by BAR poet-in-residence Raymond Nat Turner
Unsettling settlers settle settling like sulfur over UN peace talks. Unsettling settlers settle neighborly disputes using police like cavalry and Kit Carson Indian killers going West.
Stein Bop Blues March On Gentrifiers
by BAR poet-in-residence Raymond Nat Turner
Shhhhhhhh
Decibel Dictators dislike drumming pouring
Poly-rhythms out windows of the Casquelord
Center, poly-rhythms propelling rainbows of
Glistening dancers into ecstatic community…
Shhhhhhhh
They’re bothered by Baptist, get-down Gospel
Choir rehearsal sparks, charging joyful noise
Spilling on to streets from stained glass windows …
Shhhhhhhh
BBQs by the Lake bother them, too. Perhaps
It’s loud laughter, line-dancing, clacking of
Black and white dominoes on tables, smells
of spicy foods feeding faces happy against all odds?
Shhhhhhhh
Maybe it’s not verbs bothering them? Maybe it’s
Nouns—Vooodo Children born of suspicious skin
Tone? Ebony, mocha, chocolate tones of thugs and
Thieves heard in creaking floorboards, rustling drapes
Unwelcome at home
Shhhhhhhh
We are Africans—Africa’s all humanity’s birthplace—
Mostly proletarians. ‘They’ are Europeans:
Italians, Irish, Polish, Scottish, etc., chasing their tales
shadowboxing ‘whiteness’ white noise next door.com
Techno-coated crackkkers, criminal lineage on Ohlone
Land…
Shhhhhhhh
It was Ohlone land Ohlone land it was was it Oholone land
They swiped with lead lead lead the way for swiping and flipping
Flipping and swiping swiping and flipping flipping houses like
flapjacks flipping people with blackjacks heads they win tails we
Lose…
Shhhhhhhh
History repeats repeats itself
History repeats repeats itself
History repeats repeats itself
History repeats repeats itself
Manifest Destiny Destiny Manifested Jerry had a plan a
10K Plan Jerry had a 10K Plan and a Pacifica program
‘We The People’ Jerry had a plan a 10K plan a 10K plan
10K plan resembling 3K plans 3K plans for Schaafing us
History repeats repeats itself
History repeats repeats itself
History repeats repeats itself
History repeats repeats itself
Unsettling settlers settle settling like sulfur over UN peace
Talks Unsettling settlers settle neighborly disputes using police
like cavalry and Kit Carson Indian killers going West Unsettling
settlers settle settling like pesticides on gardens
Killing everything living Unsettling settlers settle settling on whizzing
by whistling “Dixie” as they “Look away, look away” Unsettling settlers
settle settling in Tha Town rather than quietude of Tha Creek, or ‘Cord
Like libraries on putting greens…
Shhhhhhhh
History repeats repeats itself
History repeats repeats itself
History repeats repeats itself
History repeats repeats itself
Unsettling settlers settle settling on suspicious sub-prime activity
Suspicious scarlet streaks from Wells Fargo BoA and Fannie Mae
Unsettling settlers settle settling Post Racial debates in the Age of
Austerity we work too hard walking open-coated wide berths revealing
Weaponless palms showing we are not shady up to no good not potential
Threats to keep techno-coated crackkkers comfortable and at ease to keep
White noise next door.com down…
Shhhhhhhh
History repeats repeats itself
History repeats repeats itself
History repeats repeats itself
History repeats repeats itself
Automatic, systematic hardwired DNA they’re ‘race’ machines watch ‘em
Get down clicking mouses playing ‘race’ cards doing old jobs every Euro—
No matter how dirt poor—did: check challenge question Blacks about
‘Traveling papers’ “There’s cotton/tobacco to be picked, where you goin’,
boy/gal, who’s your masta?”
Shhhhhhhh
Ducks, quiet geese, they came for Occupy, next they’ll come for you….
Raymond Nat Turner can be contacted at upsurgejazz.com
Raymond Nat Turner © 2015 All Rights Reserved
Read against the terrible incineration of Rafah today, this poem of resistance and refusal, by Palestinian poet Samih al-Qasim, is as powerful now as it was fifty years ago.
I spoke to William Sakawa, a producer and reporter with the Nairobi-based media outlet African Stream, about Kenyan President William Ruto’s agreement to invade Haiti for the US.
"Hearing! Hearing! Hearing!" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
This week’s featured authors are Jeanelle K. Hope and Bill V. Mullen. Their book is The Black Antifascist Tradition: Fighting Back From Anti-Lynching to Abolition.
Despite the undeserved loyalty of Black people to the Democratic Party, lawmakers continue to push policy that ignores concerns about climate change and environmental damage in their communities.
