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
  • omnibus

2 Poems - About How and Why Some Things Work. And Some Others Don't
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
10 May 2017
🖨️ Print Article

By BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

In two works of poetry this week, Turner offers cogent observations on two phenomena, one that pretty much works as intended, and another enterprise that despite the wishes of many consistently and predictably goes awry.

it works…

by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

spittle trickling from
the side of his mouth,
eyes rolling round like
pinballs…in his sweat-
beaded head…

they finally found
the vein they repeatedly
punctured his pin cushion,
high fructose-fattened flesh
searching for.

writhing,
moaning, jerking,
lurching, convulsing—
primitively strapped
to their updated,
horizontal, death device
dancing an obscene,
grotesque
Arkansas Shuffle:
assembly line murder
2 persons per day—
1l—in half a week

Why such rush?
They must die before
the chemicals expire.

Who's Moving Who

by BAR poet in residence Raymond Nat Turner

High on the hog, mule-
heads and handlers meet
in a Manhattan hotel—
Operatives, confidential informants,
Mouthpieces for fruit companies
and death squads hold court—
Harnessing left motion
sliding
down
the
Hill
Feeling the Bern

Stop! In the name of love
Before you break my heart
Think it over…

The mule’s a stubborn
kinda fella—ass
with big ears that
Hear your every word,
while hiding a mind
of his own

Many men and women
moved the mule
Left—
years later, finding
They, themselves, moved
Right—
running in place…
mired in mule dung—
Who’s moving who?

Raymond Nat Turner © 2017 All Rights Reserved
Raymond Nat Turner is an acclaimed poet and performance artist. Find much more of his work at

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


More Stories


  • asdf
    Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor
    Katrina Victims: Relocated or Forced into Exile?
    27 Aug 2025
    Black Agenda Report's late Executive Editor, Glen Ford, gave this interview a decade after Hurricane Katrina to explore how the narrative of "starting over" is being used to whitewash the forced…
  • asfd
    Glen Ford , BAR executive editor
    Katrina Victims: Relocated or Forced into Exile?
    27 Aug 2025
    In this 2015 Real News Network interview the late Glen Ford, Black Agenda Report co-founder and Executive Editor, analyzed why an article in The New Yorker marking the 10th anniversary of Hurricane…
  • Hurricane Katrina man on car
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Why We Remember Katrina
    27 Aug 2025
    Twenty years ago, the world witnessed more than the suffering of hurricane Katrina's victims. The United States was exposed as a failed state controlled by the cruelties of racialized capitalism.
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: This is Criminal, Malik Rahim, New Orleans, September 1st, 2005
    27 Aug 2025
    “It’s not like New Orleans was caught off guard. This could have been prevented.”
  • Jon Jeter
    From Jim Crow to Katrina to Gentrification, Tracing the Rise and Fall of New Orleans Working Class
    27 Aug 2025
    A forgotten history of cross-racial labor solidarity in 1890s New Orleans offered a glimpse of a potential future. Its deliberate destruction set the stage for the city's modern transformation into a…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us