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
In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book.
The mythology of Ethiopian independence is an impediment to understanding the current situation.
Author and organizer Frank Chapman joins Margaret Kimberley and Danny Haiphong to discuss his new book Marxist-Leninist Perspectives on Black Liberation and Socialism.
Despite U.S. sanctions, Cuba has succeeded in treating covid and has developed five different vaccines that are widely accepted by its population.
In 2021 the peoples of Latin American nations defied Washington by choosing the governments of their choice.
