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

Birmingham On The Hudson
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
28 Aug 2012
🖨️ Print Article

 

by Raymond Nat Turner

“Another generation of Gordon Gekkos

Parasitic, psycho, thug CEOs

Funny money men, where anything goes

Republi-crats and Demo-con echoes”

 

Birmingham On The Hudson

by Raymond Nat Turner

Jazz Ballad Chorus

Headed for CUNY with dreams and hope

'Til gettin' swept up in Rope-and-Grope

Tuggin' down his testes on the street

Body-slammed, cursed and browbeat 

Meeting N-Y's finest's fists and feets

Given blurred vision of hoods and sheets

Bruised, bloodied victim of violent scam--

The Hudson banks on Birmingham

The Hudson banks on Birmingham.... 

Hip Hop Feel

Bull Kelly cut fire hoses and cattle prods

For Glockmiesters runnin' in death squads

Protecting and serving corporate masters

The privilege and supremacy of alabasters 

Guarding Merrill-Lynch and Killer Coke

Fighting crime's mirrors and smoke

Drivin' out the poor from dusk to dark

Like smashing Spring in Zucotti Park

 

After the Schultzes seized Native Land

Manhattan real estate rose in demand

They cashed the stolen land into rent

Maintained violently by the 1%

 

In this Age Of Metastasized Cash-ism

Wall Street's Kleptocratic Stash-ism

Mayor Bilbo's businesses blooming brisk

His real estate-driven Stop-and-Frisk

American-styled apartheid pass law

Bilbo's Gestapo's a blue cat's-paw

 

After the Schultzes seized Native Land

Manhattan real estate rose in demand

They cashed the stolen land into rent

Maintained violently by the 1%

 

Another generation of Gordon Gekkos

Parasitic, psycho, thug CEOs

Funny money men, where anything goes

Republi-crats and Demo-con echoes

Putting our lives and health at risk

Run these cons through Stop-and-Frisk

Provocateurs and pundits in cahoots

Will look hip in orange jumpsuits!

Raymond Nat Turner can be contacted at Raymond (at) upsurgejazz.com.

Raymond Nat Turner (c) 2012 All Rights Reserved

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


More Stories


  • BAR Book Forum: “Black Study and Abolition”
    Anima Adjepong
    BAR Book Forum: “Black Study and Abolition”
    29 Jul 2020
    The lesson is to remain woke, because not all abolitionists share the goal of Black liberation.
  • BAR Book Forum: Erika Edwards’s “Hiding in Plain Sight”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Erika Edwards’s “Hiding in Plain Sight”
    29 Jul 2020
    Anti-blackness manifests as black invisibility in Argentina, a society that was determined to marginalize and discriminate against Black women. 
  • “This is the Scene of a Crime”: An African Artist/Activist Journey, Part II 
    Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, BAR editor and columnist
    “This is the Scene of a Crime”: An African Artist/Activist Journey, Part II 
    29 Jul 2020
    An interview with Dr. Karen Wilson- Ama’Echefu.
  • Oh Boya: If It’s Goya, It Has To Be No Good
    Will Guzman
    Oh Boya: If It’s Goya, It Has To Be No Good
    29 Jul 2020
    Goya’s CEO thinks Trump is a “blessing,” so the brand has been cursed with a boycott. 
  • The Poor People’s Economic and Human Right Campaign: a Case for How Change Works
    Belinda Davis
    The Poor People’s Economic and Human Right Campaign: a Case for How Change Works
    29 Jul 2020
    With no well-financed publicity department and no links to the machinery of big party politics, movements like PPEHRC can sometimes seem lost in plain sight.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us