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

Circus on Capitalist Hill (Comey don’t play that…)
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
13 Jun 2017
🖨️ Print Article

by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

Big doings this week up there between the War House and the Rogues Garden. Our poet reports on the show, clowns, cloven hooves and all.

 

Circus on Capitalist Hill (Comey don’t play that…)

by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

A senile clown questions the wind
Hearing what he’s heard
hundreds of times before:
Step right up, ladies and gentlemen
into the smoke and
mirror swamp, draining
Anything not nailed down

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen
to sideshow puppetry
Millionaire-billionaire buffoonery
Crooked clowns hiding behind corkscrews
Conniving clowns with
cloven hooves and horns
turning fruits of our labor
into ATMs

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen
suspend disbelief,
Don’t follow the money
pay No attention to
1% pickpockets
Working the perimeter

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen
enter the Capitalist Hill,
War House, Rogue Garden,
Offal Office, White
Supreme Court matrix—
Big Top, bleaching brains,
fooling fools and babies
Riding bareback and backwards
on donkeys and elephants
Babbling ‘bout “our democracy”

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen
See the greatest show on turf
pebbles posing as diamonds,
Fascism as ‘democracy’
with redacted rights…

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen
See the clown trick
Un-framing, freeing an Indigenous
Warrior caged four decades

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen
See the clown trick
sliding cells open pneumatically,
Freeing COINTELPRO, Black Power
political prisoners, prisoners of war—

“I didn’t think so— Comey don’t play that…”

Raymond Nat Turner © 2017 All Rights Reserved
Raymond Nat Turndr is an acclaimed poet and performance artist. find much more of his work at http://upsurgejazz.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


  • Orinoco Tribune
    Venezuela: Diosdado Cabello and Delcy Rodríguez Justify Controversial Alex Saab Deportation Amid Growing Backlash
    20 May 2026
    Delcy Rodríguez insists that every decision made since January 3 serves to benefit Venezuela. The deportation of Alex Saab to the U.S. discredits that claim.
  • Ahmed Kaballo
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Ahmed Kaballo on the France Africa Summit
    15 May 2026
    Margaret Kimberley of Black Agenda Report speaks to Ahmed Kaballo, founder of Nairobi-based Sovereign Media, about the Africa Forward summit with France, the Pan-Africanism Summit Against Imperialism…
  • PSAI
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Alliance for Peace Africa Team Reports from the Pan-Africanism Summit Against Imperialism
    15 May 2026
    The Black Alliance for Peace was invited to send a delegation to the Pan-Africanism Summit Against Imperialism (PASAI) in Kenya, a counter-summit to the imperialist Africa Forward convening. Africa…
  • PSAI
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Communist Party Marxist Kenya at the Pan-Africanism Summit Against Imperialism
    15 May 2026
    Booker Omole and Adjiambo Ashlyn of the Communist Party Marxist-Kenya speak to Black Agend
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    France Out of Africa! PASAI Shows the Way
    13 May 2026
    An international gathering of anti-imperialists in Nairobi, Kenya revealed the lies of “Africa Forward” as the presidents of France and Kenya made plans to continue the exploitation of a nation and…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us