by BAR poet ion residence Raymond Nat Turner
Hope. Change. Yes we can. I'm with her. Or maybe not. Make America Stronger Together Again....
11/9
My lil’ 1.5 cents: What’s Trump Got To Do With It?
by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner
I.
They were 8-18
When “Hope and change” came: shouting
“Yes, we can”—and bottle Jim Jones Juice—
Waking, hung over from head-fixing: PSYOP
$campaign $elections—24 mos. cruel and
unusual punishment:
Three thousand down Broadway, in Oaktown;
5,000 through the loop, Chitown;
Ten thousand stepping off Union Square, NYC;
3,000 Capitol Hill, Seattle; The Common, Boston;
Streets in Austin—so on and so forth—
sundry tongues, tribes, nations, ages;
Rainbow beauty, International Working-
Class, Everyday People—majesty of the 99%,
one rainy day… division, math retarding us!
Instead of schooling children on how
Classes are lead by political parties—the
1% has 2 parties—we have none—and how
Politics Is War By Other Means:
muscle demanding more than
5min. Exercise Every 4 yrs.—
Dem in the War House—old fools, dupes, dopes
Discarded No-Doze and shut shutters like
Rip Van Winkles, 8 yrs on7 wars—cheering
Bombing from deep sleep…
11/9
Mule-headed, they awakened hysterical,
hand wringing, organizing yard sales, purchasing
one way tickets to drone-less, deportation-free utopias;
Political-prisoner-less paradise; Ignoring
the beloved Buddha’s teaching:
“…do not dream of the future, concentrate
the mind on the present moment…”
(Your Commander has 5 Tuesdays left…)
Delusions of democracy, devils doubling down on
Depravity—banana republic on the down low—
citizens blind to continuity of mass murder—
Unbroken thread of U.S. rule removing
The wrong man—installing the “strong man”—
The right man for the white man: chessmen,
Yes-men on the Devil’s chessboard:
Mobutu, Marcos, Shah, Somosa, Papa Doc,
Baby Doc, Batista, Pinochet…
Shock and Awe/Hope and Change—War House
Shots are Wall Street things called by Generals
Dynamic, Electric; Haliburton, Boeing, Raytheon, et al…
The 5th Fleet is still in Bahrain where killers train; Bases
are in nine hundred places like Baghdad, Basra, Qatar and
Kuwait while you wait…for consciousness to catch up…
II.
You must understand
That it’s more than this man
To the attack
Unity’s required
for a sustained fight-back
It’s systemic, we must act quick
We cannot ignore
The raging class war
We can’t be confused by strategy of the 1%
Resistance requires unity in our own big tent
We must admit that we don’t know shit
‘bout how $elections work
‘Cause we know too much about some pop star’s twerk—
What’s Trump got to do with it?
What’s Trump but a figurehead for Wall Street?
What’s Trump, but a racist thug and tax cheat?
They need a Trump where Forked Tongue is spoken
And the thread of class war is unbroken
What’s Trump got to do-got to do with it?
What’s Trump but a figurehead for Wall Street?
What’s Trump, but a racist thug and tax cheat?
III.
Power-down devices, turn off Fox-boxes—
Get Supreme, hands up, saying:
“Stop In The Name Of Love!”
Stop mourning Benito-Tojo Tribesmen fluent in
Forked tongue and bailing out
banksters; spinning “Drill, baby, drill”
Crowing, “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran”,
Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia…
Keeping “clean coal” on the table—single payer off;
“surges”, “black sites”, Black Lives, and “boots on the ground”—
Defending beanbag, rubber bullet, pepper spray, democracy…
Honor Ancestors: remember Mama Harriet, Nat, John Brown,
Douglass, Robeson, Rosa Luxemburg, Liebknecht,
Medgar, Malcolm, Martin, Fred Hampton;
Recite our political prisoners’ names ten times:
Jamil El-Amin, Peltier, Dave Gilbert, Maroon Shoatz, Abu Jamal, Chip Ftzgerald, Herman Bell, et al—
Since your phones are so fuckin’ smart—
Search their names before they die
Forgotten in gulags. We aren’t free until they are!
Unshackle superstition, goober dust,
black cat dander before your first suicide—
Smile, wink, nod; make eye contact. Say,
Salaam, Namaste, Kamusta, Hola, Hi, Whazzup?
Take Mental Health Months—52-weeks— from worthless ones:
War House, Capitalist Hill, White Supreme Court;
Note: checks and balances is checking
Swiss bank account balances for bribes.
Go Jehovah knocking on neighbors’ doors:
Assume a Lotus posture. Practice Kapalabhati breaths—
Think of Eric Garner
Put universal healthcare back on “the table”
Dialogue, discuss the Patriot Acting police state
Hug, lock arms, march in lockstep, supporting one another…
Act as thinkers, think as actors. Put forehead to socialism,
Shaping things to come…
If they stink of mule shit
Put boots up “leaders” asses of as far as legs allow—
For they are traitors—check their embalming fluid later!
Despite pomp, puffed out chests, shallow vanity
The prancing peacocks’ time’s short—like Third Reich
Thousand years, boiling down to 12 in a Berlin bunker…
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
“Cuba ... a free and sovereign state with no chains binding it to anyone...with no proconsuls directing its policy, can speak with its head held high.”
Minnesota pushed back against ICE until its visible presence seemed cut in half, but Trump does not forgive or forget, and it’s a time to be organized.
The party that installed its presidential candidate without a primary vote now blames its 2024 loss on everything except its own contempt for its base and allegiance to neo-liberal policies.
"SONNY" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
Six years ago, George Floyd was murdered by police. The reaction was swift - the streets erupted and demands to defund the police spread across the country. Yet, the response from Democrats was…
