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


  • Black Agenda Radio
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio February 23, 2024
    23 Feb 2024
    This week we hear about the implications of the anti-imperialist struggle in the African nation Guinea-Bissau.
  • DRC
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Colonialism, Imperialism, and Conflict in the Congo
    23 Feb 2024
    Abayomi Azikiwe joins us to discuss events in eastern Congo, the role of US backed nations such as Rwanda, and the history of exploitation and imperial control which caused the…
  • Immigrant Justice Network
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Bipartisan Consensus for Punitive Immigration Policies Continues - Part 2
    23 Feb 2024
    Aly Wane of the Immigrant Justice Network discusses immigration in the second part of a two-part interview. Punitive immigration policies are bipartisan, with groups such as Haitians being targeted…
  • Guinea-Bissau
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Guinea-Bissau Struggles Against Imperialism
    23 Feb 2024
    Rafiki Morris joins us from Washington D.C. to discuss the upcoming demonstration, “Open the Peoples National Assembly in Guinea-Bissau” and why this action is so important.
  • BT News
    Jemima Pierre, BAR Editor and Contributor
    Haiti Doesn’t Have a ‘Gang’ Problem, It Has a US Imperialism Problem w/ Dr. Jemima Pierre
    21 Feb 2024
    Dr. Jemima Pierre joins BreakThrough News to discuss the nationwide uprisings in Haiti where thousands of demonstrators have flooded the streets calling for the ouster of the unelected Prime Minister…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us