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If I Get My Own Radio Program

Copyright Jerry Pendergast 2019

Don’t call to request a Bosa Nova,
then call here demanding
I stop reading reports
of the Amazon choking.
Of Rain Forest people fighting to stay on their land.
A song from a village
With trees still standing.
No songs for Lula

That you don’t want to hear about the stroking
of a pen commanding
a bombing or forclosure
exposure
to heat or cold that can kill

Don’t tell me you despise
the sound of a language
or an accent you don’t recognize
then call here to request
MY GRANDFATHER’S IMMAGRINT EYES.

Call to tell me you and your crew can’t dance
to Gil Scott Heron’s Johanesburgh
or chants
from rain forest dwellers
or water protectors
blasted with hoses, cannon water

Don’t call here with your lamentation
If I play an interview
from a village
or a reservation
with pipes under land under river
bursting

Don’t call to ask me to deliver
OLD MAN RIVER
and tell me you don’t want to think
about a city
with water undrinkable.
Would you want it by Paul Robesen?

 
Don’t tell me No Holly Near
or Sweet Honey in the Rock
“Watch Out”
or “No More Auction Block”.

Smooth Jazz
But not the kind Lester Young
or Wes Montgomery
or Monk played..

Don’t want to be overcome
with tempo or pich range
or any strange
Chord cahnges
Only want to hear
tunes that nova
cane your psyche.

 
Don’t tell me play SWEET HOME CHICAGO
but no
piece by CSO
chanting “sixteen shots!”

No pieces
By Leonard
or Mumia
Abu Jamal or
Peltier
Any piece from prison
Or from someone whose risen
from years of any kind of abuse

No ode
to Fria
or Diego
Kahlo
or Rivera
Tell me to steer
my play list to the middle
of some crumbling road.

Don’t tell me that their stories are over,
then demand that I play some Bosa Nova.

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