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


  • Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Maya Schenwar and Kim Wilson’s Book, “We Grow the World Together”
    04 Dec 2024
    In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book. This week’s featured authors are Maya Schenwar and Kim Wilson.
  • Arnold August
    Genocide as the Principal Cause of the Democrat’s Crushing Defeat
    04 Dec 2024
    While genocide is a clear cause of the democrats' defeat, economic issues are usually mentioned. What lingers behind the significance of the “it’s the economy” narrative?
  • Hanna Eid
    Anti-Imperialism and the Tricontinental Vocation
    04 Dec 2024
    Tricontinentalism is the lens through which we should analyze the anti-imperialist movement, not only to understand the past but to build the movement against imperialist domination today. of the…
  • The Tricontinental
    How Neoliberalism Has Wielded ‘Corruption’ to Privatise Life in Africa
    04 Dec 2024
    In Africa, the leading forces of capitalism have ruthlessly wielded a neoliberal conception of corruption to undermine states’ sovereignty and open the continent to plunder at the hands of Western…
  • Aseel Saleh
    Terrorist Groups Take Control Over Key Areas in Northwestern Syria amid Fierce Clashes with Government Forces
    04 Dec 2024
    The United States has escalated its proxy war in Syria with the help of jihadist allies and continues destabilizing the entire West Asia region.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us