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

Peace Dividend
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
13 Feb 2013
🖨️ Print Article

by Raymond Nat Turner

General Dynamics, Northrup-
Grummond-Lockheed-Martin marionettes
Over-populating capitalist hill—
Pushing up shares on the NASDAQ?...

 

Peace Dividend
by Raymond Nat Turner

11/9: When the "Evil Empire"
Ended, warlords swore
There would be a
"Peace
Dividend," but

Did it end... Did it end...
Did it end... Did it end...
Did it end... Did it end...

Cold war with old war?

Did it end... Did it end...
Did it end... Did it end...
Did it end... Did it end...

Enemy of the month,

Threat of the week,
Operation of the day,
War around the world,
War around the clock—
War for evermore?

Did it end... Did it end...
Did it end... Did it end...
Did it end... Did it end...

Surges of war profiteers
Soliciting no-bid contracts,
Like packs of pedophile
Priests, volunteering for
Blacked-out Boys Clubs?

Did it end... Did it end...
Did it end... Did it end...
Did it end... Did it end...

Hearings to hear lies
Looped like capitalist
Politicians' promises, with
Pharmaceutical side effects—
Hearings asking questions
Answered already by bloody,
Broken, bodies of babies, their
Farmer fathers, mothers, their
Grandmothers, grandfathers and
Neighbors, all commodified as

Collateral damage?

Did it end... Did it end...
Did it end... Did it end...
Did it end... Did it end...

Eternal terms of Strom Thurmond and
Scoop Jackson—the Senator from Boeing—
Disguised as Di-Fi down to her New York
Stock Exchange ticker, wig concealing
Her warhead, fresh fragrance of death,
Plutonium breath, from a mouth moving
Like other GE, General Dynamics, Northrup-
Grummond-Lockheed-Martin marionettes
Over-populating capitalist hill—
Pushing up shares on the NASDAQ?...

11/9: When the "Evil Empire"
Ended, warlords swore
There would be a
"Peace
Dividend," but

Did it end... Did it end...
Did it end... Did it end...
Did it end... Did it end?...

 

Raymond Nat Turner can be contacted at upsurgejazz.com.

Raymond Nat Turner (c) 2013 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


  • Man in a field wearing a keffiyah holding a Palestinian flag
    Black Alliance For Peace
    The Black Alliance for Peace Condemns the Murderous Assault on Occupied Palestine
    10 Oct 2023
    The Black Alliance for Peace released a statement in solidarity with the people of Gaza and all Palestinians under occupation in the racist, apartheid settler state of Israel.
  • Léopold Sédar Senghor
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: West Africa in Evolution, Léopold Sédar Senghor, 1961
    10 Oct 2023
    The current political turbulence in France’s former colonies in Africa can perhaps be understood as the continuation of an unfinished project of decolonization.
  • Laphonza Butler swearing in
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Laphonza Butler’s Liberal Dem Credentials All But Glow in the Dark
    10 Oct 2023
    No one better exemplifies the Democratic Party’s overarching identity politics than California Governor Gavin Newsom.
  • People marching at a protest in Haiti
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    The United Nations Pushes Haiti Under the Bus
    10 Oct 2023
    For the tenth time in the last 30 years, the United Nations vote to authorize an occupation of Haiti.
  • Ralph Nader
    Jacqueline Luqman
    Of Course Ralph Nader Can Say He Prefers Autocracy To Fascism: He's Not The Target Of Either
    09 Oct 2023
    Millions of people voted for Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader in 2000 but now he has denounced them and himself by proclaiming his support for Joe Biden’s re-election.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us