I do these things periodically
Like go boot less through
The woods
Leave offerings along the way
Say things that make
Sensibly sensitive ears burn
Get accused of being cruel
And certainly not funny
It's great
This idiocy and
Greater yet
Uncovering
Idiocy
They were Poe's crows
It was Mondrian's mimosa
All the same I composed
They flew
and the moment
Was over.
For weeks Melanie was in an induced coma while the oscillator beat on her lungs. The decision was made to stop the oscillation and bring her out of the coma. We weren’t sure if she would come back. You looked into her eyes and they were blank. Imagine when recognition came back. The song Amazing Love, My chains fell off was playing. Such a mystery when life returned.
By John Clare
For no discernible reason I want to swirl
And in a great effort to
maintain control
I stand stoic before this
Dancing girl
And still waltz away within my soul.
john clare stokes
Long past the forgotten lines
Well beyond the curtain call
From the bed and down the hall
To sit and mutter from Macbeth
Is this the end of Thespians
In some woodland sparse
Before the fireless hearth
From nostrils smoke leaking
Mute the cheers ringing flee
Mock the tongue tied stammer
Yet do I fear thy nature
Is this a dagger I see before me?
Nought's had, all's spent
Where our desire is got without content;
Tis safer to be that which we destroy
Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.
The winter of eighty eight on this day
Kim Eatman-Smith maid of honor, Melanie’s sister
Melanie
Rev Luther Ray Stokes, minister, my father
Magoo, Rooster at the time
John “Hambone” Wilson, best man
Photo by Bob Jones
Whitehurst Memorial Chapel
Williston
Woodlands 2009
Often we think how mamma never tired
Of telling of the day I phoned her in
Crawfordville to tell her Melanie and
I were marrying. It was probably the only time the Methodist preachers wife danced.
I truly think her love for Melanie outranks mine. I cannot tell the times she'd have the flowers ordered for me, all in my name.
If it all to an end came crashing
It would not have been in vain
For the love it gave Meme and Melanie
Woodlands Rehabilitation
“Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.
― William Butler Yeats
Pen the tale
Again the poet found
As he spun another
Round and round
Dizzy bound
Blindfold tight
The absurdity
Of trying to get
Them to find
The tale.
Junk Art
The crafty lady
She was livid
The island
Jury
Rejected her
Window acrylics
And a thousand
Chimed
How does the
Island jury
Know what's
Artsy?
Upon the curve
We live upon the
Bell curve
Oh, it's in Gilchrist
County for some
Those folks will
Always dwell upon
The Bell curve
Literally
While in time
One or two
From many, many
Will come to dwell
Upon the curve
Shaped like a bell.
Lately all say
Oh why would anyone
Not celebrate love
They aren’t worth your time
Those jealous hateful kind
But there is a rewind
And if they could see the video
The time the eyes first met
In consensual infidelity
They’d see the point of
the Spirit saying
Turn away
Turn away
By john clare stokes
It was no small deed for her to rip the
Carpet right from beneath his feet
Spread denim over him rolled tight
Exposing the soft underbelly asleep
For she's heard all the pick up lines
Endured the mis-thrusts upon
Orange shag plush
Short-lived ecstasy in Cohen rhyme
As she lay and made cigarette ring puffs
And he wonders why she offered to cut
Taking such vengeance on the carpet
A slice for every mis-placed trust
Makeup smeared tears she cannot forget
Feed her frappe lines if you dare
Just be not surprised when she tears
That new laid linoleum as you squirm
Cringing at the pain inflicted from one
Roberta Carpet Burns.
For one to come along
They say she walks this path
On her way home
I’ve been here all the day long
And I think they are
Wrong
john clare
St Marks river at low tide
Revealed the fiddler crab trail
Guarding the bottle found
beneath the roots tangling down
Plucked from the gulf brine
Discerning a note inside
Thrown by the White's
Upon their anniversary night
Wishing he who found this note
Would be equally love smote
Too crusty for such words
Took the long journey toward
The lonely garage apartment
Arriving late a letter sent
Sent to the mailbox never used
Something made me stop
Saying,look in the mailbox
And so I read
Immediately I said
This is the Whites note answered
Waiting here all too quickly
And so immediately
I replied to the letter from Melanie...
telling her
YES
I would love to come down
to Williston
and teach you
Photography!
The rest is
history.....
