"War Criminal Straw Spun Into A Fool’s Gold Hero" by Raymond Nat Turner

War Criminal Straw Spun

Into A Fool’s Gold Hero

Looking up at stars and stripes

flapping half staff over City College

my spirit sang, “Oh, me oh my…”

Why, they’re celebrating a natural

Woman—singer of soul songs!

Honoring gospel given the world; 

Celebrating indigo Blues crossing 

Borders, gathering tribes…

Instead, I found,“It’s a Barnum and

Bailey world, just as phony as it can be—”

Satanic scribblers spinning, spinning,

spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning

High fructose corn syrup sentimentality—

Stinking solvent scrubbing up blood of 4 

million Indochinese people—he called “gooks”

short for heroic ones, who fought just war in

Defense of their country

Half staff flags—somber war-

profiteers

Warlords of Wall Street lost their 

mythical maverick.

The Silly Putty populace with Play

Dough politics—No flashbacks of

Body counts on evening news; or 

smoldering draft cards; or dinner 

table blowups; and Millions of 

marching feet…

Are confused 

by blitzkrieg, bombarding them, big 

Lie after big lie; raising Jim Jones

Juice toasts to a war criminal crooner—

would-be Beach Boy:

“Bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb Iran…”

A war criminal

who flew

who 

bombed 

who flew

who 

bombed 

who flew

who 

bombed

who flew 

who 

bombed

and 

bombed

and 

bombed

day after day

Bomb bay opening up—not rice, or roses

rechristening children ‘Collateral Damage’

22 missions—his 23rd shot down

over Hanoi—left with parachute and flight 

suit for his 5yr stay

Today, warheads mourn, forked 

tongues wagging feverishly, face-

lifting a life… so in love with death…

© 2018. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.

"All Lives Matter?" by Raymond Nat Turner

All Lives Matter?

"Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; 

And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." 

- John Donne 

Two celebrities died this week

Pundits pooled barrels of ink coast to coast;

Kleenex flew from shelves; and

Facebook filled with philosophical wealth;

“So sad” trended, looped exponentially…

123 Palestinians were

systematically slaughtered…

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…

A moment of silence— 

70 years…

© 2018. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.

"Rouge State" by Raymond Nat Turner

Rouge State

Nuclear bully’s roaring for war

Thru the mouth of its dinosaur—

At war ever since its bloody birth

Now, threatening the entire earth!

Rouge State—

warlike deadweight

you annihilate

Subjugate

Expropriate— 

you devastate

Rouge State—

Land of the inmate

you incarcerate

Infiltrate

Assassinate—

you intimidate

Rouge State, we don’t for sure—

we think revolution’ s the cure

Rouge State—

Land of apartheid

home of ‘race’ hate

where ‘whites’ tailgate 

and hallucinate 

‘blacks’ somnambulate

Rouge State—

Bombs detonate

make Peoples immigrate

you discriminate

you’re not ‘great’

Really third-rate

Rouge State, we don’t for sure—

we think revolution’ s the cure…

Poet’s note: inspired by Jimi Hendrix’s version of the Troggs' “Wild Thing”

                                                                                                                            The Town Crier, Raymond Nat Turner © 2018 All Rights Reserved

"Waking Up With Wackenhut?" by Raymond Nat Turner

Waking Up With Wackenhut?

There are lands of bluebirds and fountains—

where everyone in their minds are forever free… 

Turning away, shuttering high-beams:

 Erehwon, Shangri-La,

Psychedelic Shack, Cloud 9, Utopias, where

When you wish upon a star

and wake up—accessories to mass murder—

itty-bitty bodies buried beneath rubble,

charcoalized children shredded by shrapnel—

You’ve been danglin’ on the Drone Ranger’s dick 8 yrs

When you wish upon a star

you’ll wake up, finding

Jiminy Cricket’s changed his name to

Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III;

Pinocchio’s an unrepentant pussy-grabber and

the Snow White Supreme Court’s seven dwarfs 

Morphed to nine—to include Thom-ass Clarence of

The Strong-arm Williams, Bassackwards Tribe 

When you wish upon a star,

and wake up, you’ll find

Judas is a Wisconsin sheriff,

and what’s done in Dallas 

doesn’t stay in Dallas 

but works its weaponized way 

‘Round the world—and what you dream,

No matter how extreme—is only a

Five-sided suction tube

Demonically sucking up Everything 

not sucked up by Banks too big to fail…

When you wish upon a star

and wake up, you’ll find Ferguson

fantasies; more Baltimore than Bavarian

Superheroes—young and strong 

Marching all night long on blistered feet—

or, Superheroes who have callused hands, and can 

Stop work at the point of

Production…having fun doing it!

Raymond Nat Turner © 2018 All Rights Reserved

"Down With NRA" by Raymond Nat Turner

           Down With NRA

(For Emma and The Resistance)

Down with NRA

sponsoring murder in our schools

Down with NRA

hacks saying guns are just ‘tools’

Down with NRA

mass murders nearly everyday

Down with NRA

banking on bullets which ricochet 

Down with NRA

‘cause death is in their DNA

Down with NRA

and laws of green papier-mâché

Down with NRA

with shopworn loops of SOS

Down with NRA

senators spewing bull-mess

Down with NRA

lying thugs who window dress

Down with NRA

shills in the corporate press

Down with NRA

calculating crimson largess

Down with NRA

deadly virus and infection

Down with NRA

masking itself “self-protection”

Down with NRA

dark days in its setting sun

Down with NRA

mantra, “good guy with a gun”

Down with NRA

and their pale, cold, dead hands

Down with NRA

Rise up—taking fighting stands!

Poet’s Note: Inspired by great Jazz guitarist Bobby Broom’s “Penny Saved”

Raymond Nat Turner © 2018 All Rights Reserved

"2/4 Dance Don’t Cut It" by Raymond Nat Turner

2/4 Dance Don’t Cut It

“Pay, or die…” the Death

Sentence Big Pharma-

Insurance Mob just issued 

a neighbor; and a Frankenfood 

experiment’s irritating my gut

The water smells swampy some days,

like bleach others; Tents grow in night

air like multi-colored mushrooms—crazy

cancer cells; Another school’s shuttered,

its teachers scattered in the wind, like

pencil sharpener shavings—Money for 

Bombs, not for books—Wow, the wars

went from seven to nine this week…

Here they come again with Fear:

‘Freedom of Choice,’ binary bad 

or worse options—hiking uphill

barefoot, in elephant excrement,

donkey dung to take one—with or

without Vaseline—from the1% again

I’m not sure I have another 8 yrs 

for translating, deciphering slogans:

“Regime…change you can believe in!”

“Yes, we can…and bottle Jim Jones Juice!”

as silly spoils of celebrity-worship;

Isn’t it time for Adult Politics? 

Isn’t it time to abandon Infantile

Exercises—searching for saviors

Every 2 to 4 yrs—and Nominate

Meeting More Than Four Corners;

Donate to Door-To-Door; Phone Bank 

for Boycott; Campaign for Consciousness; 

Support Shoe Leather-Street Heat running for

Raising roofs, planting food, curing cancer?

Raymond Nat Turner © 2018 All Rights Reserved