Love of Lute

 Love of Lute

Clara Jean

O’er the hills

 O'er the hills and long the way

Crumpler so near today

Down from the mountains mystic

I must climb up to the music

The protector

 The protectors

Dillon watching over Landon

Landon watching over Jordon

A father over all of them

On an Osceola Forest road

Cat man

 If in my latter days I act a bit crazy

Hide beneath beds and climb trees

Blame it all upon my dear mommy

for she dressed us up early as kitties.

Dali

 Salvador Dali

The face of the precipice is black with lovers;

The sun above them is a bag of nails; the spring's

First rivers hide among their hair.

Goliath plunges his hand into the poisoned well

And bows his head and feels my feet walk through his brain.

The children chasing butterflies turn round and see him there

With his hand in the well and my body growing from his head,

And are afraid. They drop their nets and walk into the wall like smoke.

The smooth plain with its mirrors listens to the cliff

Like a basilisk eating flowers.

And the children, lost in the shadows of the catacombs,

Call to the mirrors for help:

'Strong-bow of salt, cutlass of memory,

Write on my map the name of every river.'

A flock of banners fight their way through the telescoped forest

And fly away like birds towards the sound of roasting meat.

Sand falls into the boiling rivers through the telescopes' mouths

And forms clear drops of acid with petals of whirling flame.

Heraldic animals wade through the asphyxia of planets,

Butterflies burst from their skins and grow long tongues like plants,

The plants play games with a suit of mail like a cloud.

Mirrors write Goliath's name upon my forehead,

While the children are killed in the smoke of the catacombs

And lovers float down from the cliffs like rain.

Landmarks

 There is in the Wakulla wood...on the back side of twenty acres...forever locked, for I hold the key....keeping in the wild memory....patiently at the gate...waiting to be set free....to ride with Moody in gator flea...sit with Judge Porter quietly...  hear R Tenths re-tell the story...of being a boy... playing beneath the old house....here comes Josh...in search of the blue glass...noxzema treasures....Hardy arrives with Red....going down to Panacea for seafood...should be good...save some for Slim...playing the Mississippi blues....reminding him of Homewood...the brothers and sisters...all gathering....on the Tallahassee side of the wooden gate.

Ma and Pa

 Ma and Pa

johnClare stokes

Pa was the exception

As family aged and left 

The older in years he grew

Like the old wind blown home

The further right he leaned.

Ma shunned outward adorning

Pa mounted some used white walls

We kids could see trouble brewing

Ma said couldn’t you have turned 

the whites in? 

Everything we had was double even triple run

Shoes, clothes by generation passed on

Sears Roebuck pages read in outhouses 

Everything both useful and sometimes 

Even Entertaining.

Horace

 Horace

Horace went to glory last week

Blind in life he is now seeing clearly.

Horace continued to wear the derby hats

But in time he gave up the spats 

Induced spin

 Induced Vertigo

by John Clare Stokes

lately there has not been

enough spinning

once the rescue came

for me

thinking the spinning

was worthy of a trip

to get some Meclizine

to stop the spinning

Oh I played along

took the 25mg by mouth

as needed

so they discharged me

and all was fine for the time

but soon the spinning

I began to miss

so I let the Meclizine expire

and gave a good impression

of going straight.

Sirens

 Out of closet

The local rag let his

Secret out

Long hidden from

Public scrutiny

It was unnatural 

Attraction to rhyme

He kept from view

Composing in obscurity 

The metered lines

He wasn't exactly

Accomplished at it

More he

Persisted at it

Almost habit like

A fix addiction 

He couldn't cease

Now everyone knows

Now they cast eyes 

Down as he passes

Thinking he one of them

The son of Williston

What of these sirens

Howling

They never heard them

They never existed

Only in his sordid

Imagination

Rejection

 Rejection

He came home 

To find the lines

Strewn across 

The lawn

Down the street.

The garbage man,

Rejecting the rhymes

Refused to carry them

To the landfill.

He gathered them

Quickly,

Burning them in the

Old syrup kettle

The smoke taking them

Quickly

From the landscape 

Once again

Free of poetry

Deer god

 Deer god 

Late they showed for services

The scent of doe urine lingering

Sitting toward the rear to themselves

Mouthing along with the singing

The day they failed to attend

We chalked it up to opening season

Leading up with growing anticipation 

In their heart to the deer secretly bowing

When the season drew along

And word of kills came drifting in

It was clear they were finally open

In the worshipping of the venison.

So in their true to their desire

Their deer love somehow inspires

In our feigned love for our Lamb

 gun ho in our own blinds found.