We can no longer …

I’m not a nuanced
Negro
Complicating,
Contextualizing, centering,
Unpacking, drilling down
Inter-sectionally into
weeds beneath capitalism’s
Hood …

Yet, point blank,
full stop— I say:
We can no longer
Afford the rich …

We can no longer
Afford the rich …
And their Wars of the
Week! Their bloodletting beheading babies;
blistering bodies like hotdogs on exploding
hospital grills! Their turning streets of the world
into crimson rivers/salt ponds of tears—Their
Fattening vampire shareholders profits Q1-Q4!

We can no longer
Afford the rich …
And their School Shootings du Jour served
in absurd solutions! Like strapping
Teachers in paper-starved; pencil-depleted
classrooms! Classrooms of growling belly symphonies;
Classrooms prostrate beneath profits of High Priests of Violence!

We can no longer
Afford the rich …
And their champagne-caviar frivolity—Forgetting how many
Houses they have—while tarps and tents are popping up like
pastel mushroom clouds … And the capitalist cancer of card-
board mattresses metastasizes … Skid Rows across the country …

We can no longer
Afford the rich …
And their $campaigns and $elections infesting
Capitalist Hill with larcenous lobbyists, sleazy
senators, corrupt congress members. And their
stuffing White Supreme Court slots with bought and
Bossed black-robed klansmen—Tali-banning abortion—
Otherwise partnering with the War House’s genocidal geriatrics

We can no longer
Afford the rich …
And their bomb trains hurtling over rickety tracks encircling
our homes! Their chemical warfare/fiery explosions/flaming
faucets! Their exploding wells. Their weaponized water poisoning
Our rivers/oceans, pumping plastic/lead into our children’s brains

We can no longer
Afford the rich …
And their supply-chain fairytales for food price-gouging …
Their class war on poor working-class children of Africa—
Their bloody monkey business extracting coltan and cobalt
sweat beads powering PCs and EVs for the comfortable ones

We can no longer
Afford the rich …
And their standing armies of strikebreakers; free speech
suppressors; freedom of assembly bashers— 1st and 4th
Amendment redactors … Truncheon-taser-wielding thugs
Draining city and county coffers …

We can no longer
Afford the rich …
And must disarm them:
Snatch our
Minds from their bloody hands—
And announce , “Normal don’t live
Here no mo’, Mr. Mutha-Fukkka,
And Business As Usual took off
running—moment he heard
Our footsteps!”

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, or visit Raymond Nat's website.