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 radio
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio April 25, 2025
    25 Apr 2025
    In this week’s segment, we hear about police propaganda designed to make the public fearful and ready to exact severe punishment, regardless of any facts about crime.
  • Reparations for Haiti
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Reparations for Haiti
    25 Apr 2025
    Dr. Jemima Pierre is a Black Agenda Report editor and contributor.
  • copaganda
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Copaganda: How Police and the Media Manipulate Our News
    25 Apr 2025
    Alec Karakatsanis is an attorney with a long history of work as a public defender.
  • stop the raids
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Stop the NYPD and Federal Raids
    25 Apr 2025
    Stop the Raids NYC is hosting an event in Brooklyn, New York, Satur
  • presidents
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Bush, Obama, and Biden Gave Trump the Tools for Repression
    23 Apr 2025
    Donald Trump is thought of as a terrible president who doesn’t care about humanity. While that assertion is true, he had lots of help from his like-minded predecessors in developing plans for war and…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us