Sensuous sand

 

Blue blood

 Is it too much to ask Coach John Calipari

To recruit some boys from Old Kentucky?

Boys like Issel, Riley, Dampier and Ford,

Boys who will stay for three maybe four?

We are so tired of your one and done,

Whose only double-double is in the millions.

Give us boys like Farmer, Pelphrey or Macy

who grew up dreaming of playing for Kentucky.

We do not need a Freshman Pro Team in Lexington,

who even remembers Hood, Wall or Tashun?

For certain, we need a few planet Davis and Cousins,

surrounded by some of Kentucky's finest sons,

Boys like Cameron who come off that storied bench,

to sink the three and for Rupp and his runts another

title clinch.  2014

Giants in the land

 Giants in the land Dan

Dan, I recently came to spy out the land

This Gator got in cause I knew the password

Do you know it Dan?

For lately it hasn't been heard

Not a mention of being number one

Of ten wins this last season

Seems the word is you are leaving

The Promise land and going after

Philistines and Floridians and every

Manner of some other state giant while

Overlooking the David's tending the

Flocks on States own fair fields

Dan these folks paint their vaults 

Maroon

They send balloons with messages

State! State! Ole Miss we so hate!

So take the recruiters Dan down to

Yazoo City, send them to Moss Point

Stay awhile over at Col Lin my old former

Florida friend

State don't won't to win with Floridians

They just want to beat the Rebels with

Their own Native Dakvidians.

Sunrise sonata

 Sunrise Sonata

Morning by morning the symphony 

assembling, tuning the day to come

In from the horizon the conductor enters

Taps the trees, lifts the wand ray

Marvelous music rising gloriously.

Prodigal chair

Prodigal chair

In the backyard 

by the fire kettle

a chair is kept

the stack of kindling near

lighter and heart pine sticks

in the ziplock

the steaks wrapped in the freezer

all in ready

just in case

the prodigal returns weary

we want to hurry

and begin the celebration.

The harvester

 At 89 my hearing may not be fine

But can you lift a creosote coated

pole? 

Keep yer trap shut then. 

BTW

That mound is the last fellow

Questioning my aim....

Inner beauty

 Inner beauty

Once we gazed upon her beauty

All young and so sturdy

But with the seasons 

Came the siding

Covering the lovely lines

It took years

As slowly the siding peeled 

Revealing finally again

Her inner beauty.

To direct a plane

 To direct a plane

Last evening my pilot friend Greg Boyette graciously agreed to hold off his training flight until 8pm in order to help me capture the plane in the moon as it did repeat take off and landings. They passed to the right, to the left, above and below with me texting, calling and using my flashlight to try and achieve proper alignment. The last pass came just to the edge. Upon Leaving, I stopped at the end of the runway and was able to quickly capture them landing, so all was not a total wash. 

A half stoked beats a no stoke.

Unstuck

 Don’t stay stuck in a ratio

Every now and then

experiment 

you never know

Your wonderment

Could me mistaken 

For great talent

The poets burial

 The poets burial

Johnclarestokes 

Came upon the poets burial

Beneath the grand old oak

Beside the white painted church

No words heard spoken

How did we know a poet?

It must have been we observed

For poets are the lonely ones

buried beneath their bereaved words.

Color of blood

 Color of blood 

Johnclarestokes 

It’s the way with artists

poets

the mystics among us

Pouring their heart out

thinking they have ruptured

the vein to seeing

when all that is said in the end, 

Did you use 

Cadmium red

or alizarin crimson

for the color of the blood?

Sulphur Scribes

 Sulphur Scribes

John Clare Stokes

We were never the poets we thought, It's  uncertain any words ever fell in place, With each using of one another went to waste, The  discarded word then vainly sought.   I sat beside a flower with my pen, What few words I knew I used, Carefully composing the words I chose, Like plucking choice gold leaves from fall winds.   A cloudless sulphur lit and to her I rhymed, To me it was quite an event, It was beyond any word written, Poetical as Frost's best lines.   Then the Cranes came upon the breeze, That sound from beyond time, In itself a gathering of Nature's rhyme, Each composing upon blue paper sky effortlessly.   It was then an order became evident, I was freed from finding the rhyme, Of trying to compose  within the lines, Before me rose a curtain un-rent.   The scene I saw was of threaded light, We simply pull the needle slowly to see, Only the light flecks this side of the tapestry, Backing black yet necessary to see the other side wedding white.   We are to give sound to the unheard, Not mere poets but translators and scribes, Preserving in word His light coursing ride, Touching you, me, sulphur,leaf, cloud, bee and bird.

Two whitetail

 Whitetail fusion

Until the two white-tail deer moved ever so slightly and separated, I thought for a moment I was seeing some mythical creature in the Osceola National Forest near the West Tower Campsite.

Paint me a Shrimp boat

 Paint me a shrimp boat

Forever it seemed William was after me to paint him a shrimp boat scene. And so as a young teen I did and sent it to him. Roses father a master wood craftsman, made a frame. I never got to see it hung in prominence like the still life's did I painted for Grandma Bernice, who proudly hung them in her kitchen. The shrimp boat was finally taken from the mantle and relegated to the guest room floor. Grandma Boykins to the dumpster no doubt when her home was sold. And so many others sent out over the long past years, lost,relegated, the frames of more value than the work. I wish I could of said, like a Monet  or Van Gogh, they would have made you wealthy as much as they certainly enriched my heart giving them.

A Grackle congregation

 The grackle congregation 

The service was particularly uplifting

All the high notes they were hitting

It was so heavenly soaring

Gulls came from afar inquiring.

In the furnace

 Neshad, Shadrak and Ashadowglo

And was not one white

Like the sun a rising?

Sand traps

 Sand Traps

By john clare

You must forgive me as I am too easily ensnared by the past

Trapped by a boyhood some sixty years ago

I know I should avoid the circle of sand

Baited with Tonka trucks and other lures

But every time I step right in and soon I'm caught

Not kicking and screaming but blissful in the live trap

Gorging upon the surrounding steam shovels and bulldozers

With little desire for a catch and release to reality.

And is it any mystery we Pappa's build our own sand traps

Scatter about choice toy bait

In hope of luring over a grand one

From the no trespassing fences our own keep them in?

Keeping from the traps of sand they so want to

Be captured in.

Homewood

 Gone the Home

This was the home place of my grandfather Stokes in Homewood, Mississippi. It was recently torn down in 2024. Of all the homes from my early days, the second  parsonage in Monticello, my grandmother Oranders in Bluefield and Crumpler, West Virginia remain.

Siren

 Siren of Suwannee

Myriads of eyes has she

Alluring with her palmetto lashes

Her makeup never clashing

Oh that maiden Suwannee!

Yashica

 I got a Yashica camera 

It didn’t have the ring that Nikon had, but it was the first camera I purchased in 1971 from my Science teacher, Emile Santiestiban, for $25. That would be $162 2020 dollars. It was an all manual with no meter Single Lens Reflex with a 135mm screw mount lens and an external Sekonic light meter. 

Emile helped me load the black and white Tri-X film and later how to print and develop in the darkroom. 

Up until getting the camera, I was inspired by Linda Levy and Sonja Shore Griffin in art class. I am sure it was through them and the annual staff I was drawn to photography. 

For my senior year, with the graduation money I received, I went to Harmon’s in Gainesville on University Avenue and decided upon a Honeywell Pentax Spotmatic. It had a 55mm lens and a built in match needle meter. I didn’t have a darkroom and what film I shot, I sent to Sunshine Drugs and Kodak for developing. With the Spotmatic I added several lenses and used it up until the early 1980’s, when I bought a Nikon FM2 with a 35mm 1.8. I later added a 100mm macro, 180 2.8, 80-200, 500 mirror, FE, F3, motor drive, etc. it was my desire to be a photojournalist and work for a newspaper. I almost made it, working for a time for the Lake City Reporter. 

In the early 2000’s I purchased my first digital camera, the Nikon d40 which I still use at 6mp, but with a 500 flash sync speed.

Seems I’ve had nearly all the consumer digital cameras Nikon came out with, my current being the D850 full frame and the D7500 crop frame.

Today I am still bent toward the telephoto end as in the beginning, using mainly a 200-500 and 70-300 lens. 

As I grow older, the heavy camera and lens becomes more a burden.  At times I think of selling and going light, but I hesitate for I get attached to the old gear. I wouldn’t want anyone trading me in for a lithe model. Would you?

Think on

 Think on these things

Before we apply our

Beautiful and move on

Think for a moment

Why beautiful?

Beautiful implies a standard.

A judgement. A choice.

A perception 

A feeling

Whence? 

Why beautiful?

Who gave this ability to

Know beauty from what?

Why, not beautiful?

Appreciate your ability

to apply beautiful. 

Don’t take it lightly.

Tried to align

 Tried to align

John Clare Stokes

The memory of the entering

The cool steps remaining

Offering a higher view

Peering straight through

From the top step

I could see clearly

Nothing at all had changed

Oh some now grown trees

Had rearranged the living

Space

But it was all in place

I stepped down

And quietly left them

Alone.

With a view

Pa must of been the last

To have the view

After he was gone

The porch had no reason

For holding on

So it too went with Pa.

Basketball John

 Basketball John

John Clare Stokes

It was probably instilled in the few months I lived in Vicco, Kentucky after being born in January of 1955 during basketball season before moving to Sopchoppy, Florida in June. It wasn’t a particularly great season by Kentucky standards for Adolph Rupp’s Wildcats, finishing 20-6 and second in the SEC behind Alabama. 

But that’s not the point. Point is, it rubbed into me unknowingly. It dwelt there when we moved to Sopchoppy and the Yellow Jackets in the old native rock gym that is now a landmark. Though I wanted to be Walt Dickson, the all-conference running back, there was also inside, Walt the basketball player.

When we moved to Monticello in my third grade year, I do not know if I asked my father, or if he too had the passion, having been invited by Adolph Rupp to say the prayer for the boys before a game, but he erected a basketball backboard and goal with swoosh net behind the new parsonage. Though I took second in punt, pass and kick and wanted to paint the Redskin helmet I won green, after Green Bay, I began to spend most of my time shooting and less time punt,pass and kicking. I finally got my first opportunity to get on a real court in a real game when the 4th grade A boys took on the 4th grade B team during halftime of a Tiger basketball game. My best friend Marc Bishop, the superintendent’s son and I led the B squad against the talented Butch and Bobby Plaines twins  of the A team. The game was frenetic, in the end we lost 7to5. I was high scorer with 3, making my first free throw. Marc had 2. 

That year we moved to Wilmore, Kentucky where my father and mother attended Asbury College. Daddy was to be the alumni director under ZT Johnson, the President and life long family friend.

It was here, as a Cub, with my two new best friends, Stuart and Steve Smith, whose dad was a science professor and coach, we had free rein of the Asbury gym. Steve would go on to be the legendary coach of Mouth of Wilson Prep school. It was here, just a few miles from Mecca Lexington, that my Uncles William and Billy, living with us in the apartment out back, took me to my first and only Kentucky basketball game in Memorial Coliseum , where their friend Chuck Wade from their home in Forest, Mississippi beat Louie Dampier and Pat Riley. We got to go down to the State locker room and meet Chuck, still living in Forest. #My Uncle William hoped it would cement me a State fan. It only solidified my blue colors. 

In 1967 we moved back to Florida after two years, to Williston. Those first years in 7th to 9th grade, the passion was at a zenith. Orville Wheeler, my coach, being equally passionate, from Jerry West Virginia, was inspiring and encouraging. For a white boy, the future was bright. Then something happened. The Mighty White Red Devils played an exhibition game with East Williston, then all black, a year before segregation. I should have redirected  the passion playing on another field, but I was color blind. 

Like my days as a sprinter came to an end, taking up the hurdles, I should have seen my days as a basketball player ending. As all my white friends one by one quit, I ended up the only white player. Where I was once a shooting guard, I was now a point guard like the current Reed Sheppard who could get the ball up court past any press, only to pass it off. We never won many games. The team was too concerned with scoring stats. I was Mr Defense. 

Once a friend of my mother, trying to impress her, said, “I just love to watch your son play, now what number is he?”

My fondest years of basketball came from playing on our all white Masonic Demolay team where we were state runner ups. Likewise the many nights playing pickup games in the Williston gym with the great Kentucky meatcutter Bill Boyd, my former JV coach the great Dean Chesser, Truby English and other former players. In my senior year, I gave up track and football, which I loved, to concentrate on basketball. Even though I got the Mr Basketball award at graduation, on hindsight, the day I saw that East Williston team with Wilson James dunking and giving meaning to white boys can’t jump, I too should have taken a enjoy football and track too attitude, for it was the end of the line for a lifetime. That’s why tonight I’ll watch UK play South Carolina, but I’m not going to worry near as much as once I would have if they lose. 

And to conclude, I still have that goal daddy set up for me in 1964. Times I go out to the shed where it hangs to see if it still glows a hot orange.

Inane

IN•ANE

Why do I find it

inane to think

from stars we

came?

Why do I find it

hard to explain

from dust we

came?

Why do I find such

pain the grain

of a universe 

in my shoe?

I am Sandhill

 I am Sandhill

John Clare Stokes

I am not Ibis

I shall not dwell below

I shall rise

I shall circle

I shall join 

For I am Sandhill

I am not Ibis

I identify with sky

With migration

With the call northward 

I am Sandhill

I am of the called

I am not Ibis

Song of a man

 Song of a Man Who has Come Through

Not I, not I, but the wind that blows through me!

A fine wind is blowing the new direction of Time.

If only I let it bear me, carry me, if only it carry me!

If only I am sensitive, subtle, oh, delicate, a winged gift!

If only, most lovely of all, I yield myself and am borrowed

By the fine, fine wind that takes its course through

the chaos

of the world

Like a fine, exquisite chisel, a wedge-blade inserted;

If only I am keen and hard like the sheer tip of a wedge

Driven by invisible blows,

The rock will split, we shall come at the wonder,

we shall find the

Hesperides.

Oh, for the wonder that bubbles into my soul,

I would be a good fountain, a good well-head,

Would blur no whisper, spoil no expression.

What is the knocking?

What is the knocking at the door in the night?

It is somebody wants to do us harm.

No, no, it is the three strange angels.

Admit them, admit them.

DH Lawrence 

One goes through

John Clare Stokes

LOL

 There were places

the route would take

There were places

a home I could make

There were places

Such as little Orange Lake

There are routes

Someday

I will retrace.

Mossy Mary

 She liked to have her head in moss

At night she fitfully tossed

We thought it was her mares

Find out it was chiggers in her hair.

Within

 What voice was it within the wind

that told you now is the time to begin?

Were they whispers ever so near

or shouts that rang within your ears?

And as you circled and stalled,

were you counting the number called,

looking upon me longing below,

waiting for me with you to go?

Water vows

 Water Vows

john clare 

Today the water heater rusted out

Flowing through the nice pink 

rooms with abandon piped up

all these twenty-six years 

the blame falling squarely on

the groom for don't you recall

when you made your vows

that you promised for better

or worse not to let the hot water

loose?

The kiss

 The kiss

There are things we frame

Things we remember 

Things we held onto

Some long gone 

Never to again know

Others with the hope

Of coming again 

Preserved behind glass

Held fast

Bottle tree

 Bottle Tree

Daddy was a master at gardening

Why he even grew bottle trees

Just the correct amount of

Fertilizing 

A living, radiant wonder people

Would come from far to see

Can I but have a sprig of Nehi

Or a cutting of wild turkey?

And they would plant and vainly try

To grow their own bottle tree.

A Suwannee Sandland

 A Suwannee Sandland

Full moon rise at the LD Bend 

We need to be more aware of where we are headed and from whence we came. An appreciation of the canoe and acquisition of the necessary skills to utilize it as a way to journey back to what’s left of the natural world is a great way to begin this voyage of discovery.

Bill Mason

A boys joy

 Blue Heron study #2

Expectation

John Clare Stokes

It’s the little boy yet dwelling

Wanting so badly to tell anyone

come and see what he has done

Proud in the creating of a painting

though crude and elementary 

a masterpiece to the little boy

and to hear that word of praise

the smile of satisfaction 

sends the little boy down to 

the store for more oils and canvas.

Somebody’s knocking

Somebody's knockin'

By john clare

Ole Joe don't come looking for me

I'm not ready to lie peacefully

Waunita's artistry applied to me

Preacher don't come calling me

I'm not ready to walk that aisle

I got time to burn and many a mile

Jesus why you knocking on my door?

I'll lay quiet and pretend I'm not home

Maybe ole Joe, Waunita, Preacher and Jesus will leave me alone!

Waunita! 

Waunita!

Lovely Waunita

Why do you, ole Joe, Preacher

and Jesus want me?

The Holey covering

 The holy covering 

The coldest nights of winter

We would huddle about the hearth

The roaring fire sparking out

Embers upon our patch work quilts

Rarely would one burn through

The many layered blanket

To drift off to a frozen dreaming

Who would stoke the fire awake?

It must have been one angry spark

That traveled up the chimney 

To settle in the chink of heart pine

For in no time we stood afar huddled

Our only covering the holed quilts 

All consuming save the brick culprit

Standing as a Joan of Arc immune

From the flames our lives taking.

Marie rouge

 Marie Rouge

In haste Ethel Marie applies her rouge

Not too thick just the right shade

For word came quickly 

A son of Earnest has made the grade

And to his graduation

We have been bade

Where all shall assemble to stand

And welcome him.

Lily

 Some sunny days bouquet boy stays home

No trips to see his friends in fields afar

Instead just he and calla lily alone

Fit for the finest porcelain rhodora jar.

High Cry

 High Cry

Johnclarestokes 

Famine comes, we call

manna in the mountain!

Sparrow impaled by claw

Osprey dives from high!

Earthworms in the soil

Levitation lurks far below

Man sweats in toil

Tornadoes lift and blow!

Tales long left untold

Wells their waters dried

The Wolf in the fold

One laughs, another cries!

High the fire wastes

Creation lifts to sing

New Jerusalem’s savory tastes

Cool waters from a King!

Upward, the streams flow strong,

New heaven and earth rushing on!

The upward stream!

Ushers the coming King!

In others some

 Is Others Some

John Clare Stokes

Some are given to dance

Some to romance

Some n’er take a chance

Some miss that glance

Others are given to artistry

Others to mystery

Others delve in history

Others lives quite blustery 

Is the moon but a metaphor

Is the pauper the richest 

Is the deepest ocean at the shore

Is the time all or is there more

The poetic strain

 In praise the poetic strain 

It will always be this way

As it's ordained to remain so

It's the eternal ordered flow

You cannot convince or sway

To erupt the arrangement set

The maker knows well His plan

Gives little heed to the cries of demons

Whom so know the One who sits

There is a silent ongoing tone

He has set in called hearts openly

To return the answer from eternity

Fill the one with a sweet longing

Given apart from incessant plea

Sadly many are not all concerned

For to dust they are bent to return

Not at all beyond the grave to see

Still we dwell among the tone dead

Our bend to open deaf ears 

Apply salve to eyes full of fears 

If per grace to life they are led

But alas we cannot do the deed

We hum and sway to distant songs

The eternal chord drawing us on

Gibberish foolishness so clearly read.

Generally

 As a general rule the blue coated male of the species is more flamboyant than the female. Generally, but not always.