Stable working class neighborhoods are the bane of speculators, developers and capitalist politicians.
Lording over the landscape like giant
Insects sucking soul, blood, chocolate
into multi-colored mushrooms
Metastasizing citywide.
Officers ordering vacant storefronts,
lined up like soldiers, to make money,
while brothers with cupped hands
platoon on plastic crates at entrances to
$4-a-cup coffee shops with belligerent baristas.
Beneath fiery crimson skies,
afternoon freeways are fuming parking lots.
Capitalismās poisoning water and air,
and ignorant exploiters donāt care!
Pyramids and huts; tuxes and tails,
unwashed buttsātents and jails.
First come the cranesāthen the
Tents, skyrocketing mortgagesāthen the
Rentsā¦ money, money, money for military
Bases in far off placesābut, itās āPie in the
sky,ā to demand affordable living spaces!
Basketball teamās outgrown The Town,
football teamās slipping off to Sin
City after slurping at the troughā¦
Capitalismās poisoning water and air,
and ignorant exploiters donāt care!
Pyramids and huts; tuxes and tails,
unwashed buttsātents and jails.
First come the cranesāthen the
Tents, skyrocketing mortgagesāthen the
Rentsā¦ money, money, money for military
Bases in far off placesābut, itās āPie in the
sky,ā to demand affordable living spaces!
And we play dress-up in grown folksā clothesā
Tiny red, white and blue stickersā pretending
weāre fixing it in 20 minutesā¦ every 2-4 years ā¦
Ā© 2018. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.
Raymond Nat Turner is an acclaimed poet and performing artist. You can find much more of his work at http://upsurgejazz.com.
Black communities once turned righteous fury into systemic change, but todayās outrage over slights like Shedeur Sandersā NFL draft slide rarely sparks organized resistance. The blueprint forā¦
"March, March, Marchā¦ (For Million Worker March and Brother Ray Quan)" is the latest from BAR's Poet-In-Residence.
When the West slaps on tariffs, itās 'economic security'ābut when the Sahel rejects exploitative deals, itās called a threat. From Cuba to Burkina Faso, countries have fought for self-sufficiency:ā¦
Challenges to Zionism in the late 1960s and 1970s sparked an effort to redefine antisemitism focused on defending Israel while attacking the political Left. This resulted in the IHRA definition andā¦
The detention facility appears to be the one that was previously targeted by the US-backed Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.
