johnclarestokes
Walking low we
grow accustomed
To the cadence
Of the downcast
Seeing not
The Aufzug
The pulling up
For but a moment
Revealing the stairway
Made upon the clouds
Then the curtain lowers
And we walk on
Low below the
Stairway made.
John Clare Stokes
Between every pull upon the ropes
Nearer would we hover over
Gazing below to the other
side of a life so full with hope
From the apex of lift we’d return
Below the little ones so joyful
A mother with her little boys
And between the swings we’d yearn.
Both of us were bounding merrily up the trail, when our eyes met, precisely about the time we both froze. She thought me an odd one eyed creature as I kept the camera to my face. I won the day eventually as she, with a stamp of hoof, took to the swamp instead of passing nearer to me. I have that affect upon them.
by John Clare
There is a black we were told that was blacker
than all the coal that came from the company mine
A black always black for all of time
Worse than the black lungs of miners hacking
Some escaped from those Crumpler black hills
Beyond the black snow covering the death
To anywhere from the black Sabbath killing
Empty pews with few black shrouded widows bereft.
The Pocahontas mine is now but a memory
Company script not worth a wheat penny
Yet still they speak fondly of this entrance to hell
Blacker than black where once the devil did dwell.
Bouquet boy heard a certain song
From Patience to perseverance
A life of stroke, shutter and sonnet.
Johnclarestokes
It was in the fall of fifty one
When first in the semi- circle she heard his Greek
Innocent one from the hills she had come
A preacher man to find
He from the Navy
a bride to seek.
Had she but known the
Language sailors speak
Laced with tales not often found in testaments
She thought of the tears she would never weep.
Beware the sailors who sit and speak in Greek.
My gold crowned lady of crimson beauty
I defend thee from the visage of me
For who best to know the enemy within
Than he who knows where treachery begins?
My crimson crowned warrior of renown
Who defends this the honor of my golden crown
Do you not know within that for which you fall
Is but a heart of common straw?
Johnclarestokes
Quietly as the breathing tide drew from shore
Til but a faint trickle then a still pool
Into the distance mists another drew
The muted life with the mists in a swirl
Cold grew the once warm life on earth
Warmer grew the rising glow beyond
Til into eternal arms time was flung
To envelope the years of tearful mirth
Into the mists we vainly peered
Where goes our love held so dear?
How travels this spirit into the drear?
What mists can dry such tears?
Then in a gentle lifting of the mist
The mystery of the word in flesh
By faith grace the spirit does caress
In joy our downtrodden spirits lift.
We fear not the gathering gloom
It’s given that our years dwell in dim
Preparing us for the eternal realm
Our darkness into the light consume.
Johnclarestokes
There is this river of which the man dreams
That someday he will paddle in the entirety
Knowing every bend of her native beauty
Just two in the canoe of long journey
The Old Town is outfitted and trimmed
Bending branch wood paddles for the two
Lean to tent and supplies generously secured
Nothing spared for the journey of the two
But this river of which he dreams doesn’t exist
The canoe but a dry stored upside down hull
Paddles dry rot from many years out of water
But constant in his dream the thought persists.
It’s what every old waterman longs for
That journey with the elusive love he lost
To return to the rivers source at any cost
There to dwell upon her shore for ever more.
Wendell Berry
Even in a country you know by heart
it’s hard to go the same way twice.
The life of the going changes.
The chances change and make a new way.
Any tree or stone or bird
can be the bud of a new direction. The
natural correction is to make intent
of accident. To get back before dark
is the art of going.
Tooley Farm
Madison
While down by the stream
I picked up five smooth stones
Four for me and one for you.
On race day I tried not to take over, but came unglued when no one thought to order pins for the numbers. A frantic run to an open store found only straight pens not safety pins.
I later felt bed for such harsh words to Tom and Kathy.
The next year I ordered so many pins that even today I have a box full just in case.
Johnclarestokes
For they have been ordered
These be your bounds
Are we without orders found
Mightier than the ocean?
We had given up on the eagle flying from the snag by the waters edge, the shadows of days end enveloping him. We retreated ever so slowly perchance he knew we waited, toying with us, when came the gulls toward the rising moon. He got the moon in focus, I got the birds in focus. We were both pleased. The eagle could sit there all evening for all we cared.
In the morning mystic
Came one most majestic
The mists declaring
The presence of blue heron
The beach of life
Johnclarestokes
We take our special beach chairs and find a good spot. We settle in for the parade of our lives passing by. The new mother in the joy of her child to the singular old man in his thoughts. In between the varying stages of girth and gait. And we rise from our chairs to join the never ending parade, becoming to the spectators their own images of admiration, longing and loathing all taking our place in the journey.
As Cash Bentley in the John Cheever short story, we harriers come the approaching New Year, would begin with ardor the training, the lining up the furniture in the living room if you will, for the hurdle race, the race being the March 15k River Run. Lately with the shedding nearing twenty pounds, the old legs again want to break into a trot on the morning walk. In the mists I have this urge to surge, to overtake Joe, Jim, Bob and Roger up ahead, to embrace them upon the awards ceremony field again, to share the sponsor beer and toast another race well run.
John Clare Stokes
Dropping into the lake that Spring morning
The warmth of the wood box high above me
I joined my brothers and sisters joyfully
And knew immediately an inner yearning.
I knew without warning of Gators and Snakes
To be avoided
I knew without seeing a longing for a distant home
That I must forage continually to grow strong
In order to join the grand, gathering dispersion.
I recall vividly the first chill of Autumn
How from this lake as if on cue
We lifted and knew the way as we in
V formations were joined with
Wings of purpose soaring toward the
Home we always knew from fledglings.
And so now I lay in the old nest box
From which I came
Beneath me the ones who will heed
their inner calling
As upon their grand migration I shall see
But not join
But this I shall know as from the beginning
Dispersion Home was always the deepest
Instinct within me.
Present place
I’ve dwelt in a past so wistfully blue
I’ve dreamt of a future blue with mystery
In a present place of light so true I dwell.
Behold, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel. Amos 7:7.
Since I left Baya rather abruptly two years ago, being fired for taking photos, imagine that, I really wanted nothing to do with anyone there. So sadly, when I went into the Urgent Care last week, only because they had x-Ray, the girls, some whom I still care for there, told me Keith Norris, the AM drug driver had passed away from Covid in September. I sure wish I’d have known, but like I said, I really didn’t want to keep in touch. He and Shep, the other driver I really liked and we were friends.
My photographing people in Gainesville was blown way out of proportion and the knee jerk reaction to make me some perv unwarranted. Nevertheless, I was glad to go for the very day I was fired I was hired to be a photographer for the company a good friend works for. This was a photo I took of Keith in 2018 as you can guess, I took all of Baya employees photographs. That’s what I did. Imagine that.
I told them I wasn’t going to stop.
John Clare Stokes
November mornings I hear the bob white
whistling in the kitchen and know
that soon the cane syrup
will be hopping by the noon light,
the amber sweetness compared to Berts
down in the woods of Mt Beasor,
out from Sopchoppy,
with Mrs Cora teaching Clara the art of
fluffy biscuits for the Methodist preacher,
with a little help from Mary Rudd above,
while little Jumpy climbs high the pummy
pile to claim king of the mountain,
only to be cast down by Robert his best friend
to muster the strength to climb again,
as over the green stamp plates grace is said,
the syrup poured reverently over the hot biscuit,
and later in the night while awake in his bed,
the little boy quietly whistles for bob white,
knowing he will soon answer in the cold
starry November Wakulla night.
I must decrease
I recall when Landon and I studied what scripture he wanted for his first tattoo.
It couldn’t be too long(pain) or too short, Jesus wept. He settled upon one of my favorite verses from John, John 3:30 where upon seeing Jesus, John the Baptist exclaimed, “He must increase, but I must decrease”.
A surfer then, I do not know if he still has the tattoo under his left bicep. When he entered the Air Force, he had to remove one painfully on his neck.
Daily I struggle with this scripture. Today I said, no weigh! I refused to weigh as every day has been a gain, not just physical, but ego and other load bearing sin, and at the same time, I read the daily scriptures which I often fall behind in, His increase so needed.
John Clare Stokes
Photograph by John Stokes
The scratch was just
A minor thing
Out of proportion
To the wailing
Thinking
This finger is severed
Down to bone!
And as by Divine touch
Mamma would gently
Rub her spittle
Dry the crying eyes
With fragrant hair
And say
"Go now, fall no more",
And we would depart
In wonderment
Whole again
Scolding the
Doubting
Severed finger.
John Clare Stokes
In my every solemn timid step
I hear their measured determined cadence
The awful thunder in the far Olustee distance
I move aside and bow my head in respect.
Standing alone in the charred out palmetto
Looking through the piney woods smoldering
Mine eyes amidst the ranks of gray beholding
I follow from afar where the ghosts are marching.
To Ocean Pond they come to meet the invaders
The cannon raining cones upon us rebel yelling
The Pileated fleeing with the yellow- bellied
Keeping apace with the boys hasty drumming.
A leap of ember and a sudden reeling
Why have I followed these gray wraiths
Cowardly I tremble behind a loblolly safely
Musket and grape shot the rosin bark peeling.
In the aftermath on the quiet Osceola palmetto glade
Eyes stinging from the sulfurous all enveloping choking
There stares an artiface rigid in the smoke
Tears of grey an ascending sacrifice made.
First lesson in the pool was clearing the mask and then buddy breathing. I took a breath of air and handed the regulator to my buddy. She would not give it back. She panicked in a pool. I had to surface. Nevertheless the classes smartest failed and dropped out.
I went on to pass my open water test at Royal Springs and got my dive card.
This scubapro fin is all that remains of my dive gear from the Hal Watts diving school.
Choose your buddy wisely.
Blind John Magoo
I try not post syrupy lubby dubby stuff. I’ve deleted several lubby dubby couples over the years infatuated with their trophy wife or masculine male. I try to be sensitive to those who do not have lubby dubby relationships and how it also makes them go like me, yuk, get a room you two. Oh, just Ignore those two Nikons on the love seat.
John Clare Stokes
Again we ponder our
Diminishing return
To the present
We ponder in
Toned down wonder
How the past
Came to this
Is it any wonder
When we ponder
The future is
Possible
Seaboard Coastline Station
Orlando
John Clare Stokes
Everyone should have an upstairs view
In my life I’ve had three
For hours I’d sit as below the world by me passed
How I wish the upper room would last.
John Clare Stokes
I don’t know why mamma would do it
But she would send me to spend the night
at Mrs Porters across the street by the Sopchoppy river.
Mrs. Willie Mae had an older son named Tommy
and he’d like to scare me
especially by showing me grandma’s wooden
leg in the corner closet
and he’d tell me how grandma would come
in the late of night in search of
her wooden leg
And the cold wind would moan through the
Cracks in the floor
And the closet door would creak
And Lura Elena would come close to me in her bed,
With a finger to her lips saying, shish,
Quiet now. Don’t be afraid.
Have you seen my wooden leg?
This time of season when Suwannee
is slumbering from the ardent
Springs roiling, she lets me draw near
without fear of her taking me on
her rapid journey to the Gulf.
In 2018 I went out for a test hike along the dikes of Alligator Lake. Lugged the d3300 on the 200-500 with the monopod, the D3500 on the 18-55. The GoPro hero and the iPhone. Had to stop every so often to rest. Woefully out of shape. Why does the glass to get you near have to be so heavy!
Roscoe and the photographer waited patiently upon the worn out dock, the fog too thick for clarity, watching the hawk and eagle perched, waiting us out.
The City crew arrived and stood around talking fishing, trash all about. Not their job. The grizzled old prick arrived in hopes of a morning rendezvous.
Don’t the predators ever tire?
The man in the boat worth the photographers home arrived to soon rock the dock with the too large wake. Roscoe ran for dry ground.
It was determined today the fog would prevail. The pain in the arm from the fall heightened by the damp mist. It pained the photographer to lift the heavy Nikon.
The geezer and the not my job work crew soon left so we loaded up and left too.
I’m sure soon thereafter the hawk and eagle flew.
They always do.
John Clare Stokes
Sunday nights we would sit out
on the porch listening to the
drums of New Mt Zion church, thinking
it sounded as the Waziri in the
Tarzan movie and we would
shiver in the Sopchoppy heat.
Eventually the tribe would
disperse, and mamma would
tuck us in early for school day.
We were timid to venture the
next afternoon across the field
in the direction of Zion, fearing
there we hungry cannibals lurking.
We never ventured too far from the earshot of the back porch, where we
knew when time came, mamma
would call us home, safe from
the drumming of New Mt Zion,
ever waiting to carry us beyond
the call of mamma and the back porch.
First lesson in the pool was clearing the mask and then buddy breathing. I took a breath of air and handed the regulator to my buddy. She would not give it back. She panicked in a pool. I had to surface. Nevertheless the classes smartest failed and dropped out.
I went on to pass my open water test at Royal Springs and got my dive card.
This scubapro fin is all that remains of my dive gear from the Hal Watts diving school.
Pick your buddy wisely.
It is late as you are about to enter Florida heading South on I-75 from Lowndes County. The concrete clunk, clunk, clunk of Georgia is hypnotic, looming ahead an exit. The only sign you see announcing this unincorporated town, the last exit before Florida. Exit 401, Lake Park Bellville Road. You tell your slumbering companion, lets get off this infernal concrete and travel down to have a look. You are about to enter the Twilight Zone.
Emily Dickinson
I like a look of agony,
Because I know it's true;
Men do not sham convulsion,
Nor simulate a throe.
The eyes glaze once, and
that is death.
Impossible to feign
The beads upon the forehead
By homely anguish strung.
Gar Glare
Photo by John Stokes
Alligator Lake
john clare
Upon the eating
Of the pork chop
Special
Grilled
Not as fattening
He asked me
Who this
John Clare
Fellow was
I said
He was a poet
He lived in the 1700's
I never knew him
Upon the take out tea
Sweet
Fattening
I told him
It was me
I wrote the poetry
He looked at me
Doubting
I never knew.
Upon the driving home
I told my wife
Do I not only speak
In rhyme
All the time
And he never knew
And she said
I wouldn't know.
And the tea was sweet
And fattening
This we knew.
by john clare
There is a mountain ridge two
thousand feet above home
Too cold for the Mosquito's and
the malaria they bring
We should be able to talk clearer on
the hand phone
And build a new landing strip for the
valiant aviation wing.
It is there we shall move and build
again
Then continue the translation of the
Wano word
To free them from the superstitions
of sin.
And raise tribal missionaries from
whose lips the gospel is heard.
Come and join the Wilds in bringing
life to those below
Pouring their all from the heights
to the Wano people
We must pray and give so they can know
Christ dwells in the valley seven thousand
feet among the mosquito.
John Stokes
By the time Orion
Had lifted into orbit
Behind the fog
We were three miles
Down range east
Traveling at the speed
Of forty-five
Heading for our
Destination
Experimental mission
To see if
Man can sustain on
Hardee's biscuits.
Watertown Cormorants
John Stokes
