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


  • Protesters take down US flag
    People’s Dispatch staff
    Puerto Ricans take to the streets against Kamala Harris’s visit
    27 Mar 2024
    Puerto Ricans protested Harris’ visit citing the ongoing US occupation of Puerto Rico and support to Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people.
  • Palestinian women marching in a protest
    Saher Al Khamash
    Palestinian women against bourgeois feminism – a commentary
    27 Mar 2024
    In the fight for the liberation of Palestine, reject the reactionary politics of bourgeois feminism and embrace a liberatory struggle led by Palestinian women.
  • Black Agenda Radio
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio March 22, 2024
    22 Mar 2024
    This week we hear about right wing forces in San Francisco who worked with the Black democratic mayor to criminalize poverty. But first Dr. Gerald Horne discusses Gaza and Ukraine, the contradictions…
  • Gerald Horne
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Dr. Gerald Horne Discusses the Crises of Imperialism
    22 Mar 2024
    Dr. Gerald Horne joins us to discuss US/Israeli policy driving the war crimes and genocide in Gaza. We also discuss the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine and other international issues.
  • Proposition F
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    San Francisco Criminalized Poverty
    22 Mar 2024
    Jemma Decristo joins us to discuss the passage of Proposition F in San Francisco and the criminalization of poverty and drug use.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us