You know it’s an inner thing
The outer darkness just doesn’t understand.
John Clare Stokes
White Springs Presbyterian
Tuesday, November 12, 2024
Man in the moon
Man of the moon
He was not the
Man of the hour
He was not the
Man of rhyme
He was not the
Longed for one
He was not the
Light to come
Just a man
Of the moon
Voice of freedom
"I can be miserably happy in any situation and any place and could have staid in yours in the forest if any of my friends had noticed me or come to see me-but the greatest annoyance in such places as yours are those servants styled keepers who often assumed as much authority over me as if I had been their prisoner and not liking to quarrel I put up with it till I was weary of the place altogether so I heard the voice of freedom."
Compared
Compared
john clare
No words were spared
in the tearing down
around us of the years
of line upon line
double spaced in the
school girl cursive
saved for special notes
for mothers birthdays
and the aunts far away
who yet doted upon the
cursive notes
genteel ladies they were
never would they tear
around them the words
savoring them
tucking them lovingly
between the testaments
or the psalms
reading them time and again
remembering the lines
holding them in the Kings
Word for safe keeping
compared to him
I could never measure
and it was with some
Aunt like pleasure the
cursive lines scattered to
the winds
to be swept at day's end
For safekeeping
in some far off
trash bin.
Chosen
Chosen
john clare
Quietly
In the gallery
In whispers
In corners
Beside acrylics
Gaudy
They speak of one
Of one chosen
To lead them
Lead them from
The gaudy
The primitive
Past the jury
Of peers
Who fear the
Beauty
Creeping in
Past the craft
Passing furtive
For Art
Pricing it
Excessive
Beyond the realm
Of the jaded
Tired of the
Creative angles
Of multiple perspective
Points
Taking their eyes clear off the edge to
Where who know what
Resides
By six by six squares
Whispers of one
Coming
Chosen by the jury
Who oversees the beauty.
Laura Ruth
The day Laura Ruth disappeared from the Bascomb Norris bridge
john clare
It was your typical mid November North Florida kind of Friday,
The local team was in the first round of the playoffs,
A liberating sort of autumn day,
Where according to the rules, the reserved seats must be open to general admission
allowing the Five Pointers to sit among the Marion Placers,
Annoying them with their cowbells and raucous cheer
while down by Lowes the same reserved seat er's were posing for the ribbon cutting
The opening of the final leg of the loop around the city
A thirty-three year affair just to go around town.
It was on this road named for her daddy on this bridge over the East-West CSX she stood
looking East toward the' we kill 'Animal Shelter's continual howling.
Before this section through the chain of lakes to Lona, she could avoid the noise by going around Lake Jeffery,
And this troubled her beyond convention,
Akin to the slaughter of the elephants,
Or the caged creatures at Swampy Rusty Acres,
Tenacious to the point even her cousin next door distanced her.
In the west near Columbia Grain from this height she could see the approaching light
Hear the whistling and the howling, even the ribbon falling.
She saw Bascomb and Gwendolyn and a great parade aprroaching in their Electra-Matics, fine machines for inaugural crossings.
By the time the CSX slowed in the Baldwin Freight Yards, she was reported missing, as were the myriad animals awaiting the chair.
Her little Electra parked near the apex.
Not a trace.
They placed a marker near where Kimberly Leach rests, the howls of Bundy silenced,
In sight of the tracks, in hearing distance where once the howling came, east of the bridge the reserved named in honor of her.
Swing Low
Swing low
In the course of my life in swings
My first memories go back to Sopchoppy
On Mrs Mary’s front porch beneath
the magnolia on Rose Street
Across the gravel road the flowing wells
constant gurgling
the drums from the Yellowjacket Marching band
Telling me mamma would soon be coming
for me
gathering up my matchboxes and Prince Albert
Tins
Toys for a boy from a pipe smoking Mr Emory
and I’d drift off
Waking beneath the oak in Williston
daddy out on the tractor in the field
mowing
and I’d rise and wait for his finishing
To come and sit beside me
In the swing with my tins.
Lost in Lancaster
Lost in Lancaster
The old junk yard vehicle from Rusty Acres long ago combined with the dirt road by Lancaster prison near Trenton.
I grow so tired of those who chide
Forget the past, put it behind
Don’t live there, in a bygone time
Well, if I choose, there I’ll abide.
Who are you to tell me forget it?
Was your past one bleak and dark
Do you not cherish things that did part
That only in memory you can visit?
I loose the latch upon the gated past
Enter the garden and sit in the shade
Taste the sweet syrup once made
Reach out and again the loving hand clasp
No, you can have the future of no memory
Nothing dwells there I wish to see
With all the loved ones is where I’ll be
Til the past opens upon the reunion in eternity.
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