessions
from barbarians in Brooks Brothers suits
and other capitalist costumes—
Sweeping in the Roaring ‘20s!

No Charleston, flappers, speakeasies.
No bootleg liquor. Fewer pain dulling
shots. Less low sodium tears in beer…
Militant mass action’s tonic and gin—
Magic potion; prayer; voodoo—and a 
Vote for the lesser of evils…
“Happy Hour’s” the 99% cheering
favorite forms of 
Resistance on bars’ big screens—
Sweeping in the Roaring ‘20s
Sweeping in the Roaring ‘20s…

© 2020. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.

BAR’s poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner is an accomplished performing artist. You can find much more of his work at http://upsurgejazz.com .

COMMENTS?

Please join the conversation on Black Agenda Report's Facebook page at http://facebook.com/blackagendareport

Or, you can comment by emailing us at comments@blackagendareport.com

poerty

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


Related Stories

Israeli sniper prepares to implement the piece process.
Raymond Nat Turner , BAR poet-in-residence
Piece Process
23 May 2018
Breathe, Relax, Aim, Sight, Squeeze it’s a joy-stick; a video game to him He has orders to “light up” anything that moves;

More Stories


  • Protest sign saying "prison labor = slave labor"
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Incarcerated Workers in Alabama File Lawsuit to End Involuntary Servitude
    10 May 2024
    Six incarcerated people in the state of Alabama have filed a lawsuit against their governor and the Commissioner of Corrections. Jessica Vosburgh with the Center for Constitutional Rights, which…
  • Political misfits
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    The State Crackdown on Dissent, Abortion Rights, and Congress Enforces Discipline on its Members
    10 May 2024
    Margaret Kimberley joined the Sputnik News program Political Misfits they discussed the crackdown on students demanding divestment from Israel, abortion rights, and how Congress enforces discipline…
  • Muslim student stands against NYPD
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Eric Adams and the NYPD Repress Dissent
    08 May 2024
    New York City Mayor Eric Adams may well be the very worst of the Black misleadership class. He takes great pleasure in supporting apartheid Israel and he conducted police raids and intelligence…
  • OAU flag
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    RESOLUTION: The Question of Palestine, Organization of African Unity, 1975
    08 May 2024
    Looking back at a time when African states acknowledged their shared anti-colonial struggle with Palestine and rebuked zionism for the white supremacist genocidal ideology and practice that it is.
  • Paul Kagame
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Rwanda: “Bad News: Last Journalists in a Dictatorship” Review
    08 May 2024
    Ann Garrison continues her series of reviews of books important to understanding the Rwandan Genocide and Rwanda as it is today during this 30th anniversary year of the 1994 massacres.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us