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

Fraternal fist-bump between gangstas—Fugget about it… (For Allen Ginsberg, my other favorite ‘Jersey Boy’)
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
03 Aug 2022
🖨️ Print Article
Fraternal fist-bump between gangstas—Fugget about it…

Fraternal fist-bump between gangstas—Fugget about it…
(For Allen Ginsberg, my other favorite ‘Jersey Boy’)

I.
apartheid state/south of the border/embassy butcherville—
Truth tellers residing in crosshairs everywhere! So what’s with
twitter tizzy; dither ‘bout a lil’ hand-to-hand contact between
Gangstas?
                                                                   Fugget about it…
A fraternal fist bump?
A routine morning dump?
Or a Munchkin coal lump?
A Yankee slugger’s slump?
                                                                   Fugget about it…
Brotherly bungee jump?
Ol’ Schmo playin’ the chump?
nazi party post-Trump?
Or overwork of Ben Crump?
                                                                   Fugget about it…
II.
Ol’ Schmo said he hadda go
Ol’ Schmo said he hadda go—
He said he was gonna make a Pariah of the prince
He said he was gonna make a Pariah of the prince—
But made death merchants more dollaz an’ cents!

Ol’ Schmo said he hadda go
Ol’ Schmo said he hadda go—
He said he was gonna make the prince into a Pariah
He said he was gonna make the prince into a Pariah—
But, look, whose star-spangled trousers is on fiyah?

Ol’ Schmo said, “Nothing will fundamentally change…”
Ol’ Schmo said, “Nothing will fundamentally change…”
C’mon, now’s, the fraternal fist-bump all that strange??

Ol’ Schmo said, Bloody fists don’t give Gangstas COVID-19
Ol’ Schmo said, Bloody fists don’t give Gangstas COVID-19
‘Cause he, the prince, et.al’s—cut from Capitalist Gangrene!

© 2022. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.

Former forklift driver/warehouse worker/janitor, Raymond Nat Turner is a NYC poet; BAR's Poet-in-Residence; and founder/co-leader of the jazz-poetry ensemble UpSurge!NYC. You can Vote for his work at: GoFundMe  and PayPal .

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


More Stories


  • The State (For Cam and B) and Mo’ Foul Play
    Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    The State (For Cam and B) and Mo’ Foul Play
    17 Jun 2020
    Papa’s proud of you, handsome  Grandsons, for hand-lettered signs, for taking to the streets during your generation’s 10 days that shook the world!
  • Building Power to Win is the Revolutionary Approach to Bourgeois Electoralism”
    ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    Building Power to Win is the Revolutionary Approach to Bourgeois Electoralism”
    17 Jun 2020
    We must make clear that it is imperialism that degrades and destroys the earth, makes water a commodity, food a luxury, education an impossibility, and health care a distant dream.
  • Say Its Name: Genocide!
    Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, BAR editor and columnist
    Say Its Name: Genocide!
    17 Jun 2020
    Unless we identify genocide as the common underpinning to all of the brutality directed against Black people in the US, we are talking about the wrong thing.
  • Letters from Our Readers 
    Jahan Choudhry BAR Comments Editor
    Letters from Our Readers 
    17 Jun 2020
    This week colonial genocides, white supremacy, and the Democratic Party’s role were on your minds.
  • BAR Book Forum: Samantha N. Sheppard’s “Sporting Blackness”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Samantha N. Sheppard’s “Sporting Blackness”
    17 Jun 2020
    Black memory is a muscle trained, flexed, and disciplined by colonialism, enslavement, and racial terror, as well as collective Black struggle.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us