For the journey

 For the journey

He could name you

tell you this is for you

for the journey

For he sees

you seem to be

right there with him

You were one of possibly three

that told of poetry

With photography 

It made him happy.

Prodi. Gal

 Prodi Gal

Every evening mamma would watch

For her little prodi gal

Long, long lost the innocent smile

Up the lane with a happy hopscotch.

Other side

 Other side

Upon the road of shadow and dust

We journey with a deeply held trust

Of the green pastures upon the other side

Where ne'er the dust or shadow reside.

Clark turns 70

 Clark Samson turns seventy

John Clare Stokes

The Southern Exposure volunteer stylist clipped

his side locks for his 70th birthday party 

Telling him how young he looks

Reminding her of the Clark Samson 

her grandmother knew in the seventies 

Who once she said swooned the ladies

Lately paying for all the toppling 

Leaving the once strong arns krypton weak

the igniting of foxy fires a dim glowing

kept going on the long regime of prescription 

filling

Such were the travails one endures for Delilah Louise 

Pestering him daily lazing about in the faded

suit of Royal and Red saying to Clark,

“Outside lurk the Philistine Witnesses, with 

lustful intent upon your Delilah Louise, coming

to crop your side  locks!” “You better find some jawbone!”

“Now make a wish and blow out your candles!”

Taking a deep breath and...

Seeing the Philistines...pressing on the call button...

pleading for someone to please bring his walker...

so Clark can amble down the long corridor, out the alarmed door, to the smooth granite columns,

to make his Delilah Louise proud of him.

“These Kingdom walls shall fall! The foxes with their flaming tails shall burn the crops!”

“I see the flames before me!”

Mr Samson, Mr Samson, wake up!

Spitting and gasping for breath, smoke rising,

soon the alarm to trip, not one Philistine in the room, reality and dream as one dream of reality.

Gathered about the bed his lovely Delilah Louise

and the Good Samaritan staff singing,

Happy Birthday Clark Samson, happy birthday to you! The cake was chocolate, the ice cream 

butter pecan, the food of gods and super heroes

and Clark Wayne Samson on this 70th birthday!

Second

 No one remembers second

It was the year 1984, the month October, the Jasper 10K race. The previous year I ran a 36:25, finishing 6th on the rolling hills out and back, and yet third in my tough age group. 

The following year, as I lined up for the second attempt on the hot Saturday of October 6th, I felt my prospects for a better finish were good. As the gun sounded, Rusty Jones, the shoulder white hair length speedster from Valdosta was soon out of sight. I too was stuck in a lone no man’s land making distance on James Lee, the muscular black hometown favorite. As we entered town on the final mile, I found the strength to increase my lead over a charging Lee. This year I finished 2nd overall and first in my age group with a time of 36:14, a 5:50 pace. Rusty had over a two minute margin of victory. In 1985 we repeated the same order, but my time slowed to 37:26. The last 10k I would run was the Gator Bowl 10K on Dec 21 with a 37:25, 34th in my age group.

All aboard

 The bus line 

There is a bus line

In our minds

A kindly old man

Who loves his grands

Is calling us aboard

We are heading toward

The ole stucco home

Up the holler

Monnie is there

All her brothers

The two sons

Everyone down to

Alfred up from the mine black

The old Crumpler to Northfork

Taking us back

To end of line

Meeks moonrise

 

Bottle feeder

 

170

Yes, yesterday there was a child went forth, to Bell Springs, to hike along the blue blazed Florida Trail that follows through palmetto, oak and Sparkleberries, to name a few, to the Robinson Creek, which at 65 feet above the sea, did not allow him to ford the tea darkly, so he turned after a time, to retrace his way. Two fishermen were up the creek in their boat and never saw him, so he whistled, and they waved at him. He did not carry Walt with him, he simply laid him on the ground and let him feel the leaves and the grass. What more could a 170 year old ask? 

Wolfie

Wolfie moon

Wolfie is one of my longtime lifetime friends

Wolfie first began his howling at our command

In the watermelon fields out from Williston

Wolfie was young and strong and could toss

them long after Eddie and I were bear caught.

Wolfie went on to work in clothing apparel

Retiring to howl from treehouses in Asheville 

Eddie became a roofer around Wacahoota 

Nights as these I’m wondering if from the

treehouse and from the rooftop they do

not let out a long mournful howl for me?

Pardon

 It only occurs once a year

I want to give you a heads up

Tomorrow is the day

I grant you a pardon

From your lack of interest

In poetry

In artistry

In trickery

In imagination

In dreaming

I give you a new start

From your void of

Metaphor

Alliteration

Parable

Humor

I free you from your

Humorlessness

Literalness

Narrowness

Idiotness

Tomorrow

You're on your own til then....

Snowy, snowy night

 Early on a snowy morn

Johnclarestokes 

Mamma never tired of telling how her brother Kermit drove her to St Luke’s Hospital from Crumpler to Bluefield in a Saturday night storm on icy snow covered roads, how Kermit, the Andy Ford car salesman who liked to imbibe a bit beyond moderation, how they made it at some point over the narrow mountain switchbacks past Pinnacle Rock where Luke had proposed some few years earlier, made it to room 301 where the boy, named for a United Methodist Bishop John Branscomb and a District Superintendent Clare Cotton came into this life at 9:25AM January  30th on a Sunday of 1955, weighing 6-15 3/4 pounds and all 20 inches by Dr Foweres, who wasn’t imbibed, who got the date right, unlike the doctor who delivered Clara Jean in October though he thought September.

Uncle Kermit Orander on the right with Grandfather Richard Orander by the 47 Kaiser. Richard owned a busline from Crumpler to Northfork which mainly carried miners.