He’s, obviously, not a New Yorker,
riding trains 4 and 5 in the morning.
Trains packed with hoodie-crowned;
shuttered chocolate, mocha, peanut
butter, caramel, coffee-colored faces—
Lunch bucket UN—palpable power,
Grabbing their last Zs, before Shifts
Holding levers, running the city.
He, obviously, gets no coffee,
street snacks, scarves, gloves,
posters, CDs, DVDs, caps, T-shirts
from carts and stands tourists treasure;
Carts and stands powered by African, Asian,
Latin American, Caribbean, Middle Eastern labor…
Lord knows he’s never been
to bodegas named Ameer's,
or Branson’s juice bar,
or the Texas Star,
Tarboosh, Nanoosh,
Cafe One, Clove, Dig Inn,
or Peace Food—where
Workers from plundered countries
Toil—countries Boss Tweet dissed!
Eateries where workers break bread,
rub shoulders, swap stories: U.S. bases,
Blood-soaked “boots on the ground,” Coups,
Death squads, decomposing bodies, bullets,
Bombs, missiles chasing families from
smoldering homelands…“in harm’s way”
Tweet’s just a paper towel-tossing,
beetle-brained, feces-faced
Clown, giving cover to 1%
Pickpockets working the crowd—
Look for him in the sewer…
Days when all trains empty at
City Hall and Wall Street…
Raymond Nat Turner © 2018 All Rights Reserved
Our poet in residence, Raymond Nat Turner is an acclaimed poet and performing artist. You can find much more of his work at http://upsurgejazz.com.
Jamaica’s upcoming election has become a litmus test for Caribbean sovereignty as the U.S. and China compete for dominance. Washington’s threats to seize the Panama Canal and Marco Rubio’s heavy-…
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s recent tour of Jamaica, Guyana, and Suriname was framed as advancing 'energy security' and regional stability. However, it served as a cover to escalate pressure…
In this week’s segment, we have an update on the Sudan civil war, which may be nearing a conclusion. But first, we discuss to what extent the Trump administration is an outlier in comparison to other…
Dr. Charisse Burden-Stelly is an Associate Professor of African American Studies at Wayne State University. She is the author of Black Scare Red Scare: Theorizing Capitalist Racism in the United…
Abayomi Azikiwe, Editor of Pan-African Newswire, joins us from Detroit with an update on the two-year-long conflict in Sudan as government forces make headway in retaking the capital of Khartoum. Is…
