Bloody hands of state
by BAR poet-in-residence Raymond Nat Turner
1. Armed and dangerous
Handcuffs of unity,
Tasers of truth, Glocks
Of justice, teargas of
Solidarity, walkie-talkies
Tuned to frequencies of
LOVE—young and strong,
Marching all night long, 135
Days and counting, turning up
Street heat, scorching Wall Street
Like Sherman’s march through Georgia
Our best chance for justice,
Our best chance for peace…
Young and strong, marching
All night long, Davids,
Outflanking Goliath ,
Sweeping streets, attracting
Anti-war, living -wage,
Climate justice and Occupy
Filings like a humongous magnet
170
Cities on moral
High ground in war for
Hearts and minds…
Young and strong, marching
All night long on search and
Destroy missions, uprooting,
Overturning, anything decayed
False, hypocritical, irrational—
Each desperate COINTELPRO
Blow to disrupt, misdirect
Otherwise neutralize young
Warriors, backfiring like
Hoopties on the Harbor/110
II. Giant with feet of clay
Forces for forced-feeding,
Waterboarding, Hellfire
Missile murder, for-
Closures, homelessness,
Joblessness, hunger and
Shuttered schools reign
Rubber-coated steel
Bullets, baton blows,
Absurd arrests and
Charges, flash-bang bombs
Goliath-like on Davids—
Rein flame-throwing FOX-
Box foot soldiers, grand-
Children of Goebbels,
Rein toxic Reich judge
Janine, warheads Hannity,
O’Reilly and Limbaugh,
High priests of torture
Urinating fire on heads
Of hay, blessing their
Bodies with fracking fluid …
The state’s bloody palm prints
Stain T-shirts, hashtags, astro-
Turf rallies, agent provocateurs’
Orange fingers of flame, blackening
Ferguson and leaving Oakland streets
The crunch of shattered glass…
The state’s bloody palm prints
Stain our psyches, crimson batik—
13 years of ‘mowing the grass’
Murdering millions of Iraqis,
Afghans, Pakistanis, Libyans,
Syrians, Somalis, Palestinians —
No wonder we welcome David!
III. MK Ultra?
Talking heads trotted out,
Tight formation, narrative
Neatly wrapped around
Neon trail and bio of a
Baltimore Oriole flying
North dropping sound-bite,
Mash-up, composite,
Caricature crumbs
Along the way —
Suspiciously Sirhan…
Why so close to astro-
Turf rally? Blue lives
Hashtag? Why those two?
Could this be de ja vu—
Another coup…?
Raymond Nat Turner © 2014 All Rights Reserved
Ben Passmore is the author of the graphic novel: “Black Arms to Hold You Up: A History of Black Resistance,” published by Pantheon Books. Ben Passmore is an award-winning political cartoonist who has…
The latest interference from the United Nations ensures that Haiti’s “gang” problem will continue and that its cause, an illegitimate governing structure brought about by the UN, U.S. and their…
“We, the people, charge genocide.”
In practice, the UN Charter ensures that the world’s most powerful nations are free to wage war at will without UN intervention or even censure, as the US has time and again.
"enemy within" is the latest from BAR's Peat-in-Residence.
