Civil Progress: Life in Black America via
Greg Kucera Gallery Where 8th Generation
Ibo-American With 1/4 Indigenous Genes Con-
Siders Cuban and Haitian Refugees

Twilight this is:
        this creeping dimness...
Painted and shimmering
carnival gold imbilicus
at stellar gate leaps
ocular rods as if
viewer, painter, and God’s
spirit would follow that
golden mean twisting along
the way where the wow of center
canvas and joyful poise of
Black counterpoints ghostly figures
of repressed civil society.
Piercing the veil with Gothic
arabesques four Black Beauties
    float
        thalasa cumi
in carnival boat, free and opposite fun dome
        with its spooks
    like jelly fish
    floating amidst
    a tunnel of
    horrors:
next to Red Cross flag are white abstractionist
marks which express a window or surreal dripping
aquamarine sky churning clouds into sea.
        The viewer
        is remained
        of the Book
    Of the Dead,
        the passage of souls beyond
the veil; here, Kerry Marshall’s Great America
        is so much more than
iconic symbols pointing to eternity.
        One could
imagine vocal cords of
glass and steel for the Blacks
        in the gondola
as the bell tolls
    at exponential increase
amidst the storms turned calming sea.
    The viewer checks out four
Black Beauties an amusement park ride
like venus occulated from God’s head
gliding through sky that is sea. The fifth Black,
head above water, is about
        to be translated from clouds
and waves, one hopes, in this soulescape.
 
Money can not shield us.
These Ibo, like ourselves, these Black Jews
know the blood that decays angels.
            Broken,
the question is: will you accept the cure?