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


  • US and Colombia Do Military Exercises with Nuclear Submarine Near Venezuela, After Sending Warship Through Taiwan Strait
    Benjamin Norton
    US and Colombia Do Military Exercises with Nuclear Submarine Near Venezuela, After Sending Warship Through Taiwan Strait
    08 Mar 2022
    Events in Ukraine have not stopped the US drive for domination.
  • Ukraine: Black Agenda Report Special Issue
    The Editors
    Ukraine: Black Agenda Report Special Issue
    02 Mar 2022
    This issue of Black Agenda Report gives special attention to events in Ukraine.
  • Ukraine Exposes White Supremacist Foreign Policy
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Ukraine Exposes White Supremacist Foreign Policy
    02 Mar 2022
    White supremacy is at the heart of US war propaganda. The exhortation to "stand with Ukraine" is no exception to this rule.
  • DOCUMENT: Of the Culture of White Folk, W. E. B. Du Bois, 1917
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    DOCUMENT: Of the Culture of White Folk, W. E. B. Du Bois, 1917
    02 Mar 2022
    As the European-initiated World War I raged, W. E. B. DuBois reminded us about the destructive nature of the “culture of white folk.” It is a reminder sorely needed today.
  • From Crisis to Catastrophe? What is to be Done in Eastern Europe.
    Dr. Gerald Horne
    From Crisis to Catastrophe? What is to be Done in Eastern Europe.
    02 Mar 2022
    The end of the cold war was the beginning of the America unipolar moment.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us