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


  • Jihad Abdulmumit and the Peoples' Senate
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Jihad Abdulmumit and the Peoples' Senate
    17 Feb 2023
    The upcoming introductory webinar of the Peoples' Senate will be held on Saturday, February 18.
  • Did the US Blow Up Nord Stream If There is No Media to Report It?
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Did the US Blow Up Nord Stream If There is No Media to Report It?
    15 Feb 2023
    A respected investigative journalist explains how the U.S. sabotaged the Nord Stream pipelines. But corporate media working in service to the state ignore the story and endanger the world.
  • INTERVIEW: A Voice from the Monster: Charlene Mitchell in Tricontinental, 1971
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    INTERVIEW: A Voice from the Monster: Charlene Mitchell in Tricontinental, 1971
    15 Feb 2023
    A 1971 interview with the late Charlene Mitchell reminds us of both the need for Black radical struggle against capitalism, militarism, and racism, and the contradictions of inter-racial organizing…
  • Colombian Peace Caravan: Bringing the Hope of “Total Peace” to Afro-Colombian and Indigenous Territories
    ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    Colombian Peace Caravan: Bringing the Hope of “Total Peace” to Afro-Colombian and Indigenous Territories
    15 Feb 2023
    Ajamu Baraka representing BAP’s Haiti/Americas Team was invited to serve as part of an international delegation on a historic “humanitarian Caravan” between January 17 and the 21st to the Indigenous…
  • The American Empire is a Sore Loser That Will Get Us All Killed
    Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
    The American Empire is a Sore Loser That Will Get Us All Killed
    15 Feb 2023
    The US is like a drug dealer getting high on his own supply. It believes in its hype of exceptionalism and endangers the world when it is thwarted in any way.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us