The mudslide people
The mudslide people
don’t care what you think.
They don't listen to argument
gonna enjoy their life
like there ain't no tomorrow.
The mudslide people
might get caught with their pants down
might not wake up tomorrow
might not know how foolish they are.
The mudslide people
cook barbecue ribs on the back porch
drink whole bottles of rum
aren't very good dancers.
The mudslide people
don't listen to reason
hate long-range forecasts
eat their TV sets.
Do you want to be like the mudslide people?
They were warned and didn't listen.
They've been evacuated from their homes.
Can't they respect the power of mud?
Slow, soggy brown dirt under our feet --
not like being hit by a comet
nor being pushed off a bridge
nor a tree falling on your pickup.
Death by mudslide, who could have imagined
the ignominy, the strange commonness of circumstance.
It made a whooshing sound, witnesses say. How artistic. How unclean.
Mud moves concrete walls and steel bridges.
Let us not forget the foolish, fragile mudslide people.
The city council funds PSAs proclaiming "Mud Kills."
NMA counters with ads, "Mud don’t move houses: zoning ordinances do."
Public schools ban mud from the classroom.
A college student publishes a mud recipe on his home page
and is expelled.
Wash me in mud, let my hair knot.
I'll wash my hands in mud and tear open my orange,
dance in the mud and pull you down in it,
fall in the mud and make mud-fairies.
O fierce mud, earth-stuff:
Teach us new building techniques
new dances and new languages
everyone slipping and sliding together.
Everyone is the same color when covered in mud.
Ashes to ashes, mud to mud.
Thud. Bud. Zud.
by Frank Brown
3/11/97