And on the third day, of the second week,
God came walking
in the cool of the evening
And God said, I want me a mess of greens
And God said to the man, where is that
woman I gave thee?
And the man said, She’s got some cornbread
baking directly.
And God was pleased with the man and the woman.
Oh course, this was before they went fruit
picking.
You get to the point
Mostly around the first of February
That you say
To Macclenny with those
Who like upon an eclipse
They don’t get it
Wonder why you’re not of the
Same version
On the same page
And you just mount your bike
And set out
In your own direction
Earnest, or Ralph, if he’s yet alive, would now be age 82. Ralph dwelt on Gum Swamp all his life in the home his parents lived in. Daily he would make the three mile walk to town for a noon meal at the food kitchen. This day twelve years ago I was able to give him a lift home.
In the hoop days there was
nothing worse than being so
near victory when the opposing
team would play the clock out,
keeping you from the ball.
This was before the twenty-four
second clock.
And so you have chosen to
play the clock out on us.
What?
Til we die and are gone?
What then?
You go on to the next opponent
What a winning life you
are in.
in that moment, the white heron glanced upward, as if looking directly at his maker, then it was back to looking forever down into the water for a catch. Perhaps he was saying grace.
He could name you
tell you this is for you
for the journey
For he sees
you seem to be
right there with him
You were one of possibly three
that told of poetry
With photography
It made him happy.
Every evening mamma would watch
For her little prodi gal
Long, long lost the innocent smile
Up the lane with a happy hopscotch.
Upon the road of shadow and dust
We journey with a deeply held trust
Of the green pastures upon the other side
Where ne'er the dust or shadow reside.
John Clare Stokes
The Southern Exposure volunteer stylist clipped
his side locks for his 70th birthday party
Telling him how young he looks
Reminding her of the Clark Samson
her grandmother knew in the seventies
Who once she said swooned the ladies
Lately paying for all the toppling
Leaving the once strong arns krypton weak
the igniting of foxy fires a dim glowing
kept going on the long regime of prescription
filling
Such were the travails one endures for Delilah Louise
Pestering him daily lazing about in the faded
suit of Royal and Red saying to Clark,
“Outside lurk the Philistine Witnesses, with
lustful intent upon your Delilah Louise, coming
to crop your side locks!” “You better find some jawbone!”
“Now make a wish and blow out your candles!”
Taking a deep breath and...
Seeing the Philistines...pressing on the call button...
pleading for someone to please bring his walker...
so Clark can amble down the long corridor, out the alarmed door, to the smooth granite columns,
to make his Delilah Louise proud of him.
“These Kingdom walls shall fall! The foxes with their flaming tails shall burn the crops!”
“I see the flames before me!”
Mr Samson, Mr Samson, wake up!
Spitting and gasping for breath, smoke rising,
soon the alarm to trip, not one Philistine in the room, reality and dream as one dream of reality.
Gathered about the bed his lovely Delilah Louise
and the Good Samaritan staff singing,
Happy Birthday Clark Samson, happy birthday to you! The cake was chocolate, the ice cream
butter pecan, the food of gods and super heroes
and Clark Wayne Samson on this 70th birthday!
It was the year 1984, the month October, the Jasper 10K race. The previous year I ran a 36:25, finishing 6th on the rolling hills out and back, and yet third in my tough age group.
The following year, as I lined up for the second attempt on the hot Saturday of October 6th, I felt my prospects for a better finish were good. As the gun sounded, Rusty Jones, the shoulder white hair length speedster from Valdosta was soon out of sight. I too was stuck in a lone no man’s land making distance on James Lee, the muscular black hometown favorite. As we entered town on the final mile, I found the strength to increase my lead over a charging Lee. This year I finished 2nd overall and first in my age group with a time of 36:14, a 5:50 pace. Rusty had over a two minute margin of victory. In 1985 we repeated the same order, but my time slowed to 37:26. The last 10k I would run was the Gator Bowl 10K on Dec 21 with a 37:25, 34th in my age group.
There is a bus line
In our minds
A kindly old man
Who loves his grands
Is calling us aboard
We are heading toward
The ole stucco home
Up the holler
Monnie is there
All her brothers
The two sons
Everyone down to
Alfred up from the mine black
The old Crumpler to Northfork
Taking us back
To end of line
Wolfie is one of my longtime lifetime friends
Wolfie first began his howling at our command
In the watermelon fields out from Williston
Wolfie was young and strong and could toss
them long after Eddie and I were bear caught.
Wolfie went on to work in clothing apparel
Retiring to howl from treehouses in Asheville
Eddie became a roofer around Wacahoota
Nights as these I’m wondering if from the
treehouse and from the rooftop they do
not let out a long mournful howl for me?
I want to give you a heads up
Tomorrow is the day
I grant you a pardon
From your lack of interest
In poetry
In artistry
In trickery
In imagination
In dreaming
I give you a new start
From your void of
Metaphor
Alliteration
Parable
Humor
I free you from your
Humorlessness
Literalness
Narrowness
Idiotness
Tomorrow
You're on your own til then....
Johnclarestokes
Mamma never tired of telling how her brother Kermit drove her to St Luke’s Hospital from Crumpler to Bluefield in a Saturday night storm on icy snow covered roads, how Kermit, the Andy Ford car salesman who liked to imbibe a bit beyond moderation, how they made it at some point over the narrow mountain switchbacks past Pinnacle Rock where Luke had proposed some few years earlier, made it to room 301 where the boy, named for a United Methodist Bishop John Branscomb and a District Superintendent Clare Cotton came into this life at 9:25AM January 30th on a Sunday of 1955, weighing 6-15 3/4 pounds and all 20 inches by Dr Foweres, who wasn’t imbibed, who got the date right, unlike the doctor who delivered Clara Jean in October though he thought September.
Uncle Kermit Orander on the right with Grandfather Richard Orander by the 47 Kaiser. Richard owned a busline from Crumpler to Northfork which mainly carried miners.
He stood quietly
Among the Chamber mixers
The movers
The shakers
Few even knew
It was he
Who hung upon
The walls
In the halls
Even by the restrooms
More consumed
In the wine
The craft beer
The grits with shrimp
Networking
It didn't matter
To them it never would
They could pass by
And did
The silent one in the
Suwannee Room
But he was satisfied
With the obscurity
Glad handing
Always came awkwardly
Like favoring up
To the boss
Afterward he regretted
Ever even saying
Anything at all
Let the work talk
He slipped out
Into the rain
Taking photographs
Of the wet palms
Moving on
Always moving on.
Becton
Fred Becton
Did you believe in election
Was it ordained
The pew you sat in
Always the same
Did it upset the order
When from the front row
The toe head boy
Lately from Kentucky
Now in Sopchoppy
Would spot you out
Slipping in late from a
Deep sea Saturday adventure
Fred Becton
What were you
Expecting
Another Armenian?
john clare stokes
One is for Bluefield from where I was born,
Uncle Kermit driving mamma that January 30th in the snow storm.
Two is for coming from Vicco in
Kentucky to Sopchoppy in a Packard.
Three is for Mrs Mary and her bread pudding
Four is for Angeline and her red butcher knife
Robert,Sam and me running for our lives.
Five is for my Uncles in Mississippi staying summers happily
Six is for first loves, first grades and Helen Roussey from Panacea
Seven is for John Lloyd crying loudly
Miss Townsend saying I'd be moving
Eight is for Monticello and Lewis being born
Nine is for leaving the loved two story Victorian parsonage
Ten is for returning to Kentucky at Asbury in Wilmore
Eleven is for walking April Wells her answer I will forever be waiting for
Twelve is for the long 7th grade journey to Williston
Not believing Bill and Jack were not grown men
Thirteen is for JV Football and long haul fast end sweeping
Fourteen is for down by the Blue Grotto Melissa meeting
Fifteen is for playing point guard with the brothers
Sixteen and finding that Purple Haze a lot of love covers
Seventeen is for the Red Devil Class of seventy- three
Eighteen is for the perfect GPA at Santa Fe
Nineteen is for George Amica and working at Williston Memorial
Twenty is for Catherine Wilson singing Healing Love gloriously
Twenty one is for living with Dr ZT Johnson at Asbury
The F in Spanish and returning to Williston sadly
Twenty two is for the painting the hospital walls a second time
Daddy saying, we can pay for college by cutting the pines
Twenty three is for repeating a Junior year at Florida Southern
Twenty four for earning a BA degree finally.
Twenty five is for working as a service writer at Powers with Frankie
To turn down a job in Monticello teaching art convincing me
Twenty six is for wanting badly a photojournalist my career spending
Twenty seven is for Lucille and Lynn Counts hiring me to change mannequins at JCP
Twenty eight is for running 10k's with Forrest and Buddy
Twenty nine is for winning the city logo contest soundly.
Thirty is for canoeing the Suwannee with Bob Jones
Thirty one is for running the first marathon 26.2 miles long
Thirty two is for meeting a nurse at Shands named Melanie
Thirty three Jesus died but in Whitehurst chapel we were married
Thirty four and to our garage apartment on Camp came Landon
Mrs Beverly a job in JCP management offering
Thirty five is for that suit I now wore all the time
Thirty six is for Alan Crews his home on Camp selling
Thirty seven is for the Alachua General coming of Jordon
Thirty eight is for jumping on the trampoline under the pecan
Thirty nine is for the stucco house outgrowing
Forty is for postman Brian and to his Tevis house moving
Forty one is for winning nationally and to Dallas awarding sending
Forty two is for Rick Bringger and Hambone putting up with me
Forty three is for not taking the job in Albany
Forty four is for staying with family and friends in Lake City
Forty five is for letting Valerie take the job in Ocala
She wanting out of town so badly
Forty six and that sick feeling after telling Calise to chill
Forty seven is for that Friday in April I was fired
I can see it still
We are letting you go, with a gold retiree card
Twenty percent off a tad too hard
Forty eight is for Russell coming to Westside Chapel
Forty nine is for voting with Tom Bart not to build a new church called Grace Fellowship.
Fifty is for Ruth Garner hiring me at Sears
Fifty one and the Weasel is the top commissioned salesman to no cheers
Fifty two is for the coming end of biking centuries with Roger Sessler
Fifty three is for lamenting the loss of Bob Jones memory in his nineties
Fifty four is for one last River Run 15k
Fifty five is for the sudden Sears closing
Fifty six is for the coming of my Grandson Nathaniel Manoa and the heaven going of my father, Luther Ray.
Fifty seven is for Bill Giebeig hiring me to read meters slowly for a year while smart meters are installed.2
Fifty eight is for continual prayer for Landon and family in Japan in the Air Force.
Fifty nine is for volunteering down at the gallery
Sixty will be for dreaming of being once again in ole Sopchoppy.
Sixty one is for beginning at the Gateway Gallery
Sixty-two Odom-Moses has a large amount of my photos, son Jordon joins the Army.
Sixty-three my mother Clara Stokes goes to glory.
Sixty-four I’m working at Baya as a DMC driver.
Sixty-five the same day I’m fired from Baya for taking photos on the job I’m hired by friend Ray to take photos.
Sixty-six and the Covid pandemic which I never got.
Sixty-seven working at Morgan Auto photographing vehicles.
Sixty-eight photographer job ended become a driver for Morgan.
Sixty-nine and a stroke gets Stokes reset.
Seventy and keeping chickens and happy to be alive in the Golden age.
When I was a boy living in Sopchoppy up until the age of eight, almost every Sunday after church we would drive over to Panacea for dinner. It was a destination location in the day, one of few places actually, before the days of eating out became prolific. Owned by the Oaks family, secretly I always hoped to catch a glimpse of Sonja, Mr Oaks daughter who was my age. I’d always order the same thing, the jumbo fried shrimp. Before the meal came, I loved the garlic butter and the captain wafers they would set on the table in the ceramic boats. Then they would bring the salads with the smelly anchovies I’d always pick off.
When the jumbo shrimp and fries came, I’d smother them with catsup and I was in a savory heaven. The Oaks has long since closed on the coastal highway at the Ochlochnee River bridge, but the taste of fried shrimp remains my favorite.
We had made our first move from Sopchoppy to Monticello. Sopchoppy was all I had ever known, having arrived there from Kentucky in ‘55 around 5 months old. It was a very sad day leaving Robert, Sam, JL, the River, the town we could roam freely in, Angeline the maid, the second grade class where JL cried so loudly when Miss Townsend announced I was moving.
From the concrete block parsonage we moved to the old Victorian two story on Washington Street with many rooms. It wasn’t long though, that things began to fall into place. Mamma and Mrs Plains became our Cub Scout den leaders, and I found in Hunter, Mark and Marc and others best of friends.
That Cub Scout birthday party with the car cake was one of the best ever.
We were only in Monticello two years, but when we moved back to Kentucky with a now one year old brother, it was with the same great sadness I had when we left Sopchoppy.
But then, leaving Wilmore, Kentucky after two years to return to Williston, Florida, an equal sadness.
And through it all, mamma made all the moves bearable.
It gets me so upset
This constant displaying
The constant telling
How beautiful
How great she is
I think of wife one
And how her praises were never sung
How miserable he was
Suppose I should be happy with him
I hope wife one will find
A trophy husband
It is sad that posts like this gets the most views yet.
There is a place to go
When you are feeling low
A gentle turn past palmetto
Water soothing,current slow.
Bob was making his way to Lakeland from Tennessee after misreading the map and winding up in Lake City. I said you got a ways to go my friend, told him I too used to ride a bike about, gave him some money on me for the memory of the journey.
Ralph on the right for years was a constant figure on the North Marion Street, walking the three miles daily from his place off Gum Swamp for the free breakfast and lunch from Cleopatra Steele’s soup kitchen. Ralph hasn’t been seen in awhile.
With a definitive surety
Walls and trees
Though they have mouths
Do not talk
Despite your wish for such
I know
For they tell me daily
We aren't in the mood
Our stories to tell
To tell to those who
Would just as soon fell us
Stoke the fires to warm
At our expanse
So get over it.
Then I was whispered...
If I need say anything
I will post it
That's my post behind me.
All creation groans in travail,
to see the birth of the coming,
seas and stars and moon and
men aligning for the day,
whispers heard above the wind
flickering seen upon the horizon.
Johnclarestokes
Under the lesser light a visage soars
an up turned dipper spills forth glory
through the winter night orisons outpour
The heavenly pursuit, the n’er ending story
The hart startles from frozen slumber
Chiroptera arise! to meet nocturnal hoary
the celestial sings to greet the unnumbered
The heavenly pursuit, the n’er ending glory
Breath labored, mere mortal so frail
take all from me, still shall I worship
riding upon Milky Ways, He easily sails
The heavenly pursuit, the n’er ending script
Miles from nowhere, into the night
naked, cold beast, come Lord the cry
In a moment, in a twinkling, bringing flight
The heavenly pursuit, the n’er ending eternity
No man can come, the Pursuer must draw
The pursuit of Yahweh, the eternal coming call!
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.
Robert Frost
Poetic Paths
Johnclarestokes
You are to read your Robert Frost
How else will you know which path to seek
You are to read your Emily Dickinson
To stay the homesick-homesick weary feet
This photo was posted on the Happenings page and it was said it needed focus. Really? I felt the added motion of the background with the relatively in focus barred sulphur butterfly was just what was needed to convey the elusive nature of the sulphur's, always eluding my chasing for a frame. Bar is a play on word. I do not often explain these things obvious to me but I suppose not to some.
Jesse's tree
St John's Street
Pano mode
I dreaded laughter more than blame,
I dared not sing aloud for shame,
So all unheeded, lone and free,
I felt it happiness to be
Unknown, obscure, and like a tree
In woodland peace and privacy.
John Clare
The progress of rhyme
Being on the
Tampa to New York
When a lovely lady
Came outside and said’
“Let me know when
You’re ready for breakfast”.
And Tampa to New York
Was but a one thousand
And six mile memory
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!
Futile-the Winds-
To a Heart in port-
Done with the Compass-
Done with the Chart!
Rowing in Eden-
Ah, the Sea!
Might I but moor-Tonight-
In Thee!
Emily Dickinson
The long night of your bleeding
And what of this wound
Was it a portend of doom
Or one of healing
Back in the day several years ago, my then photographer friend Ron Pinner, wanted to do a series with me, In Search of Water, with me in the kayak in various locations. This one was on the now paved over Railroad Street. I never saw all the photos for Ron got angry at me for making light of Oral Robert’s 100 foot Jesus and blocked me. He said God told him he was going to kill me if I didn’t quit. Why does Ron’s God say such things?
johnclarestokes
Then looking in
They said
It was maddening
The seeing crooked
Measuring from
Foreign rulers
Metric distances
Fractions apart
Yet inches away
Marking twice
Trying to cut once
The frame never square
Bubble level left
Of center line
Shelves on the curve
Books falling randomly
Ceilings sagging roundly
Over him.
I found it grand!
After MC Escher
