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
Dr. Melina Abdullah is Director of Black Lives Matter Grassroots and Co-Founder of Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles. She is also a Professor of Pan-African Studies at California State University Los…
Dr. Kristen Budd is a Research Analyst with the Sentencing Project. She joins us from Washington to discuss their new report, “Increasing Public Safety by Restoring Voting Rights.” The report…
Margaret Kimberley was a guest on the Sputnik program, The Final Countdown, with hosts Ted Rall and Manila Chan. In this excerpt, she discusses the announcement of Joe Biden’s re-election campaign.
People in the U.S. venerate its violent history, support violence committed by the state, and remain very racist, yet express shock when individuals kill and maim.
On the 153th anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Lenin, we present Harry Haywood’s theoretical work on imperialism, capitalism, and Black self-determination which emphasizes the importance of Lenin…
