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

Circus on Capitalist Hill (Comey don’t play that…)
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
13 Jun 2017
🖨️ Print Article

by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

Big doings this week up there between the War House and the Rogues Garden. Our poet reports on the show, clowns, cloven hooves and all.

 

Circus on Capitalist Hill (Comey don’t play that…)

by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

A senile clown questions the wind
Hearing what he’s heard
hundreds of times before:
Step right up, ladies and gentlemen
into the smoke and
mirror swamp, draining
Anything not nailed down

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen
to sideshow puppetry
Millionaire-billionaire buffoonery
Crooked clowns hiding behind corkscrews
Conniving clowns with
cloven hooves and horns
turning fruits of our labor
into ATMs

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen
suspend disbelief,
Don’t follow the money
pay No attention to
1% pickpockets
Working the perimeter

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen
enter the Capitalist Hill,
War House, Rogue Garden,
Offal Office, White
Supreme Court matrix—
Big Top, bleaching brains,
fooling fools and babies
Riding bareback and backwards
on donkeys and elephants
Babbling ‘bout “our democracy”

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen
See the greatest show on turf
pebbles posing as diamonds,
Fascism as ‘democracy’
with redacted rights…

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen
See the clown trick
Un-framing, freeing an Indigenous
Warrior caged four decades

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen
See the clown trick
sliding cells open pneumatically,
Freeing COINTELPRO, Black Power
political prisoners, prisoners of war—

“I didn’t think so— Comey don’t play that…”

Raymond Nat Turner © 2017 All Rights Reserved
Raymond Nat Turndr is an acclaimed poet and performance artist. find much more of his work at http://upsurgejazz.com.

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


More Stories


  • BAR Abolition and Mutual Aid Spotlight: Ejeris Dixon
    Dean Spade and Roberto Sirvent, BAR Contributors
    BAR Abolition and Mutual Aid Spotlight: Ejeris Dixon
    15 Apr 2020
    Mutual aid efforts are proliferating in this time of epidemic, organizing communities towards self-determination by creating mechanisms that oppose the state violence.
  • Cuba Under Media Attack for Sending Doctors, Not Bombs, to Help Covid-19 
    Belen Fernandez
    Cuba Under Media Attack for Sending Doctors, Not Bombs, to Help Covid-19 
    15 Apr 2020
    Media outlets have exploited the current pandemic to disseminate rank anti-Cuban propaganda.
  • The Cognitive Dissonance of “Democratic Socialists”— Cults Die a Slow Death
    Quetzal Cáceres
    The Cognitive Dissonance of “Democratic Socialists”— Cults Die a Slow Death
    15 Apr 2020
    The blame-anyone-other-than-Sanders apologists exposed themselves as devotees to a cult of personality devoid of any real political strategy.
  • Sanders Supporters Pledge to “#DemExit” and “#GreenEnter” to Make a Home in a Party That Shares Their Core Values 
    Independent Political Report
    Sanders Supporters Pledge to “#DemExit” and “#GreenEnter” to Make a Home in a Party That Shares Their Core Values 
    15 Apr 2020
    Online contributions to the Green Party tripled after Sanders’ capitulated to Biden, and ten times as many people signed up to volunteer.
  • Systemic Racism Is Making Coronavirus Worse in Black America
    Judy Lubin
    Systemic Racism Is Making Coronavirus Worse in Black America
    15 Apr 2020
    COVID-19 is a perfect storm of systemic inequities operating together to worsen existing vulnerabilities.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us