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POEM OF THE MONTH, February 2006 |
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Written by Ray Durem
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Tuesday, 31 January 2006 |
Award
[A Gold Watch To The FBI Man Who Has Followed Me For 25 Years]
Well, old spy
looks like I
led you down some pretty blind alleys,
took you on several trips to Mexico,
fishing in the high Sierras,
jazz at the Philharmonic.
You've watched me all your life,
I've clothed your wife,
put your two sons through college.
what good has it done?
sun keeps rising every mourning.
Ever see me buy an Assistant President?
or close a school?
or lend money to Somoza?
I bought some after-hours whiskey in L.A.
but the chief got his pay.
I ain't killed no Koreans,
or fourteen-year-old boys in Mississippi
neither did I bomb Guatemala,
or lend guns to shoot algerians.
I admit I took a Negro child
to a white rest room in Texas,
but she was my daughter, only three,
and she had to pee,
and I just didn't know what to do,
would you?
see, I'm so light, it don't seem right
to go to the colored res room;
my daughter'
s brown, an folks frown on that in Texas,
I just don't know how to go to the bathroom in the free world!
Now, old FBI man,
you've done the best you can,
you lost me a few jobs,
scared a few landlords,
You got me struggling for that bread,
but I ain't dead.
and before it's all through,
I may be following you!
Ray Durem (1915-1963) joined the Navyat 14 and was a member of the International Brigades during the Spanish Cvil War. He lived for a number of years in Mexico, returning to the US for medical care. He died in LA.
source: I am the Darker Brother: an Anthology of Modern Poems by Negro Americans Arnold Adoff (ed), 1968 |
