by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner
Our poet in residence muses upon the collective madness engendered by the quadrennial presidential election.
Breathe the Bern…
by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner
Right around this time ‘left’ pundits and
Pontificators hitch worn star-spangled
suspenders to an ol’ mule and pretend they’re
Alcoholics— invoking the serenity prayer:
“God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things that I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.”
They claim theirs is the highest form of self-
discipline; like a form of Yoga, a sacred set of
Breathing exercises in 4yr-cycles—foundation of
their practice is regulation of oxygen to brain cells…
But it looks like the Hokey-Pokey:
You clamp your left nostril down,
Until it feels like you’ll drown…
You clamp your right nostril down,
Until your ‘hood’s like Jonestown—
Then you do the shit again in 4 yrs
As the wily 1% stokes your fears…
Set yourself back another decade
With the practicing of this charade…
Raymond Nat Turner © 2016 All Rights Reserved
This week our readers talked about the weakness of the U.S. left, the storming of the Capitol, and the crisis of U.S. imperialism.
Activist youth who weave deep histories of resistance together with anarchist, autonomous, and decolonial politics and urban culture.
Even those who are significantly marginalized act in ways that, unfortunately, inflict pain on others.
Support for pro-Trump Republicans remains driven by relatively well-off whites in fast-growing, rapidly diversifying suburbs – not by economic despair in rural America.
Each year in January as King is honored in the eyes of the public, there is little mention of the demands of the man and his mission: his fight for economic justice.
