by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner
Terror Tuesday is what the White House calls the basement meetings at which the First Black President profiles and targets individuals and groups of people for summary assassination anywhere from Somalia to Standing Rock. Before Donald Trump even assumes the Oval Office, it's already the new normal.
Tuesday Takeout
by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner
The Commander has a menu:
Yemeni youth at an outdoor café
Grandmother, grandsons gardening okra
in Afghanistan
Hospital in Pakistan
Menu for us, too:
BP Seafood in Sauce of Crude
Gasoline Spill Soup
Bomb Train Tatar
Baked Buffoon’s overdone—
Stinks—like food poison on a plate;
PTS: Permission To Shudder,
Clinging to crimson combat boots
Of Golda-plated Iron Lady
Haliburton, Boeing, General Dynamic,
Monsanto, Exxon Chefs cut corners,
substitute cuts, pass off overpriced,
over-spiced, sodium-laden,
Empty calorie dishes as democracy
We have a menu too:
To our left, two doors down
Resistance Buffet—new dishes constantly—
Ain’t cheap—but all you can eat—filling,
stick to your ribs, seconds are cool—
Even thirds, fourths…of:
Lunch Counter Sit-in
Mass Meeting
Arab Spring Rolls
Tunisian Salad
Standing Rock Soup
Wildcat Strike
Ferguson Fries
Bus Boycott
Occupy/ Wisconsin Coffee
Raymond Nat Turner © 2016
All Rights Reserved
Raymond Nat Turner is an acclaimed poet and performance artist. You can find more of his work at http://upsurgejazz.com
Assata Shakur wrote the introduction and this poem for the 1990 book Hauling Up the Morning: writings & art by political prisoners and prisoners of war in the U.S.
They called Assata Shakur a fugitive; we claim her as a compass. Her work and her words will continue to chart the path toward our liberation.
The empire has a new plan for Haiti, a return to military occupation dressed up as humanitarianism. Like past occupations, it will only increase the suffering of Haiti's people.
While Gaza burns, a collaborationist class is being handed the keys to a prison and calling it a state, all in service to western imperialism.
Western nations complicit in occupation and genocide offer a fig leaf of sovereignty by recognizing a Palestinian state that in reality would still be occupied.
