Craps man

 Liquidation

Tears at Sears

John Clare Stokes

Once we worked for minimum wage

Plus commission on all we sold

It was a cut throat arrangement 

And the lazy were not at all content

They called me the Weasel

For from the lazy I would steal

Had to maintain those lofty quotas 

Selling those extended warranties 

Then one day it was announced

The lease was not renewing 

Corporate was closing us

So they bought in a liquidation crew

Even paid the homeless to carry

Signs announcing we were through

Paid them more than we ever made

Even on the best month of watching

Roy and Dave bleed from my slashing.

Bills rearranged sign

Purple Sage

 Riders of the purple sage

Johnclarestokes 

In the brief interludes between our

trips in the Chevys to Dodge and back 

the old Powers pavement bears witness

to the journey West of which Louie wrote

Today Magoo has chosen two entries for the

Wally Reichert Art Show down at the West

Branch Library. It’s been several years since

the last 4th place entry. Perhaps this 

year Magoo will get beyond honorable 

mention.

Kingdoms of sand

 Kingdoms came

Johnclarestokes 

In the sand the shore bore witness 

to kingdoms that had risen and fallen

castles once grand in the tidal sand

Thy will be done mighty ocean

Thy will be done

Cicada dream

 Circadream

John Clare Stokes

It's the reoccurring dreams

That haunt the greatest

Those long laid dormant

Forgotten for many a season

Confident the burying completed

When in the deepest night

From beyond below they emerge

To deafening chorus above

Then as upon a sudden upper cue

Stone cold silence ensues.

Howl

 The earth broth

John Clare Stokes 

It soaks in the rain

With the blood

That pooled where

Brothers fought

It's what the 

Thorns and briars

Need to thrive

The bitter gall

Of a long ago fall

That seems so

Quaint

By today's

Gore 

How serpents 

Could entice

And how fruit

Would suffice

Howling in our

Skins

Still the same

Redeemer 

Who walked then

In the evening

Would send the

Rain

To cleanse the

Blood from your

Stone

Quiet your howling

In the garden

You prowl

Wally Reichert Show

 I think I will go with these unless I change my mind. 11x17 prints. Frames ordered. 

ASP

 What an ASP

In his first move as Chief Executive for Photography, Blind John signed an executive order banning A,S,P from all cameras. Now it’s only M.

When questioned, Blind John stated, “ everyone is a photographer or so they claim, we need some of these ASP’s to move into painting and ruin other lesser known fields.”

Yeats

 Michael will unhook his trumpet

From a bough overhead,

And blow a little noise

When the supper has been spread.

Gabriel will come from the water 

With a fish-tail, and talk

Of wonders that have happened

On wet roads where men walk,

And lift up an old horn

Of hammered silver, and drink

Till he has fallen asleep

Upon the starry brink. 

WB Yeats

From The happy townland

Out of our lines

 Out of our lines

Each morning the marks are

scrawled deeply in the sand

Counting the scrapes to

know the end of days.

The lines are drawn

upon the land

Come eve the creatures

in the lines lay

By dawn they scratch

anew the lines

Knowing not why

they nightly erase.

These are indeed

drawing times and 

artists sure make poor

seers as over and over

the lines they trace. 

this is the end.

this is the end.

Ten paces

 Ten paces to the pump

Twenty to the shed 

Forty to the roads edge

Numbers known by the bump

As cattle trails the blind led

Bill and Sally

 Just missed them

Must have just missed them

Bill and Sally usually out riding

Stopping by the lake to show me

where the eagles are perching 

Must have just missed them

Mississippi Family

 Mississippi family

Days lately I think we should move

to Mississippi. But where? I am not

too sure, as like all families, they are stretched out 

from Hattiesburg all the way up to 

Homewood.