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

Leaders I lost— SORRY I LOST…
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
20 Aug 2013
🖨️ Print Article

by Raymond Nat Turner

My leaders were chased

To China, Tanzania, Cuba and

France by lynch mobs and

Death squads posing as public servants—

I LOST

 

Leaders I lost— SORRY I LOST…

by Raymond Nat Turner

 

I.

Even in August’s sauna,

Leaders of the Cristal,

Judas Quisling class

Have it made in the shade!

 

When the Unca Jims,

Jealousies, Andy Tongues,

Slutty Professors, and

Other muleheads who

Savor the flavor

Of leather, gather

At the feet of the

Great Emancipator,

Huffin’ and puffin’

‘Bout recent wrongs—

Same ol’ songs— sanitizing

The ‘60s, hiding worn

Harnesses to the mule;

Thank gawd almighty they’ve

Overcome tall principles,

Steep integrity and

Truth-telling decades ago—

Dumping on Dr King

For Burger King, Ronald Mc Donald,

Colonel Sanders, Popeye’s, liquor

Franchises and sub-contracts,

Rapprochement with Reaganite reaction paid

 

II.

My leaders were voted

Out of office in penitentiary

Yards, Lorraine balcony, Audubon

Ballroom, bedroom-voting booths—

I LOST— SORRY I LOST…

My leaders were chased

To China, Tanzania, Cuba and

France by lynch mobs and

Death squads posing as public servants—

I LOST— SORRY I LOST…

 

My leaders had hearts

Of Harriet, Toussaint and Nat;

Spines of Sitting Bull, Dessalines and

Osceola; tongues of Truth, Douglass and

Harrison; pens of Wells, Walker and

Garrison, strip searches, x-rays and

Metal detectors don’t detect—

I LOST— SORRY I LOST…

 

My leaders sprouted up

From Strange Fruit-fertilized

Black soil saturated by fire

Hoses and spittle of Strom, Bull,

Lester, Hoover bloodhounds and

Other Amerikkkan apartheid actors—

I LOST— SORRY I LOST…

 

My leaders first served, and

Later, hanging judges, not chads

Confirmed them in “superior” courts

Inaugurating them with more boots

Batons, bullets, mud-slinging and

Negative campaigning, COINTELPRO-style—

I LOST— SORRY I LOST…

 

My leaders were elected

To 4x9, windowless offices

Open twenty-four, seven,

Three hundred -sixty-five

Days a year, 3, 4 even 5 decades—

I LOST— SORRY I LOST…

 

My leaders have #s

Like 09-A3775 and 77A4283

I can’t call when I wake up

In a cold sweat, screaming—

I LOST— SORRY I LOST…

 

My leaders make less

Than a dollar a day

And ain’t Rollex-models

Rollin’ somethin’ shiny and German

With ALEC’s hand up

Their asses, making their

Mouths move every 2-4 years

With promises, promises, promises,

Promises only fools and babies believe—

I LOST— SORRY I LOST…

I LOST— SORRY I LOST…

 

Raymond Nat Turner can be contacted at upsurgejazz.com.

 

Raymond Nat Turner © 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


  • Ukraine: The Afghanistan Model for the Consolidation of the Global White Supremacist Movement
    ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    Ukraine: The Afghanistan Model for the Consolidation of the Global White Supremacist Movement
    30 Mar 2022
    The Biden administration is dusting off the same playbook that gave arms and money to jihadists in Afghanistan and Syria. Now the beneficiaries of American foreign policy largesse are white…
  • DOCUMENT: An Act for the Abolition of Slavery [and for Compensating White Slaveowners], 1833
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    DOCUMENT: An Act for the Abolition of Slavery [and for Compensating White Slaveowners], 1833
    30 Mar 2022
    The recent visit of members of the British “royal family” to Belize, Jamaica, and the Bahamas drew attention to longstanding issues and unsettled accounts concerning slavery, colonialism, and i
  • Madeleine Albright is Dead, but Intersectional Imperialism is Alive and Well
    Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
    Madeleine Albright is Dead, but Intersectional Imperialism is Alive and Well
    30 Mar 2022
    The late Madeleine Albright was the first female Secretary of State. Her actions in office repeated the U.S. imperative to interfere in the affairs of other countries and resulted in the deaths of…
  • Papa Cop
    Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Papa Cop
    30 Mar 2022
                                                           …
  • New McCarthyism Silences the Black and Other Radical Left
    Erica Caines
    New McCarthyism Silences the Black and Other Radical Left
    30 Mar 2022
    Socialists, anti-imperialists, anti-war activists, Black radicals, and other independent alternative voices who challenge mainstream media and its political culture are being explicitly targeted by…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us