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
  • omnibus

Waking Up With Wackenhut?
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
14 Mar 2018
🖨️ Print Article
Meet the new boss. Not much different from the old boss....
In which our poet illuminates the difference between the old boss and the new boss...

There are lands of bluebirds and fountains—
where everyone in their minds is forever free…
Turning away, shuttering high-beams:
Erehwon, Shangra-La,
Psychedelic Shack, Cloud 9, Utopias, where
When you wish upon a star
and wake up—accessories to mass murder—
itty-bitty bodies buried beneath rubble,
charcoalized children shredded by shrapnel—
You’ve been danglin’ on the Drone Ranger’s dick 8 yrs

When you wish upon a star
you’ll wake up, finding
Jiminy Cricket’s changed his name to
Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III;
Pinocchio’s an unrepentant pussy-grabber and
Snow White Supreme Court’s seven dwarfs
Morphed to nine—to include Thom-ass Clarence of
The Strong-arm Williams, Bassackwards Tribe

When you wish upon a star,
and wake up, you’ll find
Judas is a Wisconsin sheriff,
and what’s done in Dallas
doesn’t stay in Dallas
but works its weaponized way
‘Round the world—and what you dream,
No matter how extreme—is only a
Five-sided suction tube
Demonically sucking up Everything
not sucked up by Banks too big to fail…

When you wish upon a star
and wake up you’ll find Ferguson
fantasies; more Baltimore than Bavarian
Superheroes, young and strong
Marching all night long on blistered feet—
Or, who have callused hands, and can
Stop work at the point of
Production…and have fun doing it!

Raymond Nat Turner © 2018 All Rights Reserved

Raymond Nat Turner is BAR's poet in residence. You can find much more of his work, and how to contact or book him at http://upsurgejazz.com.

poetry

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


Related Stories

Editors, The Black Agenda Review
POEM: Reflections after the June 12th March of Disarmament, Sonia Sanchez, 1982
18 December 2024
“I have come to you tonite not just for the stoppage
Protest for Palestine at the White House
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Trigger Warning
22 November 2023
Trigger Warning Palestine’s the Answer— What was the Question?
Our ‘democracy’
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Our ‘democracy’
23 July 2021
Shangri-La—untaxed, socially-distanced champagne- caviar, Cayman Island, yacht crowds who
Pigment of your Imagination: Black magic mascots, props and sops?
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Pigment of your Imagination: Black magic mascots, props and sops?
15 July 2021
Could the pigment of your imagination cause Black magic mascots, props, sops— Black faces in high places—
A known known…
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
A known known…
08 July 2021
“…there are known knowns. There are things we know that we know. There are known
Twerkers of the World you might…(Or when they go low we get high?)
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Twerkers of the World you might…(Or when they go low we get high?)
01 July 2021
“History repeats itself,  first as tragedy, second as farce.” —Karl Marx
The Town Crier’s Big Tooth Fund (For Drs. Rosenthal, Sapir and Ferdowsi)
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
The Town Crier’s Big Tooth Fund (For Drs. Rosenthal, Sapir and Ferdowsi)
23 June 2021
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs…” —Karl Marx
The Town Crier’s List of Who’s Who in the capitalist state machine
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
The Town Crier’s List of Who’s Who in the capitalist state machine
16 June 2021
“Ain’t no power like the power of the people— ‘cause the power of the people don’t stop!” bouncing 
Ladee Blu: Another Monroe Doctrine delivery system 
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Ladee Blu: Another Monroe Doctrine delivery system 
09 June 2021
Raytheon’s craven raven Co-signing for mass murder: “Mowing the grass…” Now… Ladee Blu on a fool’s errand dis- seminating
MOVE Tulsa to Gaza…
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
MOVE Tulsa to Gaza…
02 June 2021
The Mass Shooting Of The Day— this time was in San Jose… Do you know the way to San Jose?

More Stories


  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    If We Respond to the Genocide in Palestine the Same Way We’re responding to the Climate Crisis, We Should Expect Many More Loss of Lives
    23 Jul 2025
    The climate crisis and genocide in Gaza share the same root: capitalism’s willingness to sacrifice the masses. Yet, the institutions built to resist have instead become accomplices.
  • Imani Nile
    The Scramble for Mount Vernon? How Capitalists and their Black Middlemen are Colonizing the Jewel of Westchester County, New York
    23 Jul 2025
    A majority Black city in Westchester County, a northern suburb of New York City, suffers from years of Black political misleadership and is now under threat by real estate developers who envision the…
  • Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    The Bad Hombre Defense?
    23 Jul 2025
    "The Bad Hombre Defense?" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
  • High Crimes
    ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    High Crimes and Misdemeanors – Not by Trump but Obama and Democrats
    23 Jul 2025
    The real collusion wasn’t between Trump and Putin; it was between intelligence elites and a Democratic establishment.
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    STATEMENT: Without Immediate Intervention, the Last Reporters in Gaza Will Die, Agence France-Presse/Société de Journalistes, July 21, 2025
    23 Jul 2025
    “Since AFP was founded in August 1944, we have lost journalists in conflicts…but none of us remember seeing a colleague die of hunger.”
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us