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


  • Why Cornel West’s Tenure Fight Matters
    Robin D.G. Kelley
    Why Cornel West’s Tenure Fight Matters
    10 Mar 2021
    Harvard’s administrators completely miss the point of tenure, which was created to allow scholars to do their work, speak their truth, and stand up for something without risking their jobs.
  • Movements Not Saviors: Lessons from Bobi Wine’s Tweet for Juan Guaido
    Netfa Freeman and Jemima Pierre
    Movements Not Saviors: Lessons from Bobi Wine’s Tweet for Juan Guaido
    10 Mar 2021
    Bobi Wine’s flirtation with US Venezuelan puppet Juan Guaido indicates that the Ugandan is also auditioning for the imperial puppet job.
  • Letters from Our Readers
    Jahan Choudhry, BAR Comments Editor
    Letters from Our Readers
    10 Mar 2021
    This week Pan Africanism and the Black Panther Party were on your minds.
  • BAR Book Forum: Amy Cooper’s “State of Health”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Amy Cooper’s “State of Health”
    10 Mar 2021
    Unlike the US and other corporate-ruled countries, activists inside and outside of government collaborated to bring about radical social change in Venezuela.
  • BAR Book Forum: Rinaldo Walcott’s “The Long Emancipation”
    Rinaldo Walcott
    BAR Book Forum: Rinaldo Walcott’s “The Long Emancipation”
    10 Mar 2021
    “Black freedom” as a claim, as a possibility, challenges us to imagine and to produce new modes of life.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us