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

Crawling contradictions…
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
24 Sep 2013
🖨️ Print Article

by BAR poet-in-residence Raymond Nat Turner

Tuesday he’s renaming

Children “Collateral Damage,”

Reducing family trees to charcoal

 

Crawling contradictions…

by BAR poet-in-residence Raymond Nat Turner

 

Sunday he’s singing,

“Share Your Pain” like Pat

Boone covering a Little

Richard classic with

Mock liturgical tone

 

Tuesday he’s ordering

Takeout in Michael

Coreleone cadence,

Delivering “Tuesday Heartbreak”

By Hellfire Missile

 

Sunday he’s shouting

Out names of loved ones,

Consoling grieving families

 

Tuesday he’s renaming

Children “Collateral Damage,”

Reducing family trees to charcoal

 

Sunday he’s condemning

The coward who killed

Innocent Americans

Making Love Boats for

Boys’ and girls’ bathtubs

 

Tuesday he’s pinning

Cheap Chinese-made medals

On hollow chests of

Cowards at consoles—

Crawling contradictions—

From Shmuck Cheney or

Alte kaker McCain—

Mule-heads might be marching!

 

Raymond Nat Turner can be contacted at upsurgejazz.com.

 

Raymond Nat Turner © 2013 Al 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


  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    We Are All Somalia
    10 Dec 2025
    Donald Trump’s anti-Somali rants are not directed solely at members of that group. All Black/African people are seen as suspects, as ungrateful criminals who are deserving of punishment and scorn.…
  • ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    Lifting the Veil on International Human Rights Day: How Gaza Exposed the Oxymoron of Western Values and Human Rights
    10 Dec 2025
    The genocide in Gaza has torn off the West’s human rights mask. This naked colonial violence demands a new path where rights are won through people's struggle, not granted by the very states that…
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    INTERVIEW: “We have to be together to withstand the fury of this wounded beast…” Shirley Graham Du Bois, 1975
    10 Dec 2025
    “...the point was to come together to stand against the common enemy. And this is the lesson that I hope we learn…”
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Women for Peace Collaborate to Support Rwanda, Congo, and Rwandan Political Prisoner Victoire Ingabire
    10 Dec 2025
    CODEPINK is collaborating with the International Women’s Network for Democracy and Peace, which works for peace and democracy in Africa, on a webinar on Rwanda, Congo, and the case of Rwandan…
  • Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    DUI Hire
    10 Dec 2025
    "DUI Hire" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us