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

Bloody hands of state
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
25 Dec 2014
🖨️ Print Article

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

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


More Stories


  •  Black Rebellions Less Frequent, But Police Response More Violent Than in Earlier Decades
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Black Rebellions Less Frequent, But Police Response More Violent Than in Earlier Decades
    25 May 2021
    “The rebellions of the Sixties were not the same as we witnessed last summer,” said Elizabeth Hinton, author of “America On Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Re
  •  Corporate Philanthropy Erodes Black Lives Matter Movement
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Corporate Philanthropy Erodes Black Lives Matter Movement
    25 May 2021
    Oppressed communities and political movements need money, but “I don’t believe that corporations can become partners” in people’s liberation, said Imani Wadud, a doctoral student a
  •  Racial Capitalism is the Kind We’ve Got, and Must Defeat
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Racial Capitalism is the Kind We’ve Got, and Must Defeat
    25 May 2021
    The issues of race and class are intertwined, and “we must fight against them simultaneously rather than trying to decide if racial or class exploitation came first,” said Justin Leroy
  •  Community Control of Police Advocates Poised to Win in Chicago
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Community Control of Police Advocates Poised to Win in Chicago
    25 May 2021
    A solid majority of the Chicago Board of Aldermen, including all the major caucuses, now supports a version of community control of police, said Frank Chapman, executive director o
  • Freedom Rider: The Palestine Litmus Test
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: The Palestine Litmus Test
    19 May 2021
    President Joe Biden continues to proclaim endless support of apartheid Israel, but millions have decided that defense of Palestinian rights and lives is the only civilized response to barbaric aggr
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us