Mayors Eric Adams of New York, Karen Bass of Los Angeles, Lori Lightfoot of Chicago, and Sylvester Turner of Houston. (NY Times photographers An Rong Xu, Erin Schaff, Akilah Townsend, Michael Starghill Jr.)
Managers
Pomp and circumstance! Praise Dancing
precarity!
Knighting ‘em ‘enlightened,’ ‘progressive!’
Crowning ‘em ‘reformers!’
Or, tagging ‘em transparent Bassackwards
Tribesmen like Strong-arm Williams.
Like Thom-ass Clarence. Like Raytheon’s
Raven. Like woke Drone Ranger—Or
Calling ‘em/her/they/them…Big Mama or
Tiny Tim…
Color ‘em music stand black, mocha
expresso, high yellow, or coco brown…
Tag ‘em BIPOC, Hip Hop, Homegrown,
Transgender, Disabled, with two PhDs!
Pronouns We The People! Names like:
Martin Lou Harriet Douglass X III!
Still the ship of state stays its course…
Can’t turn on a dime—can’t reverse itself!
They’ll check hip boxes—
Coronating them President, Police Chief,
Mayor, White Supreme Court justice,
Capitalist Hill careerist, Governor, Warden…
but be ‘bout the business of business. Remote
controlled, battery-operated, omnidirectional—
Intersectional instruments of corporate class rule.
State apparatus—still coming at us!
Supervising sweeps of howling belly, cupped hand
Encampments. Sweeping ‘em under rugs of the rich.
Sweeping crumpled signs/crossed red lines up into
Gun towers/grey bars concertina wired to Wall Street;
Managing misery in capital’s tilted table, thumb on scale,
loaded dice casino; Where even the Race Card’s
marked…
© 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.
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