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

Breathe the Bern…
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
20 Apr 2016
🖨️ Print Article

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

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


More Stories


  • Top Haiti Cop Specializes in Counter-Insurgency Intelligence Gathering and Repression
    Kim Ives
    Top Haiti Cop Specializes in Counter-Insurgency Intelligence Gathering and Repression
    16 Dec 2020
    Léon Charles, Haiti’s new national police chief, is a mass killer dedicated to suppressing the nation’s poor majority.
  •  Black Agenda Radio for Week of December 14, 2020
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Black Agenda Radio for Week of December 14, 2020
    15 Dec 2020
    Boxing is a Window on US Race and Class Pathologies
  • Mumia: Fear of Socialism
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Mumia: Fear of Socialism
    15 Dec 2020
    “Politicians have pulled out the fear card – socialism – to ensure that voters stay in their place,” said Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation’s best known political prisoner.
  • Democrats Deploy “Diversity” to Mask Renewed War and Austerity
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Democrats Deploy “Diversity” to Mask Renewed War and Austerity
    15 Dec 2020
    The “new regime is just a return to the old regime of endless austerity and war,” said Duboisian scholar Dr Anthony Monteiro, an organizer with the Philadelphia Saturday Free Schoo
  • Biden and Trump Not That Different on the Issues
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Biden and Trump Not That Different on the Issues
    15 Dec 2020
    President-elect Joe Biden “is not even giving a nod and a wink” to Medicare for All, despite its huge popularity among both Democrats and Republicans, said Dr Margaret Flowers, dir
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us