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


  • MOVE Tulsa to Gaza…
    Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    MOVE Tulsa to Gaza…
    02 Jun 2021
    The Mass Shooting Of The Day— this time was in San Jose… Do you know the way to San Jose?
  • Before Tulsa there was Bethesda:  The Cover-up of MAAFA (Genocide) and the Continuation of State Sponsored Racial Terror
    Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, BAR editor and columnist
    Before Tulsa there was Bethesda:  The Cover-up of MAAFA (Genocide) and the Continuation of State Sponsored Racial Terror
    02 Jun 2021
    The Black community in Bethesda and descendants of those buried in Moses Cemetery demand an immediate halt to the destruction of their ancestors’ resting place.
  • Bob Wing’s Strategy to Build the “Anti-Racist State” to Replace the “Racist State” is Liberal Social Imperialist Nonsense
    Quetzal Cáceres
    Bob Wing’s Strategy to Build the “Anti-Racist State” to Replace the “Racist State” is Liberal Social Imperialist Nonsense
    02 Jun 2021
    What Wing has done is taken an important formulation and neutered it to serve neoliberal multiculturalism.
  • Biden is Anti-Haiti, and His Haitian-American Press Person Doesn’t Give a Damn
    Pascal Robert
    Biden is Anti-Haiti, and His Haitian-American Press Person Doesn’t Give a Damn
    02 Jun 2021
    The current Haitian president is perhaps the most ineffectual US stooge to date, but Joe Biden and his Haitian American press person couldn’t care less.
  • BAR Book Forum: Tamika Nunley’s “At the Threshold of Liberty”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Tamika Nunley’s “At the Threshold of Liberty”
    02 Jun 2021
    How Black women gave the term “liberty” its meaning and expanded the scope of liberty in the nation’s capital during the nineteenth century.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us