by BAR poet-in-residence Raymond Nat Turner
I know a place where there’s more law in muzzles of Glocks and Tasers than in Supreme Court decisions; a place where gunmen, triggermen turn traffic tickets into death sentences
a place…
by BAR poet-in-residence Raymond Nat Turner
“do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under foot and turn to attack you…”—Jesus, Sermon on the Mount
I know a place where
Failed jocks and bullies
go and act out Night Train
Lane, LT wannabe fantasies
Tackling unsuspecting cyclists,
Tackling citizens standing in front
of hotels, and on sidewalks; A
place where sadists pepper-spray
Peaceful protestors, straddle women
and beat them on sides of freeways
I know a place where
reporter/stenographers suck up, mayors
fear to tread, and Duncan’s is hog heaven
for surly bodyguards of Homelessness,
Poverty
and Unemployment, robotically jamming
knees into backs and necks, smashing fists
into faces and feeling the bones shatter;
and breaking arms over knees.
A place superior size and strength are
Useful for intimidating and carrying out cruelties
Against smaller, weaker, people; a place where
grunts, barks and mad howls of poisonous slurs,
venomous epithets are spat day and night, like a
leaky faucet oozing patriotic pus—stinking raw
Sewage; a place where pulling pranks,dirty tricks
monkeyshine-shenanigans, mocking, taunting,
Tormenting, harassing, persecuting, the aggrieved,
Injured and dead is 'policy.'
I know a place where
Walking law suits, frat-boy klansmen with bigger
Budgets—less accounting and accountability—
Loiter; a place where troublemakers look for and
Make trouble, conjure chaos and instability—start
Shit, to stop it. A place where they speed, drive
Recklessly, and view people paying them as
subhuman, ‘perps,’‘vics,’ walking ten-ring targets—
Bulls-eyes—a place to dis the mayor and draw a check;
A place where, as
Crime is spiraling downward like dirty dishwater down
the drain, jobs look more and more museum-like, like
Stagecoach drivers and Pony Express riders…
I know a place where
Loma Prieta, Katrina, Sandy, and rag-tag bands of
Occupy, exposed how tits-on-bullish breaking into
Peoples’ homes planting cameras looking, listening to
Love, shouting, arguing is; how tits-on-bullish
Robbing drug-dealers, stealing and selling evidence on
the streets is; how tits-on-bullish carrying ‘war bags’—
Dope, stolen guns, filed-off serial #s for demolishing
Dreams, destroying lives, families, communities, one
False charge at a time is; and how, tits-on-bullish,
Chuckling, and belly laughing at sociopathy is…
I know a place where
there’s more law in muzzles of Glocks and Tasers
Than in Supreme Court decisions; a place where
Gunmen, triggermen turn traffic tickets into death
Sentences; a lawless place where confederate
commandoes fire flash-bang grenades into baby
Cribs, slaughter seven-year-olds in their sleep, then get
Two weeks on the beach, with pay; a place where ‘roid-
raging death squads bring bloodlust back from Iraq,
Afghanistan, Vietnam, Guatemala, The Philippines—
firing forty-one shots at wallets, fifty, or135—
Pick a number—at cars; shooting men sprinting away,
Summarily executing homeless and mentally ill men and
women for felonies of poverty; a place like killing floors for
Leaving
Human beings blooming blood pools, bleeding out,
Twitching like cockroaches or rats, last flickers of light
Fading; a place so fuckin’ cool for shooters putzing around with
Yellow tape and
Harassing humanitarians, good samaritans and medical professionals
About 'Golden Windows' and serious business of saving lives…
I know a place where all of this is possible—if only you chant five
Magic words—like the Buddhist chant 'Om:' “I feared for my life—”
Oink, if you know this place!
Raymond Nat Turner can be contacted at upsurgejazz.com
Raymond Nat Turner © 2015 All Right Reserved
for Aiyana, for Tommie, for Jordan.
In excerpts from a speech given in Accra, Ghana, BAR editor and contributor Dr. Jemima Pierre highlights the United Nations’ involvement in the 2004 coup d'état and the subsequent…
Washington, D.C., is implementing a new campaign intended to crack down on fare evasion. This bill, like many others of its kind, will serve as a tool deployed in the ongoing war against the…
Mozambique is experiencing a period of unrest provoked by recent elections. After unending suffering under neoliberal austerity measures and the encroachment of AFRICOM, the …
The fires that have been raging in southern California for days are destroying the cities and homes of tens of thousands of people. This disaster, driven by the worsening climate crisis, is…
