Escape on the dog

 Long way down on the dog from asylum 

John Clare was on the run

Missing the six PM check in

By the time he made Orleans

The midnight white coats

Would be out searching.

Old flames

 Gallery of the halcyon 

The old flames at times

would gather about the 

portrait of the poet

Some to reminisce 

Some to lament 

One to tell it was for her

he wrote the sonnets

Twofaced

 Two faced

John Clare Stokes 

Said she’d forget her head

If it wasn’t attached

She’d go out without it

We’d find it

Leave it by her door

When she returned

What a day

 It’s such the day 

You want to call a cousin

Possibly in Mississippi 

say

Come out from all that misery

Join me

And have some iced tea

With a lemon slice

In the cool shade 

Of Wednesday 

It will be nice 

Want say one heard

Just listen as the Cardinal calls

The dragonflies light on the lilies

The biddies made haste to keep up

The mother mockingbird makes her way

To the nest under construction 

Later

Over the pines

We can watch the waxing moon rise

Maybe catch the Atlanta to Orlando

Pass through Tycho crater

We shall both be Stoked

See

SEERiously 

We grow weary with the ones

Who can only see what is before them

They who find boringly unprofitable 

The long sitting and staring

At the sun upon a blade of grass

Counting the infinity

Shimmering through with 

Every breeze moving it slightly

Yes, in your world of weights

And measures

We could have been anything

We wanted to be

But then, to your eyes

It wouldn't include worthless

Poetry. 

Sleeping in church

 Eutychus 

In my flesh

I am dull of hearing

My eyes heavy

They close

And into dream

I come

Falling 

Falling

Falling

Helpless to awake

I hit the earth

I die

Then enters the word

Arise

Arise

Arise

Awake

To the 

Third floor sanctuary 

I'm taken

All a mystery

In this new life

I partake

Cast away

 Fair Havens

Had we heeded

The great storm warnings

Gentle winds deceiving

Luring us from safety harbor

Calm waves lapping

We may have stayed

This side of the breakers

Too far the drift

Too frail the skiff

Rock a bye 

Castaway

Through yours

 Through yours

I try and watch you

Carrying them

And try to imagine

What the holding

Is to you

And the weight of them

If they burden you

Or lift you beyond joy

Mamma’s rain gauge

 Mamma’s rain gauge 

On the Hill at the close of Mother’s Day

Mamma would have commented it won’t rain today

She always said it would when the cows were lowing

We certainly miss mamma her cattle knowing.

The lane brings

 The lane brings

The lane takes

By morning we check 

The sand

Perchance your tracks

Were crossing 

Thinking traps we set

But we are no longer hunters

We gave up the pursuit

Long ago

Now we just wait

In patient shade

In expectation 

Of your tracks seeing

In Florida sand.

Robber

 Robber

I come to take

It doesn't matter

Joy

Peace

Trust

Faith

Love

I do not rank

I take them all

Robber fly

Front yard

Closing gates

 Closing gates

Johnclarestokes 

My daddy always told me to close the gates

Behind me

In my haste I often would not close them

Securely

Allowing things to escape

Things to enter

Lately all my gates have been swinging open

The escaping continuing

In my haste forgetting

The lesson daddy tried to teach me