(Re)Possessed

.

December Twilight: Charles Burchfield, 1932-1938 (Wichita Museum of Art)

He creeps round the eerie empty houses at night

the cry of a lost soul illuminating a late window

on foreclosure and dispossession



The night stalker

alone, driving for hours through abandoned

neighborhoods, senses a curious



elation -- calmed for once, for once feeling almost

at home -- as though the light left on in

the vacant house had been lit



there for a ghost -- for him, alone --

Untitled 2152, 1998: photo by Todd Hido (Kaune, Sudendorf Gallery for Contemporary Photography, Cologne)

Untitled 2524, 1999: photo by Todd Hido (Kaune, Sudendorf Gallery for Contemporary Photography, Cologne)

Untitled 1968, 1997: photo by Todd Hido (Kaune, Sudendorf Gallery for Contemporary Photography, Cologne)

Untitled 1922-c, 1997: photo by Todd Hido (Kaune, Sudendorf Gallery for Contemporary Photography, Cologne)

Half million dollar house under foreclosure, Salinas, California: photo by Brendel, 13 February 2008