“ Behind every great fortune
there is a crime.”
—Honore de Balzac
This is a STICK-UP!
Hands up! Break your selves!
MORE for the GREEDY—
Less for the needy!
Allow us to introduce ourselves:
We’re the Department Of Grifter Enrichment—
No! We’re Dictators Oligarchs Grabbing Everything—
Anyway, we’re recent graduates of MSU (Making Shit Up!)
Looting launched weeks ago. We’re talking
Trillions …
Where’s the flashing lights? Hey, where’s the
Yellow tape emblazoned: CRIME SCENE?
No broken windows … No crunchy sidewalks …
No eagle-eyed helicopters hovering overhead?
No SWAT? No teargas? No stun-grenades? No zip-ties?
No swollen police presence of George Floyd Summer?
Boys From Brazil-like looters; we’re led by a light-fingered
South African stickup man; An Apartheid repeat offender.
We’re snatching SNAP, food pantries, Meals On Wheels,
School lunch programs—snatching growling bellies’ bread!
Boys From Brazil-like wreckers, we’re lead by capitalism’s
Cruelty cult—sacking Medicare!
We’re pulling plugs on dialysis machines—cancelling
Cancer treatments and your grandma’s meds for sport!
Boys From Brazil-like bandits; we’re lead by a wild Boer
Holdup man. A nazi-loving/morally bankrupt, spiritual
Pauper— Posing as the world’s richest human. And we’re
Clawing, grabbing at the bulging purse of Social Security!
Capitalism’s one long con game …
Our looting is hundreds of years old!
We offer no answers fixing messes capitalism’s created.
We do, however, fence fake solutions for nonexistent problems.
We’re digital death panels—roving office to office.
We ‘break things’ called peoples lives!
We solve mass suffering with more mass suffering.
We ease pain with more pain …
We ‘break things’ called peoples lives! Instead of breaking
Ground for hospitals and clinics offering healthcare for all.
Instead of ground breaking for hammers pounding Go-Go rhythms;
And saws screaming sawdust symphonies, raising roofs Amish-style!
Our menu is simple: Homelessness; Hunger; School Shootings
Du Jour; And Wars of The Week … We gather weekly ‘round
The Way Back Machine—West Wing of the War House—
Plotting with white Supreme Courtesans and Capitalist Hill hustlers …
Profits are the great God we answer to! We can’t change …
A lethal piece of orange pyrite— orange wrecking ball—
Emitting lies every nano second is the Buddha we bow to! (This is
As good as it gets. Save yourselves, save the planet from our ravages …)
© 2025. 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.
In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book. This week’s featured author is Atiya Husain. Husain is Associate Professor of Africana Studies at Williams College…
The Black Radical Tradition is the rich legacy passed down by revolutionaries. It is an important tool today as we struggle to turn the Americas into a Zone of Peace.
The trial of former Peruvian president Pedro Castillo, the victim of a 2022 lawfare-style coup, has begun. The legal process used against him is a sham covering up the human rights abuses…
Trump administration interference in Panama has brought about a reckoning on migration and human rights throughout the region. These issues can no longer be ignored.
Presenting new research, Dylan Sullivan and Jason Hickel mount a devastating critique of the impact of structural adjustment in Africa in the 1980s and 1990s. Drawing on recent data on Africa’s…
