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

Weaponized Condolences of a Warfare State
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
18 Nov 2015
🖨️ Print Article

By BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

Terror attacks against French civilians have become the excuse du jour for the US surveillance state, for ramping up drone murders of other civilians, and military boots on the ground everywhere from Syria to south Philly.

Weaponized Condolences of a Warfare State

By BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

Blood, guts, severed heads and limbs
litter rubble. Blood has not had time to
coagulate. Wall Street piranha cry
crocodile tears on terror. Opening bomb 
bays, their “Hearts go out,” $110,000 a pop.
Job-creators of ruin, gift themselves another
War.

It could have been Port au Prince, Kinshasa,
Tripoli, Damascus, Baghdad, Boston, London,
NYC. But this time, it was The City of Lights.
Some of us listen to leaders without legs to
stand on, fooling fools and babies. We were
Briefly innocent; never naïve around shocking,
Awful carnage in our names—crimes against
Humanity…

The hospital bombing, Nobel Peace Prize-
winning war criminal cries anti-freeze tears.
Palestinians Feel the Bern of white phosphorus
in corporate catechism: “Yes, we can” seamlessly
wage endless war, and do regime “Change you
can believe in.” It’s still the New Amerikkkan Century
And a Golda-plated Iron Lady Rusts In Peace, waiting
on the wings of a Predator drone. She grows impatient
to Start smearing the paint—crimson, ivory, navy—
for War!

Electoral Lilliputians lost their minds and moral
compasses, trading organizing for orgasm with the
2nd Coming of Christ. They were once Anti-war
Activists. Now they’re just junkies with 7-year
itches—8-year hitches; eunuchs and nuns taking
Mule dung wafer vows of silence; worms, crawling
around searching for imaginary openings to ‘organize’
on the Commander’s watch.

The world can’t wait for them to become clean and
Sober!
The world can’t wait for them to quit organizing
Halloween parties. Parties dressing bogeymen on
elephants as the end of the world; War criminals  
on mules as Mother Theresa, scaring out the vote;
Helping fuel the Wehrmacht with Fear!

Raymond Nat Turner © 2015 All Rights Reserved

Besides being Black Agenda Report's poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner is an acclaimed poet and accomplished performance artist.  Find more of his work, and give your event an upsurge with the UpSurge Jazz Poetry Ensemble at http://www.upsurgejazz.com/

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


More Stories


  • Dr. CBS
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Dr. CBS on Trump's Black/Red Scare
    31 Jul 2026
    The U.S. Department of State released "Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism," which justifies the genocidal siege against that country while also attempting to criminalize leftist organizing.…
  • Kshama Sawant
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Kshama Sawant, Socialist Candidate for Congress
    31 Jul 2026
    Kshama Sawant is a former Seattle, Washington City Council Member best known for her role in raising the minimum wage to $21 per hour, the highest in the nation. She is now running for Congress in…
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Venezuela, Memory, and the Long Arc of U.S. Imperialism
    29 Jul 2026
    Memories of a sovereign Venezuela collide with the reality that it is now a U.S. vassal state.
  • ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    Neoliberalism to Trumpism: The Re-Normalization of White Supremacy as State Ideology
    29 Jul 2026
    The crisis of late-stage capitalism has stripped away the liberal disguise and revealed white supremacy as the official ideology of the U.S. state.
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    STATEMENT: Question of Western Sahara, Tinguiri Mansour Omar, 1979
    29 Jul 2026
    “It is perfectly clear that the war of aggression waged by Morocco against the [Western] Saharan people is a purely colonial war.”
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us