Mud Cloth by Betty Davis
Mud Cloth Madness Exhibit, Crocker Art Museum
—Photo by Michelle Kunert, Sacramento
—Paul Lojeski, Port Jefferson, NY
There are three
houses on our
block that’ve
been for sale
for three years.
The owners
won’t lower
their prices,
refusing
to acknowledge
the economy
has tanked, sunk
like a stone by
crooked bankers
and financiers,
who've left them,
the saps, holding
the proverbial
bag.
Now they hide
in their bubbles
of denial, sure
they’re immune
to those great,
invisible forces
grinding every-
body else to dust.
If they wait just
a little longer,
they think
doggedly,
the market
will readjust
and re-embrace
them, the true
believers,
and they’ll reap
the golden
whirlwind.
Meanwhile, I pass
by now and then
and I see them
at their windows,
staring out
at nothing,
waiting wide-
eyed for a sign.
____________________
A HERD GRAZING
—Paul Lojeski
The worse things
get, the louder
the TV’s
are.
Whatever it takes
to divert the
sheep
from the slaughter
roars
forward in that frantic
noise.
But the sheep
know, they
sense it in their
bones: murder
is on the wind,
murder
in their name
but better
them than us
they pray
in lonely
nights
as the good
Germans
once faith-
fully did.
___________________
BUSH
—Paul Lojeski
In the photo
of a morgue
the father kisses
his dead son’s
hand while
a brother
kneels, his
forehead
pressed to the
dead brother’s
forehead: Iraq,
February, 2011.
___________________
BLIND LUCK
—Paul Lojeski
We had a share in a town up north and once a serious indulgence in a bad substance had us both shaking but him worse, under the covers pulled up to his chin, skin gone green and I urged him to let me take him to the hospital but he rode it out as winter tore the place up outside. Now he’s got a family in LA, clean in the heat but he calls sometimes to joke about that time, the time death got its dark hands around his throat and closed in for the kill. Imagine laughing at a thing like that.
___________________
surprise
—Paul Lojeski
this bit of breath
fascinated even
the most cynical
of prisoners.
___________________
Today's LittleNip:
The world is now too dangerous for anything but the truth, too small for anything but brotherhood.
—A. Powell Davies
___________________
—Medusa
Thanks to Paul Lojeski for some thoughts that somehow seem to apply to Presidents' Day, as do the photos sent to us by Michelle Kunert from the Crocker Art Museum as we wind up Black History Month. The Mud Cloth Madness exhibit, organized by The Kuumba Collective Art Gallery and presented by the Crocker Art Museum, explores how mud cloth, a hand-woven and hand-dyed textile, developed by the Bande people of Mali, West Africa, has inspired local artists in an array of mediums. From wearable art, to quilts, to decorative arts, Mud Cloth Madness offers a contemporary twist on a traditional symbol of African culture. The exhibit runs through April 17; go to www.crockerartmuseum.org/art/current-exhibitions for more info.
Pan Spirit
Mud Cloth by Adele James
—Photo by Michelle Kunert
