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

Amiri made me think…
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
25 Feb 2014
🖨️ Print Article

by Raymond Nat Turner

What muthafracker would

Bomb the Motherland and

Call it humanitarian? Mc Cain?

 

Amiri made me think…

by Raymond Nat Turner

 

I.

Errrrrrh… Errrrrrh… Errrrrrh… Errrrrrh…

Calling all Africans

All Africans

Africans

Africans

All humanity, anyone human, humane

Calling all Africans

All Africans

Africans

Africans

Continental and Diasporic—

Flaunt dense temporal

Lobes, clutch elephant

Memories in the

Age of…Austerity

Age of…Alzheimer’s

Political dementia!

 

Errrrrrh… Errrrrrh… Errrrrrh… Errrrrrh…

Calling all Africans

All Africans

Africans

Africans

Clutch memories of the

Pyramid scheme that

Kidnapped and brought us here

It rattles in its death

Throes and must be buried

 

Remember when we

Were light workers,

Sentinels of light,

Righteous star seeders

Helping bring it down?

 

Emit infrasounds if

You hear me when I

Say this muthafracker’s

A marathon—not a sprint—

An inevitable struggle

For socialism, no speed-

Bump, Iceberg Slim or

Supposed third road can stop,

Amiri made me think…

 

II.

Errrrrrh… Errrrrrh… Errrrrrh… Errrrrrh…

Calling all Negroz

Mentally ill— fidgety,

Flighty, dialed into dumb shit

Losing all ability

To analyze, THINK

Independently, carry

On conversations,

Respond to the environment

 

Yeah, there’s power in

The Now, but memory

Peels cataracts from

Third eyes, so we peer

Into futures free of fractured

Spirits, cupped hands, crimson

Streets and filthy rivers…

Amiri made me think

 

III.

Amiri made me think

What muthafracker would

Bomb the Motherland and

Call it humanitarian? Mc Cain?

 

Which one could turn the

Earthquake in Haiti

Into military operations,

The buzzards’ banquet for

Disaster capitalists? Buffett?

 

Which one would invite

Another brother for beer

With his arresting officer,

Clarence Thomas? Shaq?

 

Which muthafracker

Could march on Morehouse

Give a“Niggeraintshit!”

Commencement address &

Get a standing ovation?

Rush? O’Reilly? Hannity?

 

Which one would watch BP

Blow up the Macondo Well,

Kill eleven workers,

Millions of mussels, shrimp,

Crabs, sea turtles and birds &

Call it the Big Bank Theory/

Too Big To Jail? Bush? Palin?

 

Heard this PhD professor proclaim:

It’s the complexitiesandnuancesofthepracticalapplicationofthehistorical

ContinuationofpostracialimperialisttesticularprowessofpaxAmericana—

Anyway, an unlettered, low-life,

Like me wouldn’t understand,

So he “unpacked” it of bovine odor,

Broke it down into laymen’s language

Like The “Wink-wink, Nod-nod strategy—”

In other words, Iceberg Slim bombed Africa

Wink-wink, Nod-nod, to fool white folks

That way, it don’t look like he playin’ favorites,

But, soon as he free from them Repubicans and

Outta office and set up his foundation he be

Free to give Africa all the aid it need…

 

Errrrrrh… Errrrrrh… Errrrrrh… Errrrrrh…

Errrrrrh… Errrrrrh… Errrrrrh… Errrrrrh…

Amiri made me think—

Marx & Lenin let me look…

 

Raymond Nat Turner can be contacted at upsurgejazz.com.

 

Raymond Nat Turner © 2014 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


  • UN resolution vote
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Crime Against Humanity
    03 Apr 2026
    Kwesi Pratt Jr. is General Secretary of the Socialist Movement of Ghana.
  • Stop the SAVE Act
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Votes Jeopardized by the SAVE Act
    03 Apr 2026
    The SAVE Act would require proof of U.S. citizenship to be presented in person in order to register to vote in this country and would disenfranchise millions of people who are currently able to vote…
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    A Weak Left Stands By as Russia Stands Up for Cuban Sovereignty
    01 Apr 2026
    Russia finally makes good on promises to help Cuba, but its level of commitment is unclear. The left are clearly immobilized, even as Iran demonstrates how to fight back.
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: Against Nuclear Imperialism, Kwame Nkrumah, 1960
    01 Apr 2026
    “We are not freeing ourselves from centuries of imperialism and colonialism only to be maimed and destroyed by nuclear weapons.”
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Rwanda’s 30-Year Assault on Congo: The Crimes, the Criminals, and the Cover-up
    01 Apr 2026
    Rwanda’s 30-year Assault on the Democratic Republic of Congo, a new 80-page title from Baraka Books, gets straight to the essentials.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us