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


  • Child holds key to her home in Palestine
    Black Agenda Radio
    War Crimes Committed Against the People of Gaza
    01 Jan 2024
    Ali Abunimah is Director of electronicantifada.net, an independent online news publication and educational resource focusing on Palestine.
  • Black Agenda Radio Logo
    Black Agenda Radio
    Black Agenda Radio October 13, 2023
    01 Jan 2024
    In this week's segment we hear about the state of Black politics in Newark and across the country.
  • Black Agenda Report Will Return on January 10, 2024
    The Editors
    Black Agenda Report Will Return on January 10, 2024
    22 Dec 2023
    Thanks for your support of Black Agenda Report in 2023. We are taking our annual break and we'll be back on January 10, 2024. Power to the people!
  • test
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Elias Amare
    22 Dec 2023
    test
  • Black Agenda Radio December 22, 2023
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio December 22, 2023
    22 Dec 2023
    Alex Saab is free, the displaced Black community of Palm Springs, Haitian resistance, and the political struggle in Guinea-Bissau.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us