John Clare Stokes
In the passing of the oak....From afar who did come....And in hushed manner who spoke....Of what he succomed....In the passing of the day....Does the sun not miss....The shadow and the sway.....The meeting with the mist....In the passing of the time....With longing who will recall....The old oak so fine....And the terrible fall.
John Clare Stokes
After Yeats the Stolen Child
By the bank beneath the broken sign
By the boat beside the fishing dock
There ran the wild child by the shore
The wild child that mother forgot
By the lodge lounging at the bar
By the downing of another shot
There ran the wild child by the door
The wild child that father forgot
By the asphalt cracked unmarked
By the dumpster beside this lot
There ran the wild child by the parked
The wild child that brother forgot
By the time we called out for her
By the time she left our spot
There ran the wild child but a blur
The wild child that sister forgot.
By the tree stand by the Range
By the trail the creature was shot
There ran the wild child deranged
The wild child we all forgot.
I am most deceived I guess to think I have much to offer when so few could care less what I offer.
John Clare Stokes
Robert Lee in the beginning had a son
From America Wheeler in 1870 he did come.
Jake Lee they would name the son
With Eliza, Mary and Dora in Benton he would run.
Then in '97 at 51 Lee lost his darling
Mourned three years til he met Lessie Starling.
Hard by the Suwannee Shoals they did dwell
Nellie, Louise, Pearl, Meck, Hattie, Ethel, Eunice and Estelle
Til, whew, finally in the year 20 came,
Joe Lee the second son to carry the name.
This is one from several years ago, reposted and only Melissa liked it. I’m going to delete it. I get angry but how many years has it been thus?
As Yeats
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 library of words
seemed inadequate
the result never as
the inner thought
The old Triton
the maiden so sublime
fighting
to win her with lines
Open eyes
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
This week Mr Counts wife Katrina passed away. It was Mr Counts who hired me to work as the display and advertising person. Mr Counts was a strong Christian and the District people were always on him. He finally resigned though I think he was fired. He and I got a raw deal from JCPenney.
Sitting around in anticipation of a long night. Always somewhat nervous due to the large pines in the yard. Anxious about the generator never used. Not thrilled with toying with it in the night if needed, which if things go like any high winds, we will. Interested in seeing how the two loads of dirt keep water out of the back yard.
