AWARD by Ray Durem.

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?
the sun keeps rising every morning.
ever see me buy an Assistant President?
or close a school?
or lend money to Trujillo?
ever catch me rigging airplane prices?
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,
who had to pee…
and I just didn’t know what to do,
Would you?
see, I’m so light, it just don’t seem right
to go to the colored rest room;
my daughter’s brown and 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 that you can,
you lost me a few jobs,
scared a couple of landlords,
You got me struggling for that bread,
but I ain’t dead.
and before it’s all through,
I may be following you!

Category: Freedom,