Dis-honest Broker
Raymond Nat Turner (for my friend Farid)
Metallic music of shovels; Abrasions on bare hands Digging, digging, digging through twisted bones and Rusted bricks of buildings. To backpacks, blankets, baby body parts to free tiny arms and legs emitting whispers…
Obese bulldozers munching homes and olive trees; Settlers snacking on bones of the evicted; Aquifer flooded with sea water and sewage are G- Rated nightmares and matter not to NFL, NBA bi-partisans
Forked tongue, dis-honest broker, fluent in ancient language Genocide Trots tattered tropes for terror out. Swears another Offal Office Oath on War House Bible — bathed in blood of 10s of millions: Wounded Knee to Trail of Tears; Tulsa to Hiroshima; Korea to Vietnam to Afghanistan…
Riddler/Joker — Dis- honest broker: “You have a right to” Be an aircraft carrier on the desert Acting as a weapons lab conducting Trade shows; Disguised as democracy Acting as an apartheid state; Concealing Third Reich real estate practices — Go on Step on the gas — and “Mow the grass!”
“You have a right to” quell them/Shell them! Bombard them/boneyard them! Snipe them/wipe them! Un-home them/Pogrom them! Expel them/Farewell them!
“You have a right to” strangulate them/Annihilate them! Bomb roads they’re instructed to travel — Let them eat Lead and gravel!
“You have a right to” kill them One-a-Day… for years — Daily… for decades… Until bloody bootprints become Normal as “Ironclad!” Normal as Baghdad… “You have a right to” 22 days of carnage; provided you Madison Avenue it: “Operation Caste-Lead!” “You have a right to” Step on the gas — and “Mow the grass!“
“You have a right to” 51 days of slaughter — if you market it as: “Operation Protective Edge!” “You have a right to” Step on the gas — and “Mow the grass!”
“You have a right to” Dr. Goebbels’ white phosphorus prescriptions for human animals holding human shields; Holding hostages; Holding hospital hideouts; Holding House keys — for… 3/4 of a Century…
Former forklift driver/warehouse worker/janitor, Raymond Nat Turner is a NYC poet; BAR’s Poet-in-Residence; and founder/co-leader of the jazz-poetry ensemble UpSurge!NYC. Read other articles by Raymond Nat Turner, or visit his website.