John Stokes
By the time Orion
Had lifted into orbit
Behind the fog
We were three miles
Down range east
Traveling at the speed
Of forty-five
Heading for our
Destination
Experimental mission
To see if
Man can sustain on
Hardee's biscuits.
Watertown Cormorants
John Stokes
Deep within the without
Form or void
A voice heard calling
Come forth
A creation of my own making in PicArts and PSExpress on the iPhone.
Times we’d come to the slow ebbing Suwannee
and in the foam from shoals read the writing
of our lives fleeting and what was to be
thankful to Him the source of our being.
Time was running thin as it was near time to leave. The deep fog was being burnt off in pieces as sporadic light entered. Viewing the sequence on the screen of the camera, it looked promising.
It wasn’t time to go, but is it ever?
D850 with 200-500.
We moved to Williston in 1967 to the Methodist parsonage on Noble Avenue by the stately yellow brick church my father pastored for ten years. Across the street where Hardee’s is today was the two story Wilson home with a trailer park. Valerie Jones Blackburn lived in the little trailer by the road beside the service station with her tame mockingbird. She had a daughter Marguerite Davis and son Harlan. Her husband Henry died in 1958. I often visited her, for she was a painter and she would always tell me, I am praying you marry a Williston girl.
I would dismiss it for I’d run through my list of old girlfriends and most were hitched or getting hitched. We moved from Williston in 1977 to Lake City and Valerie died on April 3rd, 1978 at age 77. Her prayer I forgot. In 1986 my niece Jessica was in Shand’s hospital and her nurse was a girl from Williston my sister insisted I meet.
The day arrived and Melanie entered to check on Jessica and we met. Though I mustered courage to later ask her to go with me to fanfare and fireworks, she turned me down since she was dating a doctor. I thought, that was that.
But then, a full year later, I got this letter from Williston. It was Melanie wanting me to show her how to use her “cannon” she recently purchased. She had remembered the zoo pictures I took and taped on Jessica’s bedside wall. She had broken up with the doctor too.
I had just returned from finding a note in the bottle at St Marks wishing who found this the same happiness Bob and Carolyn White had found. The timing was beyond coincidence.
As I drove to Williston the following Saturday, I thought of Valerie and her prayer.
That prayer was answered January 8, 1988 at Whitehurst Memorial Chapel, just a Mockingbird call from Mrs Blackburn’s trailer.
It was but a fleeting scene
Quickly captured in the passing
A father making a rope swing
For a little boy sprouting wings...
John Clare Stokes
Ashes ashes we go round
Merry the circling spin
Joyful the lads sound
Pockets full of posey’s
Oh how the lasses grin
The blush of cheeks rosy
Breathless they all exclaim
Let it never end
Swift this ageless game
Youthful exuberance gone
Spent the wheezing bend
Slowing the frail hobble on
When to still silence all around
Well done my old friends
Ashes ashes we all fall down
john clare
The word went out
The Sacred Eagle
Was flying through
We must send
Our finest to
Photograph him.
Send the Kings Canon Men!
The cry went up;
The full frame A team
With the 1000mm lenses!
And so they went
With the Kings blessing
Smug in the confidence
Of their superior equipment.
High overhead the Sacred
Eagle circled and descended
The Canon men in AF servo
Framed
Gitzo tripods holding solid.
The court jester with his
Nikon D40 entertaining
Mimicking as they laughed
But in their distraction
Entered the refraction
As in the sun the
Sacred Eagle flew
Flaring badly
The tack sharp thousands.
Wry Smile Seeing it unfold
With humble kit lens
The jester focused with
The middle of three points
To capture quickly
The Sacred Eagle
Landing by the King,
The Canon men struggling
Reaching for the official royal
24-70 2.8's.
But it was too late
This bird had flown.
Later that day
With the jester now the
Court photographer beside him
(To record)
The lining up of the Canon Men
To have them shot at close range
Just to make sure
The Royal Firing Squad
Would not miss.
john clare
Where is the one
They say discovers you?
Who sees the work
To bring sudden clamoring
Hastening toward the gallery
Black Friday pilgrimages
Such a one does not exist
Nicholas and Oz do
It's a long desire for one
To shake the reigns
To wave the wand
Be gone ye toiling
Obscurity
You misunderstood
Poverty
Long long since the
Trace marks fade
Comes one
All clamoring toward
The Discoverer
To dip the brush
To stir the color
To trouble the waters.
john clare
He carried the
Heaviest camera
And lens he could find
Metal only for him
He figured if he
Hefted them enough
His images would
Be strong and
Powerful.
He was so wrong.
john clare
I tried to
Make you
A close friend
So I could see
All you post
And the more
I saw
And saw
And saw
Stop it please!
I tried
But face it
We are not
On the same page
I see dragons
You see feces
Sorry
Today I reverted
And made you
Again
Acquainted.
Told me
What do you see?
Are you Stable?
Steady?
Holding up?
Shaky?
Sinking?
Dock
If I told you
All I see
Please
Would you
Commit me?
