by BAR poet-in-Residence Raymond Nat Turner
Put an APB out, forthwith, posthaste on
Dem Nuremberg Negroz, assets in alligator combat boots,
Armani flak jackets, suede suicide vests and Louis Vuitton
Saddlebags packed with C-4, impostors posing as peoples’ servants,
Quit haunting me, Amiriman
by BAR poet-in-Residence Raymond Nat Turner
Ahhhh, ahhhh, ahhhh, ahhhhh— Amiri, quit haunting me…
“Get up,” he says, “Go to your growley — Fred Douglass did it,
Wright did it, Sterling did it, Langston did it, Jimmy B and I did it!”
Those who know—know… “Go to your growley, go to your growley!”
Rhythmically repeating his chant, “Go to your growley, go to your growley,
Dahomey Dance, stagger, stumble, go forward faster — it’s a Nike thing —
Go, find the small vial of truth serum and dump it in your expensive Ethiopian
Coffee, or drink it straight, like Red Bull or5-Hour Energy Drink…”
Go to your growley and put an APB out, forthwith, posthaste on
Dem Nuremberg Negroz traveling by Trojan horse, arriving by
Mule, riding bareback and backwards — Skip Gates’
Arresting officer offering free field sobriety tests…
Put an APB out, forthwith, posthaste on
Dem Nuremberg Negroz, assets in alligator combat boots,
Armani flak jackets, suede suicide vests and Louis Vuitton
Saddlebags packed with C-4, impostors posing as peoples’ servants,
Preachers and public intellectuals—serial killers, code-switching from
Shuffling to goose-stepping, war whooping, tomahawk chopping, aiding
And abetting corporate war crimes, crimes against peace and humanity!
Put an APB out, forthwith, posthaste on
Dem Nuremberg Negroz, armed and extremely dangerous, lying
Motionless like crocodiles, or crawling on red, white and blue bellies, like servile
Waiters who took universal, single-payer, healthcare “off the table,” or launching
Themselves on land, them bloodthirsty Black Caucus elements, high as drones,
Them serial killers hangin’ out ‘round the Offal Office, Takeout Tuesdays and
Tying off their arms with rope Shell used for lynching Ken Saro Wiwa — happy-
Dancing every Hellfire Missile striking its target, transforming wedding parties
Into funerals, wives to widows, children to orphans, 52 Tuesday Heartbreaks X 8…
Put an APB out, forthwith, posthaste on
Dem Nuremberg Negroz loitering ‘round the Rouge Garden like laser-eyed frat
Boys, in Rove states of mind, beltin’8 Ball; smokin’ crack through thighbones of
Afghan freedom fighters; rollin’ blunts in singed skin of Somali men, and
Snacking on decapitated, shredded, cluster bombed babies, in minced goat flesh,
White phosphorus-grilled Palestinian teen in tender Pakistani elder Tartare —
And ain’t nothin’ but a party at Unca Jim’s Jihad Joint, special op out Fort Sumter
Servin’ muthafuckas hot wings off Predator Drones, half a world away!
Put an APB out, forthwith, posthaste on
Dem Nuremberg Negroz gnashing plutonium teeth, slurring known-knowns and
Unknown-knowns: killing rag-heads, killing camel-jockeys, killing sand-niggers,
Gooks, chinks, crushing Occupy, plotting coups in Cuba, Venezuela and Ecuador
Put an APB out, forthwith, posthaste on
Dem Nuremberg Negroz, agents of General Dynamics, General Electric,
Haliburton and Boeing, charlatans who tolt you Rosa sat
So Martin could stand, so de Wehrmacht could run
Amok fo’ regime change we can believe in, a Northrup-Grummond
Negro Commander-in-Chief in “charge” of Raytheon’s representation of
Dr. King’s dream” of protecting black pus oozing from Mother Africa’s
Womb through humanitarian interventions…
Put an APB out, forthwith, posthaste on
Dem Nuremberg Negroz, night-raid, Cruise Missile, shock and awe shamans,
“Make me do it,” mule shit-smelling minstrels of militarism, playing Goebbels
Games with underwear-shoe bomb plots, killing Black folk softly, with Nobelpeace
PrizeNAACPImageAwards for Warlordin’ — an Iceberg Slimmed down version of
Il Duce— Il Duce on a “Yes we can!” diet…
Put an APB out, forthwith, posthaste on
Dem Nuremberg Negroz, haul they asses, like low-hanging fruit, into The Hague
With Milosevic-Charles Taylor harvests, or into Harlem’s Apollo, where Black
Folk like justice, love shows! Like the Men’s Wearhouse, I guarantee, they’d get
Fair trials: Lynne Stewart, Mumia Abu Jamal, Russell Maroon Shoatz, Leonard Peltier, Mutlu Shakur, Sekou Odinga, Hugo Pinell, Kiilu Nyasha, Anthony Monterio, Alton Maddox, Soffiyah Ellijah, Pam Africa, Asata Shakur, presiding…
Much of the internet chatter over low- hanging fruit issues fails to address our material realities within a settler colony.
In Langston’s home Harlem You do as Langston Did Love the Jazz, the Blues, Words, acts, pages and stages In Langston’s home Harlem You do as Langston Did
Opera singer and producer Earl Hazell reminds us that standing up for artists and their vision is standing up for free speech, democracy, and ourselves.
This week our readers discussed black feminism and the alleged killing of Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. We print your letters for “
Instead of succumbing to xenophobia and nativism, as with anti-Somali sentiment in Kenya or ADOS in the US, we need to pursue freedom in ways that speak to our differences.
