In case you are still clueless, I like to create conceptual situations. The Grady Twins from the movie, The Shining, my current project.
This skinny, is that ok to say Donald?, this skinny panhandler seems to stay at the Archer exit so I'm sure she will be in a future iteration.
Still the vapid banks of molten sand
Sonorous the Suwannee's
Glimmering grand
Reflecting the eternal shadow's ever burning
Extinction coming in the
slow rising
Taking all vestige of fire and man
Returning again the pure white sand.
John Clare Stokes
He wanted so badly
to be a Yeats, a Frost
even a Wallace or Lawrence
Poets whose words he
marveled how
There were moments
when he’d get this inner
strong compulsion
of what he wanted to
compose
but his scrabble of words
seemed inadequate
the result never as
the inner thought
The old Triton
the maiden so sublime
fighting
to win her with only lines
John Clare Stokes
He was between the age of nine and ten
When his eyes were opened
Up until then
There were few mirrors to gaze in
He had little concept of being him
But in that new parsonage
with the first bedroom ever his own
he stared long at this image
the full length mesmerizing
the scars down the left shoulder
chest, throat and arm from the boy of two
who pulled the coffee pot cord off
the stove scalding now at the between
nine and ten causing the self conscious
introspective, artistic poetic life to begin
seldom going shirtless when swimming
cringing when the scars were seen
with the non scarred staring and
offering their unnecessary commentary
Since between nine and ten
in that West Washington parsonage
when the boys eyes were opened
sad he would think of those without
mirrors or scars who never have a clue
who they are.
Heavenly Hurt, it gives us-
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are-
Emily Dickinson
“Man shouldn’t be able to see his own face — there’s nothing more sinister. Nature gave him the gift of not being able to see it, and of not being able to stare into his own eyes. Only in the water of rivers and ponds could he look at his face. And the very posture he had to assume was symbolic. He had to bend over, stoop down, to commit the ignominy of beholding himself. The inventor of the mirror poisoned the human heart.”
— Fernando Pessoa
Saturday I took Melanie and mom for a drive up to Cone Bridge landing on the Suwannee to see the state of the river. In the up lands out of flood plain the blazing stars were teeming with buckeyes, fritillaries and a few swallowtails. Arriving at the river, we found the road closed, with heavy equipment about. It looks as if a new boat ramp with a paved parking lot is in the works.
This is a conceptual image. It is not literal. I am not expecting your statement against begging, etc. It is a photo of imagination. There was only one girl at the exit. I found in the two photos I took of her, one had a smile and then upon seeing I had the iPhone held toward her, a frown. In the movie, the Shining, the two twins that haunted the Overlook Hotel, Lisa and Loiuse, one had a frown, the other a smile. I placed the shining twins in the background. I deleted this from my main page because it was taken literally.
Love to pull off the rapid stream into the slow eddy under the shade and rest a spell before heading on back upstream upon the Itchetucknee.
Often I go back
And replay the time
O'er and o'er
Like a Floyd Echo
I never tire
Of the sound.
Cousin Thelma Bolton’s signature song at the Florida Folk Festival was butterbeans she would usually sing by popular request. I too love butterbeans. Last night around eleven, seeing the ham hock I’d been slicing off sandwiches from, was all but bone, I got a hankering. I then began digging in the freezer, and to my joy, came upon a bag of them good ole butterbeans on the bottom.
This morning before Melanie left for another weekend shift, another story, I asked if she’d add the right amount of water. She did and left saying, now don’t go off and forget them. Well, I hope not. Now if only I had some good ole cornbread, I think the cares of this life would grow strangely dim indeed.
Pausing from leaving JT at TLC for the day, there in the garden across the highway were the three working in the cool of the morning. I so saw my father there, water hose in hand, going about methodically to each plant, knowing how much was needed for the day. Then, come evening, he’d repeat the watering, giving the plants enough for the night. And eventually, as the other two, with weeding and pruning, the garden would respond bountifully.
For such brilliant color, the Cardinal I find is quite shy. They don’t perch long in one spot. They mostly have a branch or some object between them and my camera. Today I changed out the water in the various pots, upgraded to a mixture of more sunflower seeds. For the time, they seemed a little less cloudless sulphurish. Cardinal rules
For such brilliant color, the Cardinal I find is quite shy. They don’t perch long in one spot. They mostly have a branch or some object between them and my camera. Today I changed out the water in the various pots, upgraded to a mixture of more sunflower seeds. For the time, they seemed a little less cloudless sulphurish.
The ox rests in the pasture at Shaker Village at Mt Pleasant in Kentucky. A journey I am grateful to have taken and can take again through photography.
I portend
I do miss
The ocean....
I cannot hide
There are times
That I am drawn
Toward the tides...
I have to say
There are the days
I roil upon
The inner waves...
While in my mind
I find
The break of infinity
Time and time
Again
In this ocean.
Johnclarestokes
To the tides
Then almost migratory
Go part way down the lane,
And then to end the story
Get beaten down and pasted
In one wild day of rain.
We heard "Tis over" roaring,
A year of leaves was wasted.
Oh, we make a boast of storing,
Of saving and of keeping,
But only by ignoring
The waste of moments sleeping,
The waste of pleasure weeping,
By denying and ignoring
The waste of nations warring.
Robert Frost
To the majesty
Of the One
Who gives a
Coat of royalty
To His smallest
Subjects
John Clare Stokes
Often it crosses my thought
What thing did I do
For one to cross me from
Their life?
I think for some I may have placed
A moon in a moonless scene and
maybe another I took
A photo of a coed crossing the street
And they see me as some voyeur
Still another I may have said
I took this photo yesterday
When I took it in seventy three
I mean
Couldn’t they tell I am now hairless?
And there was maybe one
I said Hillary should have frozen atop
Everest
Or what of the one I think wrote me off
because I said God is a chicken
and I’m under His wing
Couldn’t figure if he took the Bible
Literally or figuratively
Or allegorically.
But either way
It wasn’t funny I think.
And that great group of many
Who left me simply because I left
Their congregation
And I wasn’t even thinking myself
Southern baptist
Having grown up United Methodist
I must have mistook my dispensation
I was thinking I was in all grace
It must have been all law after all.
Once I was a king with a throne
I ruled the realm from Faith, Rose
Orange and Dickson Street in the land
of Sopchoppy, the county Wakulla, the State of Florida in the great 50’s America
There was a sister one Paula Jean
meant to sit upon the throne
She was to be called King Paul
but she came out gender wrong
Morning Song.
The new fall begins;
To thresholds Holy guide
our steps into the temple
in which you reside.
Grant us the halt and lame
to your portals ascend
light anew the waning flame
A new fall to begin.
Johnclarestokes
Soon comes the time
To grind the cane
Strip the stalks
Standing in the field
Gather the strainers
Sharpen the machete
Scrub the kettle clean
Grease the rollers
Stack the bottles
Teach again the oxen
The routine of
clockwise circling
Pleasant Hill
Kentucky
John Clare Stokes
In the loft above the straw strewn
in the cool dim air pungent with
the fields yield of toiling long
fading to the muted hues once
we knew vibrant to the light reaching
through the autumn
through the winter
to the spring returning
In lofts we hung the dying
to the fields of summer giving life.
Pleasant Hill
Kentucky
It was a loud evening
The crows in the pines
Treeing the great horned owl
Trespassing in their hood
Long after dusk
When the crows had given
Up the chase
Over me
The owl silently soared
From the outer pines
I would have offered
him a chicken or something
But they were on the roost
It’s not one of those fussed over
Bragged over type places we envy
It doesn’t get myriad likes for decoration
And that is fine
I’d so dislike living in a magazine place
Where every angle coordinates with the theme
No, give me incongruity
Even a splash of tacky
Cat scratched furniture
Dog scented throw blankets
I don’t need to impress you with the place
We’re content if you come
And leave saying
Glad we don’t live there
Nothing matches
Colors are off
Don’t they know anything
About decoration?
I want to sit with the
Moon
Keep it company
If by some chance
It’s attacked
Sliced open by a
Southern flying Delta
That would be tragic
Imagine
A dying moon
Dark evenings
Pining away the night
Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill
Harrodsburg, Kentucky
I can already feel this shaking within
The simple line, the swirling,spiraling
Upward, upward, we are spinning
This shaped note upon my lips forming.
Upon no creature does it wait
In shadows night they turn
For in the dark they learn
To align just so in the way
For but a touch of His day.
I hear a language unknown
I travel in a wilderness alone
I sing the strains of a forgotten song
I think the long gone are calling me home.
Promising Craftsmen in every yard
And so we left our Deere’s of green
For the promised land grass was so hard.
The cicada color scheme
I’m always in awe
Of the artistry in creatures
Who fly and crawl
Once two walked along the beach of Cumberland
amid the regal ruins of long burnt Dungeness
The gulls and terns led the way that day
Their pace slow to not let us lose our way.
If you were soon to die
To your known existence
You’d adorn colors of gloom
To enter the emerald tomb
But no, they meet it in creative
Fashion that brings joy
They must have been told
This is not your end as
in even greater glory they emerge
To lift in hues of vibrant orange-
yellows like little stained glass
windows offset in black
to rise far into the azure autumn
from beauty to beautiful
From Joseph like coats to robes
Of Monarchs
john clare
Gently, gently the waters part,
Silently, silently we slip downstream.
In teardrop cradle the sailors embark,
Hush crickets! The little Pindar dreams.
Miles, miles the stream carries us along,
Tranquil, tranquil the mirrored ripple.
Above, the Cicada's con calma hum,
Sleep, sleep little ruddy sailor still.
Who? Who? Passes in tiny sloop?
Tis he! Tis he! The poet of streams!
Pass through my poetic little flute,
Old Owl sees why the waters sing.
Down, down goes the little canoe
Deep, deep through icy shoaled sea.
Awake tiny sailor, see us through!
Cause terrible Erebus to flee!
Still, still sleeps in tempest land,
Row, row we against Aeolus strong.
Into the gale rises a little hand,
Calm, calm again the beautiful song.
Johnclarestokes
I sing a song of degrees
From adjunct poverty
To stately royalty
I sing a song of degrees
From total blindness
To vision piercing
I sing a song of degrees
The heart of burning desire
The heart frozen entire
I sing a song of degrees
The childlike wonderment
The elderly wanting it
I sing a song of degrees
To roost
Reprise
Alligator Lake
Johnclarestokes
Some folks take their oaks
For granted
They have always been
A part of
The family
Life has grown on
Never a thought for
The stately oaks
There once were oaks
In my life
Even had lightening rods
To appease an awesome God
But it was as a wife of Lot
Just grains of salt grating
Upon me now
As the Stokes oaks
Dwell among stranger folks.
Oak cluster
Williston
Thursday on the Dennis Prager male female hour on 107.5, his discussion centered around what are your first date turnoffs, things you see in the person that absolutely would make it a one night date? Things like, rudeness to the waiter, road rage, why did you hold that door for me, etc. On my first date with Melanie, I’m pretty sure hers was, does he love my cat with the same passion as he is displaying toward me?
Well, thank the Lord Cats were her first love and not dogs. For cats are pretty much non-committal in their love for any man, but not dogs. Dogs can read you. A dog would have betrayed my duplicitous heart and the rest would never have been history.
So when I spread just a touch of canned abalone tuna upon my then Nike running shoes, and Callie purred around my feet, well, I had her at hello. I was in, the cat “loved” me, so unusual for a cat that hated all men.
An angel encumbered with wings
I don’t think man can comprehend
Gods mighty beings
Who His praises sing
Who announce the things
God has decreed
Johnclarestokes
Tell me mamma of the latter years
Tell me of the way it used to be
Tell me of your father’s family
Tell me of your joyous tears
Tell me of your love then new
Tell me of the stucco two story place
Tell me why one left without a trace
Tell me how you two made do
Tell me things I never knew
Tell me things I never remembered
Tell me of the presents of December
Tell me of the letters sent to you
Tell me over and over again
Tell me so I can tell it to my children
Tell me so when by graves I’m tearing
Tell me so I’ll forever hear you telling.
Christmas in Sopchoppy
Paula and John
1957
John Clare Stokes
O ye who calls the wind to rhyme
The waters to flow in meter'd time
Suns to shine in light sublime
Moons to rise on hearts that pine
In dream the words you find
Rhymes to cause a world to mind
You awake to command the stars
Shoot o'er the lovers from far
Come nigh moon to the mourn
Sun give warmth to forlorn
O the heaven alas does not forbear
The dream was but a mare
Awake me in the City four square.
