by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner
Rotten apples aren't unique, points out our poet, and ain't caused by bad barrels. The rot's at the root, and roots run deep and true...
Rotten Orchards Givin’ Apples a Bad Name
by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner
Roots sunk deep in blood-soaked soil
Rotten orchard, two centuries strange fruit
Bushel after bushel, barrel after barrel, for
Generation after generation after generation…
Apples were devils to us; personification of
Evil in cruisers hunting us down in narrow
Glass-seeded L.A. alleys—then turning into
pale-faced serpents spitting, “Keep still, punk,
or I’ll bust your damn head open!” venom…
Roots sunk deep in blood-soaked soil
Rotten orchard, two centuries strange fruit
Bushel after bushel, barrel after barrel, for
Generation after generation after generation…
Apples so rotten and poisonous, even the
Worms were heard singing, “Fools rush in…”
and only blinded lovers were caught cooing,
“You are the apple of my eye…”
Apples so rotten and poisonous even Adam
rejected Eve’s first offer; and teachers acted
as though they’d been violated, if ever one
were left on his or her desk…
Apples so rotten and poisonous, “An apple a day
keeps the doctor away:” Quaalude-induced Hux-
tabullshit the Tree first auditioning for The Wizard
of Oz cried instead of keepin’ it real: “Please, pull
These poisonous, rotten muthafuckkkas from my
Limbs—get these rotten muthafuckkkas off of me!”
From bitter Patty Roller, flogging flavorful stripes—
to tart Burge Braeburn suffocating Chicagoans; from
Baltimore Burgundy, severing spines, to Ferguson
killing field Fuji/Wilson Winesap; from NYC’s
Bumpurs crop—wild growth, Pantaleo Pippin,
strangling Staten Island like Choker Vasquez and
Oakland-grown, Rotten Riders—to Miami McIntosh
cracking Arthur McDuffie’s skull like an egg; from
Detroit Delicious murdering Malice Green and Aiyanna
Jones—apple polishers spin sweet, crisp, juicy tales of
Orchards only yielding strange and bitter fruit…
Raymond Nat Turner © 2015 All Rights Reserved
Muriel Bowser is proving that Black faces in high places don’t break systems, they grease them. While slashing wages for tipped workers and handing billionaires stadium deals, D.C.’s mayor is the…
The Democratic Party would rather silence critics like Hogg than fix its own rot. Their reliance on Black Misleaders to do the dirty work exposes once again that the Democrats care more about power…
Malcolm X didn’t just fight for Black liberation—he waged war on empire itself. As U.S. militarism tightens its grip on Africa and beyond, his revolutionary internationalism burns brighter than ever…
Malcolm X understood that “oppressed peoples must commit themselves to radical political struggle in order to advance a dignified approach to human rights.” What’s needed is a bottom-up mass movement…
"A few lines for the Poet Ojenke..." is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
