Post a cat

 I find it a reality

Unless it’s a photo 

Of a kitty

Or a puppy

People don’t give

A crap for poetry

Or anything 

That isn’t 

Vinnie

Ruby 

Winka

Roscoe

Dick coming

 Dick coming

From the front room office window

From the slats open just a crack

The far rumbling of the old engine

I know from where that sounds coming

Can even tell it's loaded down

Dick Orander taking us home

Quickly, lift me to the curb

Give to me the silver script passage

Can't miss the Northfork-Crumpler line

Coming for me one final time.

Snail Mail

 Snail mail

You'd think in our advanced social media world

If we wanted to get our message across

It would be marvelously easy

 But I may as well be in the 19th century

Quill pen dipping in India Ink

Scribbling upon fine parchment paper

Rolling the note into a corked bottle

Casting it to the outgoing tide

Awaiting your finding it on your far shore

Going through the same process

To reply

Before we die

For what is any different?

Zuckermen and his analytic logarithms

See to it

Our notes in our bottles

Bobble endlessly out to sea

Unread

Unseen

In obscurity.

Williston

 Things done

They are tearing down old Williston High and Elementary this week. No one seems to mind, they have a new school out on 27. Somehow I mind, in a sentimental manner. Things done to Williston, once my hometown, still my hometown, still affects me. The First Baptist Church. Why did they keep the atrocious Neal building and build the uber ugly metal building beside it? The long abandoned Winn Dixie shell on 121. Bulldoze it how about it? The entire downtown parking on the store frontage. Why didn’t they tell DOT to shove it, build a bypass if you must. The city hall. What took so long? Top of hill. Why the empty field so long where Holiday Inn stood. Hospital. How it came to be closed a crying shame. 

Chick Inn, Carse Oil. More sad Shame. I’m sounding way too negative on my town, there have been nice improvements. I just hate to come every Sunday and see the state it’s in, compared to my memory. I really dread coming this week and seeing  a missing school. And finally, has Pesso been tar and feathered yet? And will someone run that Devils Den bunch out so we can skip school again there?

Mothers knees

 Mothers knees

Mothers knees braced  

 Kept me tall  

Safe from fall  

Today I stand 

 The strong man  

With burdens my own 

 And though I am grown  

Far from home 

When I'm alone

 Not so strong 

 In my weakness I see 

 My mothers knee

Focused

 Focused

I don’t think Bob Jones ever knew I snapped the Kodachrome photograph of him intently focusing and composing on the composition in the Nantahala. Each October for several years we would travel up in his VW orange and white van to photograph fall colors, camping along the way. I’d usually have already found my shots and I’d be waiting, and waiting for Bob to set up the tripod, focus, check the Gossen meter, focus, check the angle, focus, set the Nikon F aperture, focus, check the shutter, focus and take the “damn!” photo. 

And we’d move on and repeat the scene. I never saw that many of Bobs photos from those trips. Sadly, due to his trailer not having A/C, mold formed eventually and ruined them, including his lenses. 

The saddest day came, when I went to visit Bob, his dementia advanced, he asked me, “Didn’t we used to take photos together?” 

Yes, Bob, and I’d give anything to wait for you to focus that scene again.

The word

 And the Word became cherished

And was read among us.

Even dwelt inside some of us

And we beheld it wondrously 

As e’en from the Father o’er us. 

Falling Creek Chapel

Moon threes

 Moon threes

Johnclarestokes 

I dreamed again I was in high school

on Coach Robinson’s basketball team

composed of all brothers and sisters

I wasn’t a starter as I sat on the bench

eating pizza and complaining about

the starting five not working for a shot

just tossing the ball up

At some point my name was called

when I went in I envisioned being the hero

but I could barely dribble, throw or shoot

the round ball

at some point toward the end the other

team left the court and it took me five attempts 

to make a layup unguarded

we were still down by twenty

Everyone was lining up shaking hands

I was still playing

trying to win.

Marvelous night for a moon swoosh

Long distance fall

 Long distant fall

Johnclarestokes 

Yesterday I heard the sirens heading your way

Later I learned you had fallen and couldn’t get up

And I was saddened by my long ago prophecy 

That this fall began when we broke up

It wasn’t so much that being mine was grand

That immunity from distant falling was granted 

It was best we never made a home stand

That the Passion flowers were never planted 

We went our separate ways and faded in memory

Occasionally I would ask whatever came of you

Someone would vaguely say she seems happy

I’d nod and think of sirens flashing red and blue

Can rehabs mend the lovers lives long fallen

Prophecy fulfilled can be such a cruel thing

In the night I’m awakened by your frantic calling

I lay there and count the haunted rings.

Sharp Memory

 Sharp memory

Johnclarestokes 

The days have come where I am thankful

for some of my most memorable times

the camera was along to preserve the day

the very place where we’d sit and would

barely say any words, deep in thought

of those things growing, those lives going

those things coming to break the silence.

For now I’ve come to live long enough

that these things are gone from there

I’d be hard pressed to stand upon the

spot we once sat in the afternoon sun

the gardening done, the supper simmering

the tinge of fall in the air, the hum of a

hymn upon the wind, the silence listening.

Father and Son on a Sunday morning

Crawfordville 

Kodachrome

1980’s

Breath of lives

 Breath of lives

John Clare Stokes

They say the Suwannee is a living entity

That if you stand silent and listen

You can hear the respirations 

Faint as a wisp at times

Breathless gasping loud at others 

When I stand in the places others stood

I sense the river continues their breathing

Keeping the memory of their lives alive

And I exhale slowly and the river

Takes my breath.

Judy Hancock by Suwannee

Crossing Him

 Crossing Him

John Clare Stokes

There is never a rhyme or reason

Adequate to explain His coming 

He comes at the opportune 

He comes at the inopportune 

When least expected

When most expected

Today He beckoned above

The First Baptist steeple

Just as the insurance man 

Was lured at the same time