Mary way

 The Mary Way

Have you found the Mary way

of just sitting away the day

by some still water lake

beside some slow moving stream

beneath one sure rising moon

above a pool of circling minnow

in a meadow awaiting the Swallowtail 

Find it Martha

What f stop

 The novice inquired of the master. "Tell me master, you come upon a man drowning in the ocean, what f stop should you use?" Astonished, the master exclaimed to the novice, "Have I suffered so long a time with you and still you do not know the sunny 16 rule?”

A certain virtual

 A certain virtual 

John Clare Stokes

Every time her sultry profile picture 

would appear

I’d press that heart 

Pack my lenses

And head out toward

the Suwannee

sure she’d be there 

knee deep

Sultry siren she seemed 

when my friend

from over Suwannee way

would say

She’s all the way deep end crazy

and I’d remove that heart

until memory faded

and she posted tomorrow.

I find fault

 I find fault in this man.

Seven Fountains

 Seven Fountains

First Street and Hillsboro

One of the oldest buildings in Lake City.

A fair day

 The fair day

As the sun

Had fun

Spinning upon

The dandi-wheel

Just rocks

 Along the way, when I had that other job, i would collect things. When they told me, pack your things, these are the only things I packed.

If you ever need to feel loved, let me know, I got

just the rock for you.

Sorry Maude

 Cicely Maude Birley Gray

What can we say?

They tore down Joseph’s barns today

Folks around these parts

never learn

So much history burned

dozed and destroyed

Forgive us Maude Gray

This old world has just gone crazy

For porridge

 For Porridge

Johnclarestokes 

We sell our lands for bowls of porridge 

Tear down the old homes for gain

Settle for a double wide dwelling

Pave the shady canopied lanes

Wide and free of pesky trees

Landscapes of unhindered view

Easy on the locusts passing through.

Noble Sabals

 Noble Sabals

Johnclarestokes 

Once we danced where sabal palms now sway

Cruising up to tops of hills we went all the way

down 

Some beyond the water tower toward 

 Bronson's barren hills of scrub and sand

Others past the eastern other side of tracks

To Spook hills ghost light chills

A few to the Blue Grotto's air bubbles wending upward 

from divers in caves suspending 

One of many bravely trespassing to skinny dip in 

Dens of Devils beneath watermelons 

No Tiny or Gene or Luther's Lord calling could keep us 

from Jackie and the boys in the band at the top of the hill after football

That certain kind of light

That shone on us 

From the towers Christmas lights so innocently knowing all silently glowing on Friday nights

The sabal palms forever swaying.

Round up

Endymion summons the moon 

To gather the clouds into the fold.

Out worn heart

 Into the twilight 

Out-worn heart, in a time out-worn,

Come clear of the nets of wrong and right;

Laugh, heart, again in the grey twilight,

Sigh, heart, again in the dew of the morn.

Your mother Eire is always young,

Dew ever shining and twilight grey;

Though hope fall from you and love decay,

Burning in fires of a slanderous tongue.

Come, heart, where hill is heaped upon hill:

For there the mystical brotherhood

Of sun and moon and hollow and wood

And river and stream work out their will;

And God stands winding His lonely horn,

And time and the world are ever in fight;

And love is less kind than the grey twilight,

And hope is less dear than the dew of the morn.

William Butler Yeats