Ring Girl

by john clare

She took four strands of old ski rope
Stretched it taunt in a square of canvas
twenty-four feet square
in the front yard
Two feet upon concrete blocks above the
Bahia grass
Padded the turnbuckles from boat cushions
and set a sawed off  kitchen stool
in the opponents corner
took the sewing machine and made
her a silken sequined gown
with matching Everlast trunks
and on the fifth Saturday of the Month
Entered her ring
Declaring any Palooka who can go the distance with me
can have me.
In the lady-made ring stooped
the Sugar Rays
Led by glass jawed lust
for an easy lay upon canvas
The right-handed orthodox
came with dream of
being the one to have her
as one by one
her haymaker met shattered
cheeks kissing canvas.
Eventually the punch drunk
stopped coming as word of
the Ring Girl spread.
No one for her to bolo punch.
No one to hit below the belt,
 throw body punches.
No combinations.
No tomato men to defeat.
Upon the day she decided
to step from the ring
to hang the gloves
undefeated
As she floated like a butterfly
from the ring
The lower ski rope caught
her and stung like a bee
as she fell solidly to the
Bahia grass below
Hayseed settling upon
that ruby gown.
The Palooka's from far
and wide gathered
glass jaws taut
as the
Memorial ring count
sounded.

Itchetucknee Theology

To be the first to heed that call
Come!
Drift upon the sweet water
to go where the
Manatee knows
to the flow unending
strong and clear
Leap!
to the heaven leap
 tell those who dwell
above
the sweet flow is below
deep beneath that
shaky boat
Come!
Hear the heron cry
to the passers by
Know!
Know you have
Come
to the source of sweet flow
take the hand that
created wonderfully
and simply
Know.

Intaglio Etchings

This is taken from Kentucky with an image of my father and Ed Brown taking goods from the spring house.
This event never occurred, I made it up in this etching. Etching is an old art form where you coat a copper or zinc plate with resin then draw in the resin. You then place the plate with the exposed lines in an acid bath, that eats into the lines. Depending how long you leave the plate in the acid bath determines the depth and shade of the line. You can etch multiple times, covering lines with the rosin and thus control the scene. You then roll ink into the lines on the plate and rub the remaining ink on the surface off. You place the plate on a press and place your special wet printing paper on the plate and make your print. Rembrandt was a master at the etching process. His mastery of the medium has no equal.

This is my father with his uncle Barnes on his farm in Homewood, Mississippi where my father grew up.  Can you find our dog Goliath?

This is an etching of the old barn and springhouse.

This was my father bidding Uncle Barnes good-bye in 1976.

this is an etching with aquatint of my father on his place in Crawfordville, Florida by the pond, looking for squirrels in the old oak. The old home place in Crawfordville is gone, as my father, who passed away on March 12th 2011

The Lovely Shop Fire

This was my last assigment for the Lake City Reporter in July of 1981. It was a great job being the Reporter's Photographer. Sadly, Harvey Campbell and I differed with Publisher Don Caldwell and the editorial staff over placing bylines on each photograph in the special edition and it cost me my job.The vote was taken late in the evening, not to put bylines under each photograph. Harvey went into the composing room after all had left and typed bylines under each photo. Though I was not involved, I took the fall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alligator Lake

 

Alligator Day

All my life my journey has been a series of out...and back...I do not mind the retracing...but sometimes it would be good to just...out.

I must begin each journey with the thought, today, I find the Ivory Bill...for without the joy of hope, I would not be in awe of the Pileated call...

The way of humility resonates regardless of whom you follow, be it Mary or Mary's Son.

But beware of the great pride that hides behind the vestiges of humility.

These were typed out as I walked along Alligator Lake again today with the camera. I then posted them to Facebook where immediately Melissa and no one else commented, except Bettie Harvey.
After several hours, the same two likes, so in my lack of humility, I deleted from FB.
Some days are just that way.
Then, to add to my frustration, while walking back, I pecked out, in the Land of Cliche. It was my reaction to what is mostly posted on FB.

Water Walk

by john clare

For fifty paces would you not destroy Suwannee?
If
I find fifty walking men I shall not destroy this Suwannee.

For twenty paces would you spare Suwannee?
If
I find twenty walking men I shall spare the Suwannee.

For ten paces would you save Suwannee?
If
I find ten walking men I shall save the Suwannee.

For three paces would you remember Suwannee?
If
I find three walking men then I shall remember the Suwannee.

For one pace will you stay your hand upon Suwannee?
If
I find one walking man then I shall stay my hand upon Suwannee.

The darkness came
and the rains began.

The Suwannee rose
and the fifty paces were washed away.

The banks overflowed
and the twenty paces disappeared.

In hammocks deep
the snakes swam
and the three paces were not found.

Came a cry from one pace
I vanish beneath the Suwannee!

Where is the Promise to me?

In one unsunken pace
from the Okeefenokee to the Gulf of Mexico
 no trace was found
upon dry ground

but walking upon the one flow
the promise was kept.

Preacher Stokes

Today, March 12th, was the day my father, the Rev Luther Ray Stokes passed away in 2011 at the VA Hospital in Lake City. My sister in this photograph is comforting our father moments before he went to be with the Lord. He had been unresponsive for a time, then, just before he passed over, he opened his eyes wide in wonder, looking out toward the window, then closed them to die in this flesh.

He Shall Testify

He shall testify of Me.
John xv.26.

All the scriptures are filled with Christ. Christ is in the Scriptures from the first book to the last. But it is the Holy Ghost who makes us to meet the living word through the written word. He leads us from light to light, from fellowship to fellowship.
Otto Stockmayer
1838-1917

On a side note, it was through this same brick wall between the Williston United Methodist Church and the Whitehurst Chapel that I took the same photograph years ago.

The Impaling

by john clare

We came upon a burnt out bush consumed
from flames
Lapped some morning dew from the desert
sand
Bowed to the golden idols set out in the latter
rains
Then laid us down and wept for the promised
land.
It wasn't how they said it would be
This field full of shrews and snakes
No land of flowing milk and honey
A promised land no one wants to take.
Suppose we shall turn back from this plain
Return to the sand from which we
came.
At least they fed us three meals
daily
Who needs promises when hungering so
greatly?
And so the starving ones soon were
gone
With fires bright by the golden calves they did
feast
Yet the inner hunger lingered and groaned
A kingdom within calling
In the land of the beast.

Clark Sampson turns eighty-eight

by john clare

They clipped my head for my
eighty-eighth birthday party
Told me how good it looks
Reminding them of a young
Clark Sampson
Who once toppled tall towers
Lately I am paying for all
that felling
It has left the legs short on
locomotion
And the igniting of foxes fires difficult
For the time being
(Until the Minoxidil virility pills arrive)
Such are the pains I put up with
for my Lois
Pestering me daily as I laze in my
PJ's of royal and red saying,
"Outside lurk the Philistine Witnesses
with their eyes for your Lois,
Coming to crop your locks,
You better find some jawbone!"
Now make a wish and blow out
your candles.
I take a deep breath and...
Pressing the call button,
I ask if someone will please wheel me
down the hallway to
those temple pillars.
Let me feel that smooth
granite once again,
To make my Lois proud of me!
Those Kingdom walls shall fall!
The foxes with their tied
tails shall flee
I see the flames before me!
As I spit and gasp out of breath
Smoke rising, I smell of sweet death...
Happy birthday dear Sampson
Happy birthday to you!

They Forsook All

They forsook all and followed Him.
Luke v.11.
Let it seem to thee as if thou wert travelling in the company of a kind and beloved friend, through a foreign land and a desert wilderness. From love to this intimate friend do all, suffer all, and assent to all, that befalls thee in this world, be it little or much.
Tersteegen.

Gerhard Tersteegen.
1697-1769.
German Reformed writer and poet
"Let Him lead thee blindfold onwards,
Love needs not to know;
Children whom the Father leadeth
Ask not where they go.
Though the path be all unknown
Over moors and mountains lone.

Give no ear to reason's questions;
Let the blind man hold
That the sun is but a fable
Men believed of old.
At the breast the babe will grow;
Whence the milk he need not know.