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

Piece Process
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
23 May 2018
🖨️ Print Article
Israeli sniper prepares to implement the piece process.
Israeli sniper prepares to implement the piece process.

Breathe, Relax, Aim, Sight, Squeeze
it’s a joy-stick; a video game to him
He has orders to “light up” anything that moves;
“Mow the grass, one blade at a time…” “One shot,
one kill…”
So far, he’s bagged a man on crutches, 3 disabled, 2 children

Azriel stalks victims in the valley of death; studies
them through his scope; taking careful aim; punching
tight little holes in heads and torsos—distant targets—
They’re sudden spray, pink haze floating above spots
where they stood. No regret. No sorrow for families…

A plume of black smoke from flaming tires curls
into his crosshairs, his snake eyes nesting in sand—
a nano second too late—
Another child’s head ‘clashes’
with a butterfly bullet from a
football field away—
Crimson skull fragments
explode from the grapefruit-sized exit wound;
Spent cartridges, his ‘kill brass,’ pile up in the
sand…
Ah, the rules of engagement
What’s bone, arteries—another amputated leg—
got to do with it/the piece process: shoot one man,
Terrify a thousand? Don’t ‘our’ finest train there?

poerty

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


Related Stories

Ready for the Roaring ‘20s?
BAR Poet-in-Residence Raymond Nat Turner
Ready for the Roaring ‘20s?
08 January 2020
This Orange Age outrage— Reich of the child’s cage Cancer at fourth stage— Rogue state’s rampage…

More Stories


  • New Documents Suggest J. Edgar Hoover Was Involved in Fred Hampton’s Murder
    Flint Taylor and Jeff Haas
    New Documents Suggest J. Edgar Hoover Was Involved in Fred Hampton’s Murder
    20 Jan 2021
    Newly released FBI files provide direct documentation that the FBI chief and other high officials were involved in the raid and the coverup that followed.
  • Letters from Our Readers
    Jahan Choudhry BAR Comments Editor
    Letters from Our Readers
    20 Jan 2021
    This week the uprising in Washington and Du Bois’s writings on the Soviet Union were on your mind.
  • BAR Book Forum: L.H. Stallings’ “Funk the Erotic”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: L.H. Stallings’ “Funk the Erotic”
    20 Jan 2021
    We need a different relationship to and with time and temporality to imagine new worlds and to begin bringing those new worlds into being.
  • BAR Book Forum: John Murillo III’s “Impossible Stories”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: John Murillo III’s “Impossible Stories”
    20 Jan 2021
    The author dissects Black time and space in order to better understand the nature and mechanics of Black life and death lived in the antiblack world.
  • Defund the Police is Not Abolition
    Greg Felton
    Defund the Police is Not Abolition
    20 Jan 2021
    In practice, defunding police leads to endless dickering with local politicians and allows reformists to present themselves as abolitionists.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us