Hi there … and welcome to Mountain Mama’s Earth Music … and today for friends and loved ones who are taking control of their lives and for the beautiful 99 percent holding space in our cities, with handmade signs that speak the truth. This is a hope for recovery.
1) Mr. Banker, Lynyrd Skynyrd 5:22
2) Postcards From Hell, The Wood Brothers 4:41
Bankruptcy Hearing
By Dana Bisignani
They have us corralled
in the basement of the courthouse.
One desk and a row of folding chairs—
just like first grade, our desks facing Teacher
in neat little rows.
Upstairs,
wooden benches like pews and red
carpet reserved for those who’ve held out
the longest. No creditors have come to claim us
today. We’re small-time.
This guy from the graveyard shift
stares at his steel-toed boots, nervous hands
in his lap. None of us look each other
in the eye. We steal quick looks—how did you
get here. . .
chemo bills, a gambling addiction,
a summer spent unemployed and too many
cash advances to pay the rent.
We examine the pipes that hang
from the ceiling, the scratched tiles on the floor,
the red glow of the exit sign at the end of the hall
so like our other failed escapes:
light of the TV at night,
glass of cheap Merlot beside a lamp,
a stop light on the way out of town.
3) I Don’t Want Your Millions, Greg Brown 2:47
4) Pay Day, Mississippi John Hurt
Money
by John Updike
Money is such a treat.
It takes up so little space.
It takes no more ink
for the bank to print $9,998
than to print $1,001.
It flows, electronically;
it does not gather dust.
Like water, it (dis)solves everything.
Oceanic, it is yet as lucid
as a mountain pool; the depositor
can see clear to the sandy bottom.
It is ubiquitous and under pressure, yet
pennies don't drip from faucets.
Money is so tidy, so neat.
It is freedom in action: when you
give a twenty-buck bill to the cabbie,
you don't tell him how to spend it.
He can blow it on coke,
for all you care. All you care
about is your change. No wonder
the ex-Communists are dizzy. In
the old Soviet Union
there was nothing to buy,
nothing to spend. It was freedom
of a kind, but not our kind. We need
money, the dull electric thrill
when the automatic teller spits out
the disposable receipt.
5) Money, Money, Money ABBA 3:07
6) Money, Pink Floyd 6:23
7) Money Talks, J.J. Cale
Formulary
By Sandra McPherson
We are dropping one and gaining two—.
The things I cannot do
include to sleep,
to calm the spillway of the blood,
to face an auditorium,
wishing it were churchy pillbox hats—
recital mothers’—
with no sense of Vogue or the Baroque.
I’ve other pills
to tramp on grief,
estrange pain,
and hatch the part of waking that is dreams,
double one dose to un-depress
and to write less and less
a chronicle of anxiety.
I spot-treat
a spate of addiction
in this faint dusk world
of peach sky and plum leaflets—
a woman in her prime,
pilled together.
8) Black Balloon, Goo Goo Dolls 4:10
9) Mother’s Helper, The Rolling Stones 2:47
10) Ice Cream Man, Tom Waits 3:14
Lost in the Forest
By Amy Gerstler
I’d given up hope. Hadn’t eaten in three
days. Resigned to being wolf meat ...
when, unbelievably, I found myself in
a clearing. Two goats with bells
round their necks stared at me:
their pupils like coin slots
in piggy banks. I could have gotten
the truth out of those two,
if goats spoke. I saw leeks
and radishes planted in rows;
wash billowing on a clothesline ...
and the innocuous-looking cottage
in the woods with its lapping tongue
of a welcome mat slurped me in.
In the kitchen, a woman so old her sex
is barely discernible pours a glass
of fraudulent milk. I’m so hungry
my hand shakes. But what is this liquid?
“Drink up, sweetheart,” she says,
and as I wipe the white mustache
off with the back of my hand:
“Atta girl.” Have I stumbled
into the clutches of St. Somebody?
Who can tell. “You’ll find I prevail here
in my own little kingdom,” she says as
she leads me upstairs—her bony grip
on my arm a proclamation of ownership,
as though I've always been hers.
11) Fix You, Cold Play 4:55
12) Help Yourself, Sad Brad Smith 3:24
Mountain Mama’s Earth Music is heard here on KDRT 95.7 FM, in Davis, CA and you can check out today’s play list, listen to the show or any of other great shows any old time by logging onto KDRT.org.
“The Breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep.” - Rumi
Peace
13) Higher Place, Tom Petty 3:56
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