IN THE SAME BOAT?

by Raymond Nat Turner

BOOM goes tuna and swordfish stuffed brown burlap bags aboard

boats blown to smithereens. Presto! Fishing is now narco-trafficking.

And this violent video game replayed on high seas with impunity is

the new normal. Same boat, different decks?

Bay Of Pigs ghost ships haunt Havana. They bring boatloads of

jet black nights. Sporadic electricity. Spoiled food. Howling bellies.

Dry mouths. Dead dialysis and cancer patients with premature babies. 

Same boat, different decks?

Boatload of bodies dubbed “dignified transfer” return home boxed and

smothered in stars and stripes. While warlords of Wall Street and Washington

do undignified transfers of trillions from our treasure to float boats

on champagne and caviar. To Epstein ports of call. Same boat, different decks?

300 supersized workdays at sea. Exhausted sailors. Minutes from madness.

Several imagine Emancipation Proclamation diving overboard from the

sewage-spewing, moldy shower, soapless, food-short ship, Abraham Lincoln. 

Same boat, different decks?

Black skull and crossbones flag flaps furiously against winds of change.

Must turn SS Cruel Corrupt Titanic-class “destroyer” around—or

run aground! Can’t vote our boat ashore no more. Must convert this ghastly

gray, bloody gunboat into MLK Dr. Che-class radical Love Boat.

US as admirals. US ordering humongous waves of organizations. US ordering

militant millions into sustained strikes, boycotts, demonstrations. MUTINY AHEAD?

Raymond Nat Turner is a NYC poet; Black Agenda Report's Poet-in-Residence; and founder/co-leader of the jazz-poetry ensemble UpSurge!NYC.

MS MAXWELL AND THE ART OF THE DEAL

by Raymond Nat Turner

Cartoon by Jean Gouders posted 9 August 2025 on X by Iroon.

For her silence she wants the Ruby

Slippers back—along with her broomstick—

The Lolita Express… Better yet…  she

Wants the jet Qatar gifted grifter Boss Tweet.

She wants all alphabet agencies who

Spy on the American People

Mobilized/weaponized to find out which

Hedge fund flipped a house on her sister.

She wants ICE rounding up a million Munchkins a month

For her pleasure. She wants scores of other peoples’ babies.

She wants impunity to work Quinceañeras, Bat Mitzvahs,

Sweet Sixteens with former father figure, Jel-Low Puddin Man.

She wants a new psyop to co-opt left language.

She wants to use “What’s the call? Free ‘em all!”

To Free Harvey! Free Diddy! Free R. Kelly! And

Allow Russell Simmons to sing, “I believe I can fly!”

She wants Slick Willy notified that honeypots and

Sandwiches will return shortly. She wants Cuomo

To know he can come and go. She wants Papa Cop

To know that he can fly—free—to Turkey.

She wants baby oil tariffs removed. She wants

Diddy as mixologist aboard the Love Boat her

Father fell from and drowned in waters off the

Canary Islands.

She wants use of some 800 plus bases run by

Greasy-thumbed generals. Preferably, those

Named for confederate traitors. She wants to erect a new

Headquarters. A station. A secure location for predation.

She wants to “steal” reich-cult blondes for weekly workouts.

Smoothie-fueled saunas, steam baths and mani-pedis in secure

White supremacist, settler-colonial, tropical paradises. Built on

Profaned bones of indigenous ancestors.

Finally, if she’s found “unresponsive.” Entangled in sheets. Tumbled from

10th floor window. Or, reciting autopsy, a coroner crows, “A little poison!”

Bury her atop her triple-agent Pop. In Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives Cemetery.

With international intelligence community elite turnout—With 21 gun salute...

Raymond Nat Turner is a NYC poet; Black Agenda Report's Poet-in-Residence; and founder/co-leader of the jazz-poetry ensemble UpSurge!NYC.