Come Jimmy

by john clare

Come Jimmy it's time you see
The team is loaded for tonight
We travel down to Cedar Key.
Orville has the boys prepared
Missy can sit up here with me
Mamma will not mind
Come Jimmy, it's time.
When we get to Otter Creek Crossing
We can stretch our legs
Then down through Rosewood
And over those narrow bridges
To the old gym of native rock.
Come Jimmy, it's time you see
For tonight we play Cedar Key
They suit only seven to our ten
But never mind the odds
Those Shark's play as men
Never tiring in their pressing job.
Come Jimmy, it's time you see
It's a long way to Cedar Key
You can say a prayer for the boys
I know they need it bad
Devil's all full of lustful joys
I know you understand the lads.
Come Jimmy, it's time you see
The boy's defeated Cedar Key
Orville coached his cigar out
We played on a prayer and a shout
Gideon's Demon's tumbling rock walls!
Come Jimmy, hurry you see
They block the bridge from Cedar Key!
Have you seen Missy?

Between the Two

Between the two

Before the crying over the dying had even ceased
The celebration of the budding of the bloom had begun
The dirge and the hearse upon one limb
The parade and the gaiety upon another one,

And I am left standing awkwardly between them.

The newborn bud beside the dying leaf.
In haste to grow and go on to new life
In haste to end a season so terminally brief
One as life giving scalpel, the other as murderous knife.

And I am cut in my love between the two.

Mourning the dying of the leaves from the trees,
While rejoicing in the coming forth of the new
For who can recall the life of but one who leaves?
Or stay the bud that unfolds before you?

I believe in the winter I shall forever dwell
No bud or leaf between and all is well.

by john clare

Contrail upon the trail

I've gotten up off the forested floor

I

Assez vite

Why wait the Spring
Go ahead and sing
You who bloomed
Much too soon
Giving us a song
In the winter long
Your time came
You sang and sang
Few heard a word
No early bird
Or butterfly emerged
At your urging
Weeks from hence
When glories cover
the fence
And hummers alight
in Springs delight
I shall remember the day
Brush the leaves away
And thank you for blooming
In the cold,cold gloom.

Looking unto Jesus

Be Kind to clouds

The clouds crowd for but a glimpse of the earth bound below, but they cannot linger long upon the sight for on they are driven by the rustling winds, always to the cloud pens and then to the cloudy arena where they are prodded out and the four winds bid to herd the clouds through their vastly expanding heavenly ranges. And so for some they are sold to storm and thunder to cast asunder those below, while others are twisted and branded into tornadic fury even worse. Yet a few, a very few escape from the herd and hiding by morning concealed in the lingering fog, stay long and gaze upon those below, shading and enveloping them from the sun that comes, exposing them to the rustlers of the wind.
Be kind to the clouds that gently speak with you by making all sorts of words for you to decipher. They once were the fiercely driven hurricanes tearing over the open ranges.

Be Kind to Clouds

Looking Unto Jesus

Looking unto Jesus Heb. 12:2.

If you would be miserable look within. If you would be distracted, look around. If you would be happy, look up. Charles Cullis.

Compel me
cause me
call me
but to wholly desire
to fix my gaze
upward to Thee

cast down
throw down
trample down
that which wholly desires
to fix my gaze
far away from Thee

john clare

Who are you?

by john clare

who are you
my cloud carried one
who calls to me
compelling me
to follow the course
of heavens migration
beating the fledgling wing
bearing aloft this body
in strain to maintain
the slicing vee
flinging majestically as one
upon the grand fly way

who am i
my earth bound one
who cries to you
carry me
to lift the laden
to heavens congregation
holding the fledgling nigh
helping along this infant
in strain to maintain
the unbroken vee
flapping in rhythm as one
wing upon wing along the
star strung way.

Star Man

by john clare

Can you recall that summer of seventy-two
When that star man offered to take you to the moon?
How his contraption looked woefully underpowered
And how you balked to climb upon the launching pad?
At long last word arrived that it was far into the night
before the lift off was accomplished over a sleeping
Orange Hill.
As the star man gazed down upon the narrow lane
The moonbeams glowed on the Grotto
Giving an emerald way point should the
contraption make a return landing.
But it didn't and the star man journeyed on to the moon
Where once there
His contraption did crash
Giving him much, much too much time to ponder
when he may afford to repair the contraption for a return
voyage
To see if she still wants to take that ride to the moon
before it is too late.
And so with her little camera in hand, as the moon
grows into its most brilliant illumination
She points the contraption and captures another
blurry beam
And dreams of the time in seventy-two
the star man offered it all to her in full
resolution.