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

2/4 Dance Don’t Cut It
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
18 Jan 2018
🖨️ Print Article
2/4 Dance Don’t Cut It
2/4 Dance Don’t Cut It

“Pay, or die…” the Death
Sentence Big Pharma-
Insurance Mob just issued
a neighbor; and a Frankenfood
experiment’s irritating my gut

The water smells swampy some days,
like bleach others; Tents grow in night
air like multi-colored mushrooms—crazy
cancer cells; Another school’s shuttered,
its teachers scattered in the wind, like
pencil sharpener shavings—Money for
Bombs, not for books—Wow, the wars
went from seven to nine this week…

Here they come again with Fear:
‘Freedom of Choice,’ binary bad
or worse options—hiking uphill
barefoot, in elephant excrement,
donkey dung to take one—with or
without Vaseline—from the1% again

I’m not sure I have another 8 yrs
for translating, deciphering slogans:
“Regime…change you can believe in!”
“Yes, we can…and bottle Jim Jones Juice!”
as silly spoils of celebrity-worship;
Isn’t it time for Adult Politics?

Isn’t it time to abandon Infantile
Exercises—searching for saviors
Every 2 to 4 yrs—and Nominate
Meeting More Than Four Corners;
Donate to Door-To-Door; Phone Bank
for Boycott; Campaign for Consciousness;
Support Shoe Leather-Street Heat running for
Raising roofs, planting food, curing cancer?

poetry

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


More Stories


  • Travis Ross
    Imperialist feminism: Canada funds compliance from Haitian human rights groups
    02 Oct 2024
    Canada uses Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to exert soft power and maintain its interests in Haiti. Its "feminist" foreign policy promotes an imperialist neoliberal agenda that funnels money…
  • Noah Shachtman
    The Secretive Alliance Between the New York Post and Eric Adams
    02 Oct 2024
    Rupert Murdoch’s paper helped elect Adams and hasn’t quite given up on him yet.
  • Natasha Lennard
    Meet the First Tenured Professor to Be Fired for Pro-Palestine Speech
    02 Oct 2024
    Maura Finkelstein was terminated by Muhlenberg College for an Instagram repost.
  • Jemima Pierre
    Jemima Pierre, BAR Editor and Contributor
    Haiti and the Crisis of Imperialism in the Caribbean
    02 Oct 2024
    Dr. Jemima Pierre delivered these remarks during her keynote address at the Launch of the Kwame Ture Memorial Lecture Series on June 9th, Trinidad and Tobago, sponsored by the Emancipation Support…
  • Black Agenda Radio
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio September 27, 2024
    27 Sep 2024
    This week, we learn about deadly abortion restrictions in the state of Georgia, where the lack of reproductive rights cost two Black women their lives. But first, we have an analysis of the 2024…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us