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


  • Freedom Rider: The U.S. Can’t Control the World
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: The U.S. Can’t Control the World
    07 Apr 2021
    Slow-witted Joe Biden appears to think that we’re still in the age of the sole superpower, when in fact that era has come and gone.
  • Criticizing the Democratic Party is not “Privileged”, It is the Duty of a Revolutionary
    Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
    Criticizing the Democratic Party is not “Privileged”, It is the Duty of a Revolutionary
    07 Apr 2021
    Neither AOC nor the rest of the Squad has mounted any significant challenge to the party’s corporate leadership, despite being elected for this exact purpose. 
  • PAMPHLET: Africa Fights for Freedom, Alpheaus Hunton, 1950
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    PAMPHLET: Africa Fights for Freedom, Alpheaus Hunton, 1950
    07 Apr 2021
    A pamphlet written 70 years ago by an exiled Black American communist reveals an African continent seething to break free from European colonization.
  • Rwanda and Zaire (DRC) 1990 to 1997, Where the US Blocked Real Humanitarian Intervention
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Rwanda and Zaire (DRC) 1990 to 1997, Where the US Blocked Real Humanitarian Intervention
    07 Apr 2021
    The real story of the Rwandan genocide begins in 1990, when exiled Tutsis from Uganda invaded northern Rwanda, unleashing a deadly campaign that uprooted a million Hutu peasants and set ethnic tens
  • Testi-lyin’
    Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Testi-lyin’
    07 Apr 2021
    Northeast, midwest, southwest, south, down south, up south, out south—south  of the Canadian border—Slouched down in his cruiser, slow-rollin’ the ‘hood; Or a-
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us