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 Makings of A Capitalist Dystopia
    Erica Caines
    The Makings of A Capitalist Dystopia
    06 May 2020
    Colonized people, with a horrific historical connection to both science and medicine in this country, must examine science in service of the state.
  • US Prisons Are Vectors of Disease
    Sarah Lustbader
    US Prisons Are Vectors of Disease
    06 May 2020
    The penal system remains a source of diseases that spread among prisoners at rates far exceeding those in the communities from which they came.
  • BAR Book Forum: Joshua Dubler and Vincent Lloyd’s “Break Every Yoke”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Joshua Dubler and Vincent Lloyd’s “Break Every Yoke”
    06 May 2020
    The necessary political demand is not  that we make better, more humane prisons and jails, but that we abolish prisons and jails altogether.
  • BAR Book Forum: Symposium on Sarah Haley’s "No Mercy Here"
    Marisa Fuentes
    BAR Book Forum: Symposium on Sarah Haley’s "No Mercy Here"
    06 May 2020
    This is a book about the ideological construction of black women as “non-human” and exploitable for capitalist profit in the making of the New South.
  • Fighting the Invisible Enemy: Imperial Fascism 2020, Not Covid-19
    Lauren Smith
    Fighting the Invisible Enemy: Imperial Fascism 2020, Not Covid-19
    06 May 2020
    What could possibly be a more effective way to seal borders, discourage protest, and position the United States into perfect alignment for WWIII?
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us