#cherokeeghostrider

[cherokeeghostwriter]

landscapes

crows as seen through a frozen window. foraging in blurred impressions movement. this view defies the cold, desire searching past frosted glass, reaching out to touch an ephemeral moment.

this brush pen, has worn thin of late. grasping at the root of it. held too tightly for composition, a canvas, pristine, and bare.

winter comes again -and again, to fields, that have all gone fallow. clear blue skies that cling, to my black and white landscapes.

[cherokeeghostwriter]

wasted on the young

time. i need more -or a renewed disregard for limits. or clocks, maybe, i need the insolence, that only the young can maintain.

it's terrible, these consequences. a lifetime looking for answers, peeking behind every discernible curtain, finding only the irreplicable nature -of madness.

[cherokeeghostwriter]

I ran across this photograph recently while searching for something else on the internet. It's a very odd sensation when a memory suddenly grabs you, and whisks you away to a place and a feeling that you hadn't realized still lived somewhere deep down inside.

In 1976 I was thirteen, and just coming to that age where a boy begins contemplating, and or obsessing over the female persuasion. At my mothers prompting, my stepfather took on the very uncomfortable (for both sides) conversation about the birds and the bees, what goes where and why, and what it means if another boy flirts with you. At this point you might be asking yourself "Thirteen ? How naive was this kid?" Well, you might not believe this but kids back in the 70's weren't exposed to a tenth as much as they are today. We had a chance to be innocent for a time -some of us. -Getting back to the photograph At around this time my parents acquired a new television for the living room. This might not sound like a big deal, but back in the day, a new TV was as monumental as buying a car, and nearly as big as a car. It was more like furniture. We went from a 23" screen, to a mind bending 25" screen. It was a whole new world people. What to do with the old outdated entertainment center became a real controversy. Everyone had their suggestion for its new location. My brother was gone by then, into the coastguard, so it was me and my sisters trying every angle we could find, to win the secondhand prize TV set, and place it, like a crown jewel in our respective bedrooms. Lucky for me my father was a sucker for logic, and my record collection was the tipping point, placing the highly coveted, ten foot long, combination Television/High-Fi stereo/Record player, along an entire wall of my bedroom. I was living in very tall cotton folks! -I swear I'm getting to the photograph. Becoming the proud new owner of an entertainment center, came with a few rules, obviously. My mother was obsessed with rules, and had a real passion for enforcing said rules with a vigor that bordered on maniacal. If there was an activity, she swatted it with a rule and made sure that it walked with a limp thereafter. The rules went as follows- No TV after 9pm, No drinks placed on top of the TV, If anything inappropriate comes on the TV screen, you are to immediately change the channel, or swiftly turn it off. (yeah right) I didn't care. I had a television in my own bedroom, and It was glorious!

It took me almost a week to break the first rule. I was a pretty good kid and did what was expected about 95% of the time. But being a kid, I felt I had to uphold the code of children everywhere, and rebel just a tad on occasion. I had big plans for a particular Thursday night. Thursday night 9pm was epic movie night, and I was geared up to break the rules and watch "The french connection" a movie that was filled with violence. My mother's hair would have fallen out, if she knew I was watching it. When the time came for the movie to start, in its place was some other movie I'd never heard of "The Summer of 42." Starring Jennifer O'neill. (Photo) I was deflated. I considered turning it off, but instead I just sat there disgruntled. After a little while, I started to get into the story, and after a while longer, I realized that this was a pretty good flick. It had a kid around my age, going through some of the same stuff I was going through, and I became fully vested in the main character  "Hermie." Hermie it seemed, had become infatuated with an older woman. A very beautiful woman. A woman that I was quietly falling in love with as well, in the darkness of my solitary bedroom. It was the first time I had ever felt this particular feeling. As the movie came to its inexorable end, Hermie, as an older man, narrated his memories over the last parting scene, and I realized that I had been weeping. Something had changed in me. I had found a deep well of longing that still resides in me today.

[cherokeeghostwriter]

only the echo

I hear the words repeating, they land in me like falling glass- sharp, undeniable, and already too late.

I imagine us closer to the now, nearer to this horizon, where things might seem possible, long before they are real.

I’ve learned, slowly, that some distances cannot be bridged. some partings are not moments, but movements- taking what they take, leaving only the echo.

[cherokeeghostwriter]

another storm

it's always raining here, with or without an accompanying poem. a rhyming verse for every purpose i suppose, or non rhyming in this instance.

there's a haiku lurking about i'm certain. (there always is) i've seen telltale sign of its ordered perusal, looking for a place to land, circling back around again for a better spot.

i forget what i was going to say here, i'm sure it was extremely important. poets pontificating on matters of the heart, culling through our mortal remains, waiting out another storm.

[cherokeeghostwriter]

The promise of winter

October comes, carrying childhood in its wake. playing hide and seek with moon-bright nights draped in clouds. troops of costumed children running through darkened streets, echoing wild abandon.

October comes -whispering. it calls to me in a familiar voice. images of the past play against days, dressed in autumns composition. "no more time to waste" it says, as it revels in the promise of winter.

[cherokeeghostwriter]

worn

I swore to be ready this time. these damn seasons creep up on me. they come and go like a grey cat, in a midnight room, slipping away like friends on moving day. I can't stem the tide -the flood, the unrelenting momentum. morning is here again, with a chill. it moves with the same graceful pace, ushering me as a child from my dreams. these days are the same as they ever were, but I feel the quickening. my mind, like the keys of a worn piano, playing slightly out of tune.

[cherokeeghostwriter]

into the unknown

having trouble with recognizing the obvious. too many days under my belt, too much time to hold on to. moments gathering, as wild flowers, falling from my grasp- trailing into the unknown.