Guardian Mama

 Guardian mamma

John Clare Stokes 

She was lately into memory

things such as the beginning years

of hopscotch, books and butterflies

sharp and clear with mamma near 

all was well as long as she dreamed

but in the realm she found herself in

she had to shuffle down the hallway

three times daily painfully

to the strangers being served 

non homemade by mamma food

and even before she could open 

the unfamiliar door

her guardian mamma would gently say,

“now dear, aren’t we forgetting 

something?”

and she’d thank mamma and 

together they’d set out 

for the dining room.

First race

 The first race

Third grade, Monticello elementary, I was the new kid recently moved from Sopchoppy. Making friends was challenging for this shy blond. Recess was a tough time trying to find a group to fit in with. Often I would skip and remain in class drawing with Wayne Lassiter from Lamont. Then one day at PE the coach said on field day there would be a third grade wide foot race.

I had never ran a race, especially not one with all three third grade classes combined. It was assumed from all, that last years second grade winner, Jimmy Haynes, would repeat. The day came and all the girls and boys spread out along the PE room wall. On the whistle we were to run downhill to the fence by the road, touch it and return. The whistle blew and the grass was chewed as we made our way down. I kept my eye on Jimmy and watched as he was first to touch the fence. I trailed near and at about the half way back point, he faded, perhaps starting too fast, and I picked up speed, the first to touch the wall. Fastest third grader. From then on it wasn't difficult to find friends at recess. Everyone wanted me in their group, on their team. Yet despite the fame, I still preferred to draw motorcycles and airplanes with Wayne.

Paris In Lake City

 I had look a long time in my photos for this shot. I took it on a Saturday when I was working at the Gateway Galley downtown. 

Sulphur Scribes

 Sulphur Scribes

John Clare Stokes

We were never the poets we thought, It's  uncertain any words ever fell in place, With each using of one another went to waste, The  discarded word then vainly sought.   I sat beside a flower with my pen, What few words I knew I used, Carefully composing the words I chose, Like plucking choice gold leaves from fall winds.   A cloudless sulphur lit and to her I rhymed, To me it was quite an event, It was beyond any word written, Poetical as Frost's best lines.   Then the Cranes came upon the breeze, That sound from beyond time, In itself a gathering of Nature's rhyme, Each composing upon blue paper sky effortlessly.   It was then an order became evident, I was freed from finding the rhyme, Of trying to compose  within the lines, Before me rose a curtain un-rent.   The scene I saw was of threaded light, We simply pull the needle slowly to see, Only the light flecks this side of the tapestry, Backing black yet necessary to see the other side wedding white.   We are to give sound to the unheard, Not mere poets but translators and scribes, Preserving in word His light coursing ride, Touching you, me, sulphur,leaf, cloud, bee and bird.

Dream of blue

I woke this morning from this dream 

That out back the grass was again a pool

That old dreaded feeling again arose

That the war on algae had presumed

With chlorine jugs and leaf rake in hand

The fight was on again.  

Kesl

 Thought I’d call on my old painting professor Lenny

Loved his style of such exuberant joy and glee

Our once unclad model offered fleurs to me

Sure bought back painting with cold sweat frenzy! https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/gainesville/name/leonard-kesl-obituary?id=18797762&utm_source=webshareapi&utm_medium=share_button&utm_campaign=wsapimobile_beta

Firing

 On this day in 2019 I was let go from Baya. I always took photos along the way, and they fired me for it, when someone saw me taking photos of co-eds crossing University Avenue, called it in and said I was taking voyeur photos. The same day as I was leaving Baya, Ray saw me and asked if I would like to take photos of cars for Morgan Auto. Can’t make it up. I told Ray I was just fired for taking photos, do you mind if I take photos along the way? He said not at all, matter of fact, when we are caught up, we can run down to the lake and shoot eagles. 

Ego grow

My brother has the gall to think they should erect a sign honoring him for being a DJ along with his friend James Pitts who had a tiny part in the film Avatar. I don’t even think this Eagle should have a sign. For being a pro football player? Our priorities are so skewed. 

Pieces

Wallace, you are too kind to share with me....

Pieces

Wallace Stevens.

Tinsel in February, tinsel in August.

These are things in a man besides his reason.

Come home, wind, he kept crying and crying.

Snow glistens in its instant in the air,

Instant of millefiori bluely magnified---

Come home, wind, he said as he climbed the

stair---

Crystal on crystal until crystal clouds

Become an over-crystal out of ice,

Exhaling these creations of itself.

There is a sense in sounds beyond their meaning.

The tinsel of August falling was like a flame

That breathed on ground, more blue than red,

more red

Than green, fidgets of all-related fire.

The wind is like a dog that runs away.

But it is like a horse. It is like motion

That lives in space. It is a person at night,

A member of the family, a tie,

An ethereal cousin, another milleman.

Paint me a shrimpboat

 Paint me a shrimp boat

Forever it seemed William was after me to paint him a shrimp boat scene. And so as a young teen I did and sent it to him. Roses father a master wood craftsman, made a frame. I never got to see it hung in prominence like the still life's did I painted for Grandma Bernice, who proudly hung them in her kitchen. The shrimp boat was finally taken from the mantle and relegated to the guest room floor. Grandma Boykins to the dumpster no doubt when her home was sold. And so many others sent out over the long past years, lost,relegated, the frames of more value than the work. I wish I could of said, like a Monet  or Van Gogh, they would have made you wealthy as much as they certainly enriched my heart giving them.

The grackle congregation

 The grackle congregation 

John Clare Stokes

The service was particularly uplifting

All the high notes they were hitting

It was so heavenly soaring

Gulls came from afar Spring tangles shadow and light,

Branches of trees

Knit vision and wind. 

The shape of the wind is a tree

Bending,spilling its birds.

Wendell Berry

Sand Traps

 Sand Traps

By john clare

You must forgive me as I am too easily ensnared by the past

Trapped by a boyhood some sixty years ago

I know I should avoid the circle of sand

Baited with Tonka trucks and other lures

But every time I step right in and soon I'm caught

Not kicking and screaming but blissful in the live trap

Gorging upon the surrounding steam shovels and bulldozers

With little desire for a catch and release to reality.

And is it any mystery we Pappa's build our own sand traps

Scatter about choice toy bait

In hope of luring over a grand one

From the no trespassing fences our own keep them in?

Keeping from the traps of sand they so want to

Be captured in.