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

Halloween
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
15 Nov 2023
🖨️ Print Article
Child's funeral in Deir al-Balah, Gaza strip.
Child's funeral in Deir al-Balah, Gaza strip. (Photo: AFP)

“You belong to us, body and belongings, and we can dispose of them and do with you as we please.”

Holy Roman Emperor Louis VI in 1343. 

Curtain of darkness drops on ominous orange sky;
on Jack-o’-lantern lit electrically-starved strip—
on smothered civilian sounds; on slashed signals
of cellphone towers creating a
media-less moat of Blacked out lights/Redacted rights…
Perfect shroud for evil spirits, spooks, vengeful skeletons
sashaying from closets, spilling rivers of tears into oceans of
Blood

Halloween’s perfect for degraded devils dressed as Manifest Destiny—
whirling like dervishes —Door-to-door
Perfect for night vision-goggled goblins, goose-stepping genocide to
Gaza. Perfect for hunting houses haunted with ghosts of
Resistance…
Perfect for costumed settlers, soldiers, snipers deployed to trigger-treat!!

Trigger-treat!!
Who’s there in chain shirt? Pot helmet? Breast plate with blood-red
cloth cross—Coming to convert this house to Christianity?
Who’s in Inquisition costume, applying thumb-screw as religious
test? Who’s in Cossack costume practicing pogroms on the West Bank?
Who’s Kristallnacht-costumed…leaving shops shards of shattered glass?

Trigger-treat!!
Who are the ghouls? 3rd Reich realtors? Who’s in crimson-stained
closing clothes—’48 fatigues— going door-to-door… Who’s offering
Lead for land?

Who’s regaled as Goering? Luftwaffe overhead hitting hospitals
with Hellfire missiles? Pockmarking ambulances? Softening up
bakeries with bunker buster bombs? Who’s strafing streams of
traumatized travelers: Declaring babies “bug-splat,” families roadkill?

Trigger-treat!!
Who’s made up as Mengele? Hovering helicopter-like over hospitals?
Prescribing white phosphorus for melting incubator babies’ bones?
Who’s in Goebbels garb bobbing for Big Lies and 1/2 truths?
Whose sack’s filled with heel-clicking high fructose corn syrup goodies—
sending listeners and viewers to bed with scary, sugary, Psy-Op highs?

Trigger-treat!!
Who’s the acne-faced teen—bass finally entering his voice—
with mumbling muzzle recoiling, reddening stolen soil?
Who’s the Eichmann-costumed settler spraying automatic
weapon fire—then holding his bloody hand out for house keys?
Who’s the Wehrmacht-macho marauding as refugee camp re-
enactor, re-slaughtering women and children of Sabra and Shatila?

Trigger-treat!!
Who’s watching this colorized horror film, “Long, Looped Night
of Nakba” by burning book light?
Who’s lighting candles on graves of the dead and commemorating
Martyrs?
Who’s organizing full-throated, hoarse voice chanters; blistered feet
Shoe leather-legislators to drown mass murderers in our atmospheric
River of tears?

© 2023. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.

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.

Gaza
Palestine

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


Related Stories

Ali Abunimah
Israel’s “opposition” offers genocide with better PR
04 November 2026
Israel's election produced no real alternative for Palestinians, because every Zionist party from Eisenkot's Yashar to Golan's Democrats shares
Coleen Littlejohn
NicaNotes: Historic Solidarity between Nicaragua and Palestine
28 October 2026
Coleen Littlejohn presente!
Belen Fernandez
Israel’s Lebanese Land Grab
21 October 2026
Under the guise of a farcical “pilot zone” project to restore Lebanon’s sovereignty, Israel is pursuing a scorched-earth strategy whi
Gerald Perreira
October 7, 2023: The day that changed the world
21 October 2026
October 7, 2023, was not an isolated attack, but the culmination of generations of Palestinian imprisonment and resistance in Gaza, comparable
Edward Rhymes
What Changes For Palestine?
21 October 2026
Disregard for Palestinian rights is a feature of Israeli politics rather than a bug.
Dr. M. Reza Behnam
Three Years of Genocide: How ‘Never Again’ Lost Meaning in Gaza
07 October 2026
If international law and justice are buried in the rubble of Gaza, the global community will ultimately be digging its own grave.
Sami Al-Arian
Why Hamas believed the status quo was more dangerous than its 7 October gamble
07 October 2026
Three years into Israel's genocide in Gaza, the consequences of a decision driven by siege, settlement expansion, and assaults on Al-Aqsa are s
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Defending a Non-Existent International Law
30 September 2026
The Hague Group’s goal is to “. . .
Roberta Rivolta
Western Activism and the Axis of Resistance
23 September 2026
Western pro-Palestinian activism isolates Palestine from its regional allies, depoliticizing its struggle and reinforcing colonial
Dhoruba bin-Wahad
Guardian Foray: All That's Not Real Is Camouflage
09 September 2026
An Open Letter from the American "Left" allegedly on behalf of unnamed persons said to be Iranian political prisoners has provided co

More Stories


  • soledad bros 02
    Nellie Bailiey and Glen Ford
    Former “Soledad Brother” Fights for Parole
    29 Jan 2018
    Students at Southern University Law Center (SULC) have asked the UN Human Rights Commission to intervene in the case of John Clutchette, the former “Soledad Brother” who was charged, along with Geo
  • Baltimore Cops Worse Than Thirties Gangsters
    Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
    Baltimore Cops Worse Than Thirties Gangsters
    29 Jan 2018
    The Baltimore police officers charged with robbing and planting guns and drugs on citizens are “worse than gangsters back in the Thirties, because it’s the law doing it,” said Carl Dix
  • Good Jobs First
    Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
    Beware of Amazon Bearing Corporate Gifts
    29 Jan 2018
    Greg LeRoy, of Good Jobs First, warns the remaining 20 cities bidding to become Amazon’s second headquarters not to believe the corporation’s promises of $5 billion in investments
  • Salute To Shift Holders!  (Down With Boss Tweet!)
    Raymond Nat Turner , BAR poet-in-residence
    Salute To Shift Holders! (Down With Boss Tweet!)
    25 Jan 2018
    He’s, obviously, not a New Yorker, riding trains 4 and 5 in the morning. Trains packed with hoodie-crowned; shuttered chocolate, mocha, peanut
  • seriously?
    Bruce A. Dixon , BAR managing editor
    Intersectionality is a Hole. Afro-Pessimism is a Shovel. We Need to Stop Digging, Part 1 of 3
    25 Jan 2018
    The US left has a fundamental problem, perhaps the root of most of its other problems.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us