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


  • Sarah Jama in Parliament
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Canadian Politician Under Attack for Palestine Solidarity
    03 May 2024
    El Jones joins us to discuss the case of Sarah Jama, a member of Ontario’s provincial parliament, who has been banned from wearing a keffiyeh while in that legislature and censured for expressing…
  • Map of occupied Palestine and surrounding region
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist , Danny Haiphong , BAR contributor
    Iran just Scored HUGE Victory over Israel and the IDF will be Destroyed
    01 May 2024
    Margaret Kimberley joined Danny Haiphong in China to react to developments in Iran and Israel's ongoing war escalations and what this means about the future of waning US dominance in the region and…
  • Students for Justice in Palestine
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Repression of Campus Palestine Solidarity Reveals the Nature of the State
    01 May 2024
    Campus protests in solidarity with Palestine have been met with brute police force and condemnation of the participants. Their mobilization is a threat to the political system, which cannot operate…
  • Henry Lous Gates Article
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: Black Demagogues and Pseudo-Scholars: a Dissenting View, Prof. John Henrik Clarke, 1992
    01 May 2024
    Read John Henry Clarke’s response to Henry Louis Gates’s demagoguery as he maliciously deploys a critique “Black anti-semitism” to ingratiate himself with the white zionist power elite.
  • Raymond Nat Turner
    Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Dis-honest Broker
    01 May 2024
    "Dis-honest Broker" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence, recently performed at UpSurge!NYC at Sister's Bookstore in Harlem, NY. The show was a celebration of National Poetry and Jazz…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us