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


  • The Return of the Marines
    Thomas Peralte
    The Return of the Marines
    25 Aug 2021
    It’s hard to teach an empire new tricks. Once again, the U.S. Marines invade Haiti “for the umpteenth time” under the guise of humanitarian assistance.
  • Jailhouse Lawyers Speak calls for National Shut ‘Em Down Demonstrations
    Jailhouse Lawyers Speak
    Jailhouse Lawyers Speak calls for National Shut ‘Em Down Demonstrations
    25 Aug 2021
    Jailhouse Lawyers Speak call for Shut 'Em Down prison abolition actions in 2022.
  • Corruption, Pollution and Economic Crisis: The Cautionary Tale of T&T's Oil Industry
    Alexander Ramdass, Lisa Premchand, Gary Aboud
    Corruption, Pollution and Economic Crisis: The Cautionary Tale of T&T's Oil Industry
    25 Aug 2021
    Oil Reserves Don't Benefit the People of Trinidad and Tobago
  • The U.S. Empire’s Achilles Heel: Its Barbaric Racism
    Glen Ford , BAR executive editor
    The U.S. Empire’s Achilles Heel: Its Barbaric Racism
    18 Aug 2021
    More than nine years ago the late BAR publisher Glen Ford captured the essential character of the U.S.
  • Operation Tradewinds:  Collective Militarized White Supremacy and Black Neocolonialism in the Caribbean
    Gerald A. Perreira
    Operation Tradewinds: Collective Militarized White Supremacy and Black Neocolonialism in the Caribbean
    18 Aug 2021
    The People of the Caribbean and Latin America Must Say No to U.S. militarism and Subversion.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us