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.

Way beyond today

 Granted

Yesterday I had 

Consigned you

As done

And the burning

Of the brush 

Would have begun

But for some 

Conclave of bloom

You again convinced

The vine to allow 

You to open

The blaze that would 

Have scorched you

Silly

Shall wait

Till 

Way beyond today.

Getting on

 Getting On

John Clare Stokes

It's as the merry-go-round 

Once we spun fast as we could

To see if it would cast off

Those hanging on for

Dear life

Little did we know

We were playing

Real life

Suwannee Gauntlet

Here we go again. Share the photo only. 

Suwannee Gauntlet

John Clare Stokes

Through the gauntlet of black bear and watery mire

I paddled the tipsy skiff warily 

Upon every root a beady eyed moccasin 

With every strike a snapping turtle grinning

On the bow, the bellicose bull gator scowls

On the stern, the who!who! dares of the barred owl

Off the starboard, piney rooters tusks shine

To the port, pileated’s fell the beetle full pines

Tis’not a place for the faint in heart

The cypress in chorus with Luna whispers depart, depart!

There’s mystra aflow below the Tupelo tree

The place where de Soto’s yet seek

The gold beyond the gauntlet of Suwannee.

Theron Coming

 Theron Coming 

There is a place where the water goes

When the rains from Okeefenokee refrains

Leaving a gasping brim upon the limestone

Calling for but a drop to send

The Tupelo roots they bend in praying

Sending down their supplications below

For Theron to send

But Theron is downstream busily painting

A scene of floods bringing from Lem Griff

Waters spreading through palmetto homes

Sending to cypress trees the newborn nocturnal 

Taking all others rapidly beyond Fowlers

But it's as a dream this painted scene

The gills cannot breath oil or

Swim upon linen canvas and so

Theron never comes

The Heron lands to say grace quickly

For the manna lately comes easy

With but a brush stroke he is away

As Theron he must meet upon

The Suwannee

Theron Gaulding, the late eccentric artist who lived in White Springs in a boarding house. His ashes spread on the Suwannee. 

Williston

 We drove to Williston in Carols car. Sister Paula went. Paula and i went to the Church of God, Mel and Billy Earl to Bronson First Baptist. Paula and went to Orange Hill to set flowers and flag. We ate at Billys with Rochelle and Linda. Larry came over. Got several bags of Carols clothes. Gave Annetta her present for 90th birthday. I drove home. 

The unstartled

 The un-startled

Hear my eyes the sound so faint

The bees feet alighting upon the flower

In fields the quails sudden flutter

Quietly winging away the tockless hour.

Hear my nose the whispering breeze

The gurgling brook over the rock

The whippoorwill shy in the tree

Times metered journey around the clock.

Hear my touch the sighs of love

The distant first caress of lip

Hush the twinkling of stars above

As silent into the timeless we slip.

Not the same

 She couldn’t explain

But somehow her mundane 

Just didn’t seem the same

Wednesday after Tuesday election 

No country

 No country

John Clare Stokes

We the Clares and Housemen 

find this no country for the

pastoral poet of tender bend

 twig green under cloud dream

of heart pricked by thorns

made into pens of crimson

parchment yellowing under

a sun having not shown since

 1864 and the war

to banish pastoral poets from

the land

Morning is broken

 The morning is broken

The possum in the trap

The green in the leaking pool

The toilets clog awaiting replacing

The frig freezes

The freezer thaws

The ducks swim in muck

The cats eat up the birds

One thing gets fixed

As another awaits to break

Upon the broken morning.

New Song

 New Song

It won’t be very long 

Before a new song

I hum

Beneath the breath

Before ole death

Comes screaming

Drowning the new song

It thought.

Detour

 Detour

Days you’ve been traveling

Down the same highway

The same scenes unfolding

Before you

Never the same though

 But one day you come upon

The man in the road

And he says go slow

And suddenly

You no longer want to

Be upon this way

Or even take the detour

You cannot return

Quick enough

To turn in your keys

And leave the way of the road.