John Clare Stokes
Again I'm sitting out beneath the new sliver
Of a moon sinking
I'm not too all knowing
So it's not too certain if you passed
Across my thoughts
Some of you did
Your impression is as acid bitten
Upon the intaglio zinc plate
Others erased number two pencil
Marks faint but there
As the month ensues
The moon grows larger and later
In its setting
I'll be forgetting
The moment you flashed before
My mind
And you
You shall be so bright I will wear
Sunglasses by night.
John Clare Stokes
It was Preachers favorite lounger
Long May Saturday's in Sopchoppy shade
He sat and pondered the sabbath sermon
Ants working in the sand providing the text
Long Mays since the dry rot took its toll
In March 2011 pappa went to the shades of light
The empty lounger to dark dauber homes
But toward the end of one May
When thoughts of Preacher held sway
We re-webbed the old lounger
Knocked away the dirt dauber nests
And fed them to the ants
That had come
From ole far away Sopchoppy.
Then one day in a recent May
We searched for Preachers lounger
But the metal men had carried it away
We ordered another and set it up
In the new grass above the fire ants
Not the gentle kind that used to come
from far away Sopchoppy.
We miss Preachers lounger.
We miss Preacher.
JohnClare Stokes
We are told early on
In the second command
Make no graven image
But we long
For worship grand
And go about graving
Images to our liking
Worshipping them
Praying deliver us
Praying prosper us
Praying heal us
But they do not hear
They do not answer
They do not care
Yet there is hope
Perhaps they will
So by morning
We fill
The sacred oil
Light the flame
And bow again
Thinking
If I'm sincere
If I persist
If I believe
Then it is so.
JohnClare Stokes
Good ole Monday
Good day for delivering
final notices
We shall no longer be
Bothering you
We shall now be
Turning you over
and over
to
Collection
Who will call you
cut you
Stab you
Kick you
plod you
goad you
roast you
baste you
Shoot you
Bleed you
stuff you
hang you
Til you pay
Have a good
Monday
JohnClare Stokes
Told my shadow
I am going swimming
If I do not surface
You are on your own
After about two minutes
He began worrying
Coaxing me to surface
After three minutes
He was in a panic
But all he could do
Was watch as I stayed
Beneath
Refusing to join me
Choosing rather the
Coming evening
Night to take him.
We hear of mysterious things, how come the gloam, the Magnolia take wing, and memory flies to long gone home.
There are those
In love with woes
No matter the grace
Find it a miserable place.
The ability to raise words from the dead
The ones never read
Flee from this country
You bearer of lost words
Go to the restless swine herds
The Gadarene he rattles
Chains hold him to the tombs
Come poet, there is room.
Rusty latches to unloose
Spikenard to pour on the scar
Memorial of the poet from afar.
There is a palm
At Oak Lawn
Separating Lilly and James
The palm stronger than stone
Pushing their graves apart
There was the time
Rev. Eubanks stood as that palm
Separating at Hopewell
The hearts of stone
From the hearts of flesh
In my verse, I told of the palm. This is the palm I spoke of. Rev.Eubanks was the founder of the Hopewell Primitive Baptist Church in Northern Columbia County,Florida off Road 6. Rev. Eubanks and his wife are buried in Lake City at the downtown Oaklawn Cemetery Northwest of the Confederate graves.
It seems we dwell in primary
Of red, blue, yellow
It's fine for most fellows
It's the pathway to tertiary.
John Clare Stokes
Ground itch
Is both a symptom
And condition
Our flesh reacts
To grass
We are allergic to
Grass
And yet we are
Drawn to it
The world of grass
We do not want
To leave
As grass
It is our being
It takes a supernatural
Burn of the grass
To sooth the itch
To direct our love
Beyond the lawn
That day in the bow
You paddled through
The low
Lying limbs stirring
The paper wasps
To swarm all around
Him as he passed
In the stern
I was watching him
Fighting
Swatting
Diving in
I was inwardly
Laughing
At your unknown
Plot of his misery
Today
I had compassion
On a paper wasp
Who was drowning
In the pool
Certain he would
Show gratitude
For my rescuing him
He stung me
In my misery
Without mercy
The grassy recipients
Gathered round the
Precious liquid:
Drink this,
In remembrance
Of He who
Freely gives
The rain
To sustain
A wind blown Magnolia petal filled with the recent rain.
Now remember what we told you, if he gets fresh, offer him a glass of Iced Roundup....
JohnClare Stokes
I know that dwelling beneath
The ground, are the thriving,
Bustling silent towns,
The grist mill grinding up
The corn, the calves upon
The hill being born,
Brick makers firing up
The kilns, the black smiths
Pounding on the steel
The one law in the town
To keep silent
For Indians are seeking
The hidden silver
DeSoto's are ever digging
For the hidden gold
Keep the secret
Of your borders
Worship quietly you
Saturday Adventist
Be as the Methodists
Stoic and silently staid
Not giving away
The place where the
Seminole would wade
To raid the offering made
To silence the shaped note
Song
From lips of those
Told o'er and o'er
Keep silent
Keep still
Until they pass beyond
The ever grinding mill.
John Clare Stokes
What do you think?
I think I see Earnest
And there's Ethel Marie
Over in the shade
I hear that snuff hitting
The Folger’s coffee can
The snap of field acre peas
Hitting the galvanized pail
Outhouse aromas wafting past
Sure hope that east breeze
Don't shift our
Homewood Lazing
Bringing in them
Pea Ridge yellow flies
My how the times slide by
We gathered round the magic canvas
If it would please reveal something to us
If inspiration was in our future
Or more misery void of color
It took an entire bottle of wine
But in the magic canvas own time
This image emerged with profound words
But before we could write it down
Gesso was applied and the
Inspiration never found.
And in the latter days
The days after fossil fuel
Electric too
The days of malaise
The pedal prophets came
Exclaiming, lube your chains
But we of the beastly mark
Our bikes could not start
for our lube was of
Petroleum product.
It was the most unorthodox method
My only lure was Suwannee inside
I cast upon the land the liquid
Oh how I like my river fried.
Johnclarestokes
Last evening an angel came
Unlocked the chains
Opened the cell windows
The heavy doors
With light blinding streaming in
Quickly now!come! The angel said
Looking about
All the clinging chains clamored,
Stay! Stay!
We are your friends!
Do not abandon us here!
I almost said, I'll stay
When the angel told me
Weep not for the chains
Tomorrow comes another
Shackled to comfort them
Forgetting they ever
Held you tight.
In my deepest dreams above me
One comes floating gently
Wake, wake the day awaits
Reaching, the tiny hand I take
Rising to greet the happy day
We float higher along our way.
Over Once Upon A Time
Elephant herds roamed
The heavens
But they were heavy
And fell
The swoosh swoosh strode past
The old strider saluted the steeds
Silent in the recall of lost speed
Near the flowing well to forever dwell
Old Sopchoppy under your long spell
Though far I've roamed from your halls
In my heart the flowing fountain calls
Come John, drink anew from me
Stay, stay forever in old Sopchoppy.
Saturday we burned the pile
of hard raked leaves along
with the limbs long while
laying about the cluttered throng.
It is good to burn the dross
to see the ground again in May
steel it for the eventual frost
reveal the paths of children’s play
Now rise the planted sprouts
now falls the jasmine from above
we count our costs and gather about
nurture the ones we long have loved.
to Chicago
I could not image anyone
even wanting to take
that flight
but the heavens full of
those on the wrong flight.
sat in contemplation
of being a worm
now that’s a good thing
for that’s what sets
him apart from a worm
the ability to squirm
before the hook has
even been stuck in
Consciousness
Lifting directly in front of the rising sun called for a quick plus two exposure compensation.
Someday I imagine cameras having a Siri System where you can quickly say, Nikon, plus two!
D850 with 70-300P lens.
John Clare Stokes
Yesterday there we sat
Nearly an hour
With the mother
Who birthed me
We talked of the
Same familiar things
As before
Later that evening
The daughter called
Mom said
Some man in a green
Shirt came to sit
Upon her bed
He talked of familiar things
She wondered how he knew.
Come lil one from the nouvelle
Cool is the water from the well
Come, sit a spell with me dwell.
John Clare Stokes
The best garden cannot be gotten
from the depot or the low place
The best gardens are begotten
from every face we can trace
And say, this moon vine came from
a long dear friend, this lily came
from Luther, these gourds from
Markham now gone, living on,
in the best garden.
Heavenly Line by john Clare Stokes
It was one of those steaming hot days of April at Big Shoals on the Suwannee River. I was on the Mountain Bicycle making my way West along the trail from the Big Shoals down to Little Shoals where the vehicle was parked. As I came to the intersection of Roads 5 and 6, I heard a siren sound. I rode a few yard further and met a Forestry Service Truck with a bulldozer in tow. I stopped. The gentleman in the truck said they were about to do a controlled burn and were there any other cyclists behind you? I said I was the only bicyclist. Feeling compelled for some unexplained reason, I asked the kind gentleman if I could take his photograph. He said sure. I quickly composed one photo and hurried along my way. Behind I could see the smoke rising from the controlled burn.
I drove my vehicle to the Columbia County side of Big Shoals at Bell Springs and photographed the Suwannee River with the smoke bellowing in the background. I returned home, and did not give the lone photo another thought. Until....
It wasn't until the June 26 Reporter published a small photograph of Brett Fulton, 52 who lost his life in a Forest Fire on June 20th along with his fellow worker, Joshua Burch. It bore a resemblance to the photograph of the gentleman I had taken back in April. I attempted for several weeks to get someone to identify the person in the photograph. Finally, a friend who works as a welder for the Forestry Service, Joe, came by where I worked, and I showed him the photo. He said that it was Brett in his truck.
I share this photograph as a tribute to Brett and as possibly the last photograph taken of him in April. He died fighting the Blue Ribbon Fire in Hamilton County on June 20th, 2011.. May his family and fellow workers who mourn his loss, along with Joshua, find comfort in the many who expressed their love and support.
The Heavenly Line
Into this wilderness forest
We venture brave and bold
The sun is high and before
us grand vistas unfold
But all too soon the path
grows dark and the trail
narrows and ends
It is then when all seems
lost and hope is gone
That there are two whom
the Lord now sends
With fires blazing all about
With embers closing in
upon the narrow way
Through the smoke and
fire they come one by one
Sent to grade the Heavenly
Line
To make a straight path
of safety to His Son.
Suddenly they are gone to
return to the ranks.
We look up through smoke
To see the straight ribbon blue
and say to the Lord,
Thanks for sending
Brett and Joshua
to clear the way to you.
john clare stokes
He was a quiet little boy
He loved to go fishing
On Ocean Pond
Hunting at the meat stand
In the Osceola
We thought him dyslectic
Taking him to the renown
Dr Levinson in New York
He saw lady liberty
He saw the twin towers
We took him to Alaska
He saw Mt McKinley
Made snow angels
Stood beside a stuffed grizzly
We look back for any sign
The day on the Camp Street
Porch his will wouldn't break?
The Trooper window he kicked out?
Skipping the afternoon of Middle School?
He graduated in the usual way
The same way we did
Surrounded by those we
Would never see again
He had a strong desire for mission
We sent him to Papua to
Spend a month with the
Wano tribe
He returned with a handmade
Bow and arrows the tribesmen made for him
He still smarted from the nose
piercing without antithesis
Two naked Wano men holding him
A fireman since his pappa would take him to the station
The surfer boy proudly wore
His overcoat and boots
The day he married standing in the Santa Fe river
I recalled the time in this very spot
He was but a baby in the boat
The shear pin on the propeller
Was broke
And I had to pull him and his mother back to this landing
Never thinking this would be
His point of no return
And thus the little Lannie
With the great smile
Has taken upon his shoulders
The weight of isolation
The burden of silence
The promise of not honoring
The mother and father
The radicalization
Of a life.
First canoe trip
Okeefenokee Swamp
Written May 1, 2013
He will return?
