Angels Unaware

 Angels Unaware

Johnclarestokes 

Now if he was an angel I would have seen the wings

Heard the tune that heaven and nature sings

I would have placed upon the table the finest Rhodora

Set the golden silver in the proper order

But there was no table just a lift station pump

No song just the sound of sewage that stunk

Not the realm where angels should dwell

Wrapped in frumpy robes with a woody smell

And then as soon as my order came he was gone

The cars in line impatiently honked to move along

Later as I set the table of Lenox dinnerware

I wondered who would entertain angels unaware?

Shank Codes

Shank Codes

johnclarestokes

If you are reading this

You have made it out

Brooks wasn't so fortunate

Never getting beyond 

Bagging groceries 

There is on the road

To High Bridge in 

Jessamine County

Kentucky 

Near the John Curd

Revolutionary placard 

By the first tree 

Looking back toward

Wilmore under the field

Stone of the slave fence

A box

In that box you will

Find the codes 

That unlocks the

Directions to the 

Poetry written

By the sea

Long ago before I

Escaped from maximum sanity.

Dream of Jumpy

 dream on jumpy 

johnclarestokes 

Does it not seem a 

Futile thing to wake

The sleeping man?

Let him dream awhile

Yet

Lost in his boyhood 

Stepping 

Down to the dark 

Riverbank 

Lapping as a dog

where he drank

Swinging upon the

Scuppernong vines

Higher in the canopy 

He climbs

Mamma called in vain

But jumpy never came

Bottle and boots 

Found abandoned

Is the child now a man?

Between a splashing 

and a slow drifting

Down the winding

Sopchoppy

We will never know.

Bobs Schwinn

 It's just an old pink Schwinn 

 down tube twelve speed shifters 

 Chrome Moly lugged frame  

Chipped and dented from a crash

 Rear ended on Paynes Prairie

 Rear stays hammered straight 

 But when I top that rise by Biellings 

 And soar down the curving hill 

 I am atop a Pinarello Prince 

 Sixteen pound carbon wonder   

Approaching sixty miles per hour 

 Far ahead of a struggling peloton 

 Somewhere over Watermelon Park way 

 And I thank my old friend Bob Jones

 for giving me his old Schwinn this day....

Seven Saturday

 Seven Saturday

john clare

It was one of those seven

Leaf piles kind of days

One where the dawn grits

Just didn't stick

The hen, she too was reluctant

To leave the roost

The dogs languished in the foyer

Feigning an infestation of ticks

Hoping to elicit sympathy

Not to be turned out

To face the seven Saturday.

Despite the groaning to get going

Before we knew, the seven piles were blazing

The hen, she was cackling and laying

The dogs, they forgot their imaginary ticks

And began treeing and impressing with their

 squirrel chasing prowess.

And to Sir Top 'em hat

Up drove a little wonder boy

As we gathered the egg

Picked the fatted tick

And Stoked the Seven Fires 

On the Seven Saturday.

Thoreau

 Nature now, like an athlete, begins to strip herself in earnest for her contest with her great antagonist Winter. In the bare trees and twigs what a display of muscle!

Henry David Thoreau

North Florida Animal Rescue

Magnificent Migration

 Migration of the Magnificent   by john clare   Once when the Northeastern winds sent off course the South bound Magnificent Frigate, We enjoyed the time under the remote cypress hammock. She told of how on calmer currents past she had glanced upon me below, continuing onward through the night to the great Southern Archipelago. She said that had she known of such a hospitable friend, here is where the migration that night would have ended. But that was long ago when the winds blew fierce off shore and never since. The seasons merge and come the first frost of winter, I paddle out to the remote cypress hammock, in hopes perhaps in the night, the Frigatebird recalled our friendly past. But she never returns and I turn to paddle against the wind so slow. Somewhere in a harsher clime I pray, my migrating friend finds her Southern Archipelago.

Sad

 It saddens me to no end that I post so much only to have at most six or seven I think see, usually one or two for there is never feedback. I post them here from Facebook memory mainly as a repository for some future unknown. When I post such to Facebook the response is usually the same, a few with little comment. But I do it for one the same as I would for thousands. 

Julian and Buford

 The Markham sons

Johnclarestokes 

Once we had two 

 We barely knew 

 Julian one

 Bufford two 

 Taken not by the Spanish flu  

In the year of Twenty 

But by the well water sour

 Been one hundred three

Seems just yesterday 

 Julian and Bufford

 went away

Price Creek Cemetery

Joe

 Joe

Johnclarestokes 

Joe lived alone in the single wide

in the woods

alone

I’d read his electric meter

monthly

several years later

I delivered Joe a hospital bed

Joe wasn’t at all well

He slept on the floor

Later I came and picked up the

hospital bed

Joe had died in a single wide

in the woods

alone

Ralph

 Ralph

Johnclarestokes 

I no longer see Ralph 

walking into town

for the free meals

at Cleopatra Steels

food kitchen 

I no longer see Ralph

sitting on the street bench

waiting for the free meals

at Cleopatra Steels

food kitchen

Ralph was an alcoholic

Couldn’t ride a bike

Too wobbly

Ralph said he had a girlfriend

in prison

He showed me her letter

Said he must visit her

I think Ralph is dead

I no longer see him on

The Gum Swamp Road

I no longer see him

at Cleopatra Steels

Food kitchen

I hope he saw his girlfriend in prison. 

Shhhhh

 Shhhhh

Johnclarestokes 

We much prefer the hiding

The abiding in quiet

Out of way glades

Behind palmetto

Where the snake go

To escape the

Beheading

Dappled light

Coiled in tight 

Perhaps they shall 

Pass

We must stay

Still

Until they do.