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

Red Alert
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
14 Dec 2016
šŸ–Øļø Print Article

by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

Now that Democrats are practically out of office, corporate donors are sponsoring empty spectacles of their own design, including another Climate March.

Red Alert

by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

A Love Supreme,

A Love Supreme…

For Mother Earth and

Her creatures, her gifts

A Love Supreme,

A Love Supreme…

Dangerous dance, lethal songs,

Powerful prayers—

From the four directions—

First Nations’ Spirit

Weapons of Mass Instruction

Amassing the world’s

Hearts and minds on the Cannonball…

A Love Supreme,

A Love Supreme…

For Mother Earth and

Her creatures, her gifts—

Water is life…

Capitalism death:

Profaning, poisoning, weaponizing water—

Greasy Gulf water wiping mussel, crab, shrimp out

brownish Flint water bearing brain-damaged babies

black Pennsylvania prison water causing

Cancer; and young inmates hair to fall out…

Calling all R2P People

Come in R2P People!

Calling all Sanctions People

Come in Sanctions People!

Calling all No-Fly Zone People

Come in No-Fly Zone People!

Calling all Blockade People

Come in Blockade People!

Where’s the hue and cry:

ā€œHe’s using chemical weapons—

Gassing, torturing his own people;

Cracking down on dissent, freedom

of speech, freedom of expression?

Where’s the tom-toms pulsing ā€œregime changeā€,

ā€œregime changeā€ ā€œregime changeā€ ā€œregime changeā€?

Calling all People’s Climate Marchers—

All 300,000 of you

Come in People’s Climate Marchers

Maybe you’re busy since Matthew hit Haiti—

Killing over a thousand?

Calling all People’s Climate Marchers—

All 300,000 of you

Come in People’s Climate Marchers—

Your Cochabamba moment flares up like

Ken Saro-Wiwa’s spirit in Ogoni water warriors

In Water Protectors fighting Flint

Terror on the Missouri, protecting our

Lifeblood 7 generations deep—

Needing a ā€˜surgeā€™ā€”ā€˜boots on the ground’

Money for fighting absurd arrests

Medical supplies for tending class-war wounds…

Fluent in Forked Tongue—the Drone Ranger declares

November ā€œNative American Monthā€ā€”morphing into

cross-dressing klansmen, reenacting hi-tech

Attacks taking down Occupy

Calling all People’s Climate Marchers—

All 300,000 of you

Come in People’s Climate Marchers:

come make me eat crow—make me a liar;

Make me apologize

for saying you were ā€˜white’ folks first—

Lovers of land, peoples, creatures last…

For saying the prison-industrial-complex was

Cool with you, if only inmates wore

Recycled rubber sneakers; orange jumpsuits of

Organic cotton; beatings with bamboo batons only

Make me apologize

For saying you were OK with

Empire if electric Humvees and tanks, and

Solar-powered aircraft carriers were deployed

Calling all People’s Climate Marchers—

All 300,000 of you

Come in People’s Climate Marchers:

Forgive me, for a few of you have gone—

From the four directions—

Smuggling Sitting Bull spirit salve, love balm, in

Eyes of Ida, hearts of Harriet, spines of John Brown

Tongues of Douglass—

Metal detectors, strip searches

Rarely detect…

Raymond Nat Turner Ā© 2016 All Rights Reserved

Raymond Nat Turner is an acclaimed poet and performance artist. find much mopre of his work at http://usspurgejazz.com

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


More Stories


  • Audre Lorde’s Revolutionary Contribution to Black Political Thought
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Audre Lorde’s Revolutionary Contribution to Black Political Thought
    29 Mar 2021
    Black poet and feminist Audre Lorde showed her socialist and revolutionary colors in the wake of the US invasion of Grenada, her parent’s birthplace, in 1983, said Jack Turner, pro
  •  US Black Elite Tied to Capitalism, Not Black Liberation
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    US Black Elite Tied to Capitalism, Not Black Liberation
    29 Mar 2021
    ā€œIf we want to have Black liberation, we have to abolish capitalism to do that,ā€ said Kandista Mallett, an activist and columnist for Teen Vogue magazine who authored a recent colu
  •  Expect ā€œLip Serviceā€ from Biden on Immigration Reform
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Expect ā€œLip Serviceā€ from Biden on Immigration Reform
    29 Mar 2021
    We have already seen Joe Biden’s immigration policy, during his eight years as vice president under Barack ā€œDeporter-in-Chiefā€ Obama, said Deborah A., a national organizer with the
  • Freedom Rider: Establishment Role in Anti-Asian Bigotry
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: Establishment Role in Anti-Asian Bigotry
    24 Mar 2021
    Joe Biden is no better than Trump in advocating de facto white supremacy with his foreign policy, and corporate media fan the flames of anti-Chinese racism.
  • New Global Alliance Defends UN Charter in Clear Rebuke of U.S. Imperialism
    Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
    New Global Alliance Defends UN Charter in Clear Rebuke of U.S. Imperialism
    24 Mar 2021
    The United States has long positioned its imperial ambitions as the definition of international law and rejected entirely the spirit and authority of the U.N. Charter.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us