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


  • COVID-19 and the War Against Black Detroit
    Mark P. Fancher
    COVID-19 and the War Against Black Detroit
    29 Apr 2020
    Corporate America and white supremacists have waged merciless war against the Black megapolis that dared to nurture revolutionaries and great music.
  • Letters from Our Readers 
    Jahan Choudhry BAR Comments Editor
    Letters from Our Readers 
    29 Apr 2020
    This week readers were thinking about the myths of racial progress, finance capital and primaries, the pandemic in Haiti, and the possibilities of revolution.
  • BAR Abolition & Mutual Aid Spotlight: Timmy Châu
    Dean Spade and Roberto Sirvent, BAR Contributors
    BAR Abolition & Mutual Aid Spotlight: Timmy Châu
    29 Apr 2020
    We need to understand mutual aid work as part and parcel to the work of all radical organizing.
  • BAR Book Forum: Candice M. Jenkins’s “Black Bourgeois ”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Candice M. Jenkins’s “Black Bourgeois ”
    29 Apr 2020
    The zeitgeist of Black literature shifted in the past decade, from Black progress to precarity.
  • Black Oakland Demands in Light of COVID-19 and Rates of Black Death
    Black Oakland Leaders and Allies
    Black Oakland Demands in Light of COVID-19 and Rates of Black Death
    29 Apr 2020
    Unless Black people are healthy and safe then no community is healthy and safe.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us