12feb11

When I was 5, or there-about, I watched an episode of Sesame Street which I'll never forget. A young girl, not much older than myself, was taking us through what looked like a junkyard. We passed through a dim corridor between a zinc building and a concrete wall and to the back of the yard. She strapped on some wooden beams to her legs and started walking... taller now than the wall which previously towered over our heads.

I was mystified.

I could feel a strange excitement bubbling up inside of me like none I had felt before. It wasn't the kind of thing would make me yell "Mummy, mummy! I want to do this!" because it didn't seem like something that was feasible, especially since I lived in Jamaica and the video was done in some other part of the world. But it was an excitement I hid deep down.... a hope that I never truly let go of; that one day, I could be transformed into the majestic Moko Jumbie.

Somehow, as a teenager, I ended up in Trinidad. The plan was to complete my final two years of high school and then return home. That didn't happen. Those two years ended up being the best in my life and so I decided to stay just one more year, and signed up for a Visual Art certificate course at the University of the West Indies.

It was there that I heard these words: "We're going to the Moko Jumbie camp on a field trip."

It was early 2009, I was 19 and these words spoken by my tutor at the art school resonated against that hidden hope. The one I had all but forgotten. "What did you say?", I asked with a heightening pitch. I could barely believe my ears. At that time I didn't specifically remember the Sesame Street showing, just that this was something I always wanted to do. At the camp, as I was strapping on the stilts, I remembered the show and I mentioned to my tutor. "Oh yes, he said, this is the same place that was on the show".

This knowledge only heightened my euphoria as I moved around on my 2' stilts. It was a feeling I had never experienced before not just excitement but contentment.... I had actually achieved a dream. And even though the events leading up to it weren't by my own doing it's a feeling I relished and which taught me to always allow room for my dreams to come true.

So even now, I don't feel confined or defined by my physical location or current ability or stage in life. I count no aspiration of mine impossible instead I'm eager to keep learning and develop; to exist in a state of readiness so that if any opportunity comes along I may be able to grab it.

© Chereese La-Vonne Ricketts 2010

3 feb 11

What's a house without walls?
A travel mug without a lid?
A refrigerator without a door?

Life needs boundaries to maintain optimal functionality.

© Chereese La-Vonne Ricketts 2010

at peace, alone

the tormented soul
has no need to fear
the taunts of others
as it rests in silence;
solitaire.

© Chereese La-Vonne Ricketts 2010

reflecting...

light dispels

the deceptive veil

that wraps the lies

and makes them feel real

purity burns
so the darkness runs
and despises every mirror
that reflects the sun


© Chereese La-Vonne Ricketts 2010

Stay on the road

The skies cry the tears that I try to hold in
And like a quick hand they are flung from the windscreen.

On the radio croons the voice of Jimmy Cliff;
"You can get it if you really want, but you must try, try and try"

Try not to let this sadness cloud your dreams,
Like fogs obscures the hilltops
Try not to slide into distraction
Like the slippery road threatens to throw you off.

The song breaks.
A weather brief comes on,
Tomorrow morning, it will be sunny.

© Chereese La-Vonne Ricketts 2010

"Cher, can you hear me?" My mother's voice crackled through my ear-piece, "I can hardly hear you, I never hear you."

In the prior two weeks a few others had mentioned not being able to hear me well, but since my mum hadn't said anything [and heaven knows we call each other 10 times a day], I had quickly judged their phones as the problem. As I drove, my mum's words rung deep, "I can never hear you". I had ignored her enough times in my life.

Now, I must admit; my cheap Sony Ericsson could earn miles for being a frequent faller, but you'd never know it by looking at its barely-scratched screen and hurricane-resistant paint job. Perhaps if my phone's outer appearance had seemed somewhat more dilapidated I would have considered it as the dysfunctional one, instead of quickly judging others' phones, but it didn't seem that way, so I didn't even consider it. Like my phone, I have fallen more times than I've flown, and with a seemingly unscathed outer appearance. The inner wiring, however, was not so lucky.

There is a famous proverb which says:

"Why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me remove the speck from your eye'; and look, a plank is in your own eye?"

I've been able to fool people that I'm alright and, by their belief, slowly fool myself into the suicidal state of self-deception. I've been judgmental and critical from an imaginary throne of self-righteousness. The proverb continues to say;

"Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."

A great desire of mine is that my life can be a resource that others may be able to learn and gain wisdom from. This seemingly noble ambition, however, is compromised and unfruitful if it's done sanctimoniously.

I've had to be real with myself and question; Do you have a plank that needs removing? Or perhaps a cellular unit which could use some re-wiring?

The action to heal the world cannot predate personal healing.


© Chereese La-Vonne Ricketts 2010

discerning...

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel,
where the metal torpedo drove.
Through thickened skull it opened
with cerebral confetti
and the severance of vital ribbons
[of impulse]
[no longer in pulse].

I see a flicker
of light
as lamplight glistens on trigger,
rushing to the concluding breath.
And now,
the fresh new expectancy of...

Tambourines in the violent screams
as lips tremor
and legs quake,
while through the window streams sunset light.
Shadows announce the impending night....
But I see saturation intensify;

Colours have never seemed this bright.

© Chereese La-Vonne Ricketts 2010

Welcome

I'm often told I talk too much, though not often in words.

What I think those that "say" this really mean is that I think too much, messing up their comfortable non-thinking.

I see dead people, all around me. Zombies, who think they are alive, and deciding how to live. But they are all on a leash, trapped in the vicinity of death. I used to be one of them.

Now I'm on a quest to find and establish me, to decide what aspects of what's here I want to keep and hone, and what aspects to totally trash. To look around me at others' lifestyles and to question them, with a somewhat selfish mindset; "what can I learn from you", but in the process hoping I can deposit some thing of value to them as well.

The point is not to be rebellious, it is to be conscious.

Identify yourself.

Defy death.

Contradistinction of Sameness

humanity
binds us
in a sameness
of which impossibility
defines
our ability
to deny


we eat
we breathe
we live


similarly,
but contrastingly,
we envisage
and we execute
what we envisage
and we exist
as our execution
according to our vision


trapped
in this asylum of sameness
distorted
by fogged mirrors
of age
race
place
we must make out our own definition


resist the authorities of conformity
question their clonal laws
march against
their storm
of belittling words
screaming your shouts


make the colours of you-ness heard


© Chereese La-Vonne Ricketts 2010