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
  • omnibus

Shooting and looting started: 400 years ago
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
03 Jun 2020
Shooting and looting started: 400 years ago
Shooting and looting started: 400 years ago

Shooting, looting, scalping, lynching,
Raping, torturing their way across
the continent—400 years ago—
Colonial settler thugs launched this
endless crimson tide rolling down on
Today…

Colonial settler thugs launched this
endless crimson tide leaving in-
visible yellow crime 
scene tape crisscrossing Tallahassee
to Seattle; San Diego to Bangor… 

Shooting Seneca, Seminole, Creek,
Choctaw, Mohawk, Cayuga, Blackfeet, 
Shooting Sioux, Shawnee, Chickasaw, 
Chippewa before
Looting Lakota land; Looting Ohlone 
Land—
Looting Ashanti, Fulani, Huasa, Wolof, 
Yoruba, Ibo, Kongo, Mongo, Hutu, Zulu…
Labor.

Colonial settler thugs launched this
endless crimson tide—hot lead storms—
Shooting, looting Mexico for half of New 
Mexico; a quarter of Colorado; some of
Wyoming and most of Arizona; Looting
Mexico for Utah, Nevada and California

So, next time Orange Mobutu, Boss Tweet,
is dirty like Duterte—howling for shooting;
Next time demented minions raise rifles to
shoot; Remind them that
Real looters wear Brooks Brothers suits;
Or gold braid and junk medals ‘cross their 
chests. Real looters—with Capitalist Hill
Accomplices—
Steal trillions
Not FOX-boxes, silly sneakers, cheap clothes…

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

Essential Work

We’ll always need Race car drivers roaring
down streets where children chase balls; like
We’ll always need peaceful protesters pepper
sprayed like cockroaches; And
We’ll always need sleeping seven year-olds shot 
while dreaming of dolls, sleepovers, tooth fairies;
We’ll always need children playing with toy guns
in parks executed before becoming “Hulk Hogans”

We’ll always need doors kicked in and our daughters 
and sons slaughtered in wee hours—even if it is the
Wrong address…
We’ll always need elderly parents whacked for
Accidentally pressing emergency alerts; like
We’ll always need mentally ill loved ones massacred 
in our homes…

We’ll always need men rushing pregnant wives to 
Hospitals shot for speeding; And fathers of six
Hustling too hard chokehold lynched;
We’ll always need young women who drive and 
smoke, stopped and suicided; And mothers wearing
masks wrong wrestled down in subway stations—as
their 4 year-olds watch…

We’ll always need wallets mistaken for guns—Glocks
for Tasers; fleeing Black men shot in their backs; And
bridegrooms butchered, night before their weddings…

We’ll always need Tasered hearts skanking
in Reggae rhythms; And broken broomsticks
rammed up mens’ rectums for fun…
We’ll always need bruised, bloodied, disfigured
Faces—eyeballs dangling from sockets;
We’ll always need drugs and guns planted—
Growing into cases, concertina wire, COVID-19…

We’ll always need right hooves raised Testi-lying
To judges and juries of peers on the need for knees 
on necks—56 licks or 41 shots—Served to Protect
Poverty…© 2020. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.                 

A Great Job, Mr. Cobb

A butterfly ballad
floating sensitive for Sass; 
delicious for Dinah. A Miles
Wide open satellite dish with
elephant ears.
It’s hard bidding Masters adieu— 
Last of the Kind of Blue Crew
A great, great job; Great Mr. Cobb!

Mutating swing Gene; Buddy
thing; backbeat; Bu shuffle—
Roach Shadow—Philly Joe’d…
It’s hard bidding Masters adieu— 
Last of the Kind of Blue Crew
A great, great job; Great Mr. Cobb

Master 
Sketching Spain with wire brushes;
The Music
just crept in to his body—Solea…
It’s hard bidding Masters adieu— 
Last of the Kind of Blue Crew
A great, great job; Great Mr. Cobb!

Master
the cymbal crashing, “So What?”
The Music
just crept in to his body
Metastasizing one spring morning
in a masterpiece machine of swing.
It’s hard bidding Masters adieu— 
Last of the Kind of Blue Crew
A great, great job; Great Mr. Cobb—
Last of the Kind of Blue Crew
And, Mr. Cobb—we THANK YOU…

© 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 [email protected]

poetry

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
A few lines for the Poet Ojenke...
21 May 2025
RIP: Rise I
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
POEM: Reflections after the June 12th March of Disarmament, Sonia Sanchez, 1982
18 December 2024
“I have come to you tonite not just for the stoppage
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Love My Black Job
11 September 2024
Love my Black Job— Black Student Union Job! Hired at L.A. City College As “The Peoples Poet!”
Protest for Palestine at the White House
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Trigger Warning
22 November 2023
Trigger Warning Palestine’s the Answer— What was the Question?
Another June 1
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Another June 1
07 June 2023
                                                                                              Another June 1  
BAR Book Forum: Jon Jon Moore’s “The Calling: Poems”
Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
BAR Book Forum: Jon Jon Moore’s “The Calling: Poems”
16 February 2022
In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book.
Our ‘democracy’
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Our ‘democracy’
23 July 2021
Shangri-La—untaxed, socially-distanced champagne- caviar, Cayman Island, yacht crowds who
Pigment of your Imagination: Black magic mascots, props and sops?
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Pigment of your Imagination: Black magic mascots, props and sops?
15 July 2021
Could the pigment of your imagination cause Black magic mascots, props, sops— Black faces in high places—
A known known…
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
A known known…
08 July 2021
“…there are known knowns. There are things we know that we know. There are known
Twerkers of the World you might…(Or when they go low we get high?)
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Twerkers of the World you might…(Or when they go low we get high?)
01 July 2021
“History repeats itself,  first as tragedy, second as farce.” —Karl Marx

More Stories


  • Free Mumia event flyer
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Free Mumia Coalition of New York City Joins Mobilization in Philadelphia
    04 Jul 2025
    Gil Obler is an organizer with the Free Mumia Abu Jamal Coalition of New York City. He joins us from New York to discuss the Saturday, July 5th rally and march at Malcolm X memorial park in…
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    The Necessity of Birthright Citizenship for Black People
    02 Jul 2025
    Black citizenship was non-existent for the first 200 years that enslaved and free people were present in what became the United States. Even long-standing legal victories are tenuous, and now…
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: Black Refugees Unwelcomed! Gaou Guinou Balewa, 1973
    02 Jul 2025
    “Haitian refugees and political exiles find themselves being refused the hospitality granted others.”
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Aggressors Unnamed in Rwanda-DRC “Peace Agreement”
    02 Jul 2025
    Rwandan and M23 forces are the aggressors in the DRC. They are integrated under Rwandan command.
  • Jon Jeter
    Mamdani’s Train is Running But Blacks Wonder if There is Space for Them
    02 Jul 2025
    Zohran Mamdani’s democratic socialist vision won NYC’s primary but lost Black voters to scandal-plagued Cuomo by 20 points, exposing the left’s racial blind spot even as Wall Street prepares to spend…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us