What happens

 What happens to children...when small see beauty...and then...bugs and things become ugly...in morning glories...splendor is occuring....the eternal story....in no manner revolting.

Long Distance Voyager

 Long Distance Voyager 

John Clare Stokes

Long as he could recall he observed

Seeing most of it all

Knew what went on in the

Saturday night Sand Hill spots

When in those Nova’s the gears

burned, spinning stuck in sand

Before there were towers erected

To ping the location

The only tower on the hill pulsating distant 

Dangling strands of last years Christmas bulbs

A beacon pointing eastward home

And more often than not 

You struck out in a trot

To flag down some Gulf Hammock

bound peanut farmer 

Intent upon the dogs and deer chasing

But taking the time to yank you free

And the voyager knew where you stuck

That secret place out past Devils Den

Where no Sheriff Hartley car was patrolling 

To the pious Valerie’s lining Noble

you were pure they were sure

Rescued from the perishing son

Washed in Red Devil blood

Sitting upright in Gertrude Fletchers 

Sunday School room

Crossed arms

Holding hands so Preacher couldn’t see and an intent congregation 

Not at all keeping time with the

Metered hand of Doyle Crosby and

Vera playing Send the light

But stuck upon a distant chord from

Lead singer halfback Jackie and the

Woman’s Club band

That other certain kind of light

Emanating from the far sand hills

A spook light if you will

And the voyager knew you had

Seen that ghostly light

Even if you never walked an aisle

It shown in your smile

As Wesley and family nudged you

Back toward the narrow way

The arms uncrossed for a moment

Almost raising to count the cost

But to those pulsating sand hill firefly’s 

The Boones Farm form of communion wine

Your stainless ID steady bracelet rattling gently 

Upon her delicate wrist

The cheerleader blushing red lips kissed

The Gulf Hammock deer in the cross sights look

And he never saw the Seaboard lights flashing 

But the long distant voyager did.

The little prodigal

 The prodigal son 

John Clare Stokes

The cedar tree i climbed to run away 

 Looking down on the kitchen window  

Watching mamma baking oatmeal cookies 

 The aroma rising visibly above me 

 now looms tall over my memory  

The sticky boughs fully obscuring  

 a little run away prodigal son 

 Determined to live in a Cedar tree.  

Mamma cooled the batch on the sill 

 As far above the prodigal groaned 

 In the evening air a hungry chill 

 Oh for the oatmeal cookies of home!

The once comfortable cedar limb  

Pricked and panged upon the boy 

 As slowly he began to descend 

  Determined come morning...

to run away then.

Roscoe

 International Dog Day

Itchetucknee ai

 Which do you like? Ai not bad.

In dreams

 In dreams

John Clare Stokes

In dreams the blacks and whites

Of life take on swirling gusts

Of violet hues touched with

Glimmering golds...

In dreams the void and empty

Fills to overflowing in streams gurgling

Forth ultramarine and pure in a

Silvery sparkled flow...

In dreams the stark and sterile

Confines open to lush lands of

Verde grasses reaching

Infinite into secrets untold...

In dreams the parched and cracked

Ooze a rich raw umber as

Verona sprouts fill around our

Wiggled toes...

In dreams the lost and forgotten are

Led by a cadmium bright that

Winds high on cheer-thronged 

Avenues...

In dreams the dead and dying 

Are led from a caput mortuum deep

To a life forever painted anew

As awake in prismatic hues we dwell.

For Shirley Zecher and all the lovers of the colors of watery light

AI

 It just doesn’t know the people. So they don’t look as they did. But still…

Al

 Al can be good or terrible. I asked it to put me in the scene by the Sopchoppy swimming hole. It was great except the head looks nothing like me.

I asked it to place the lady Elsie Hall in front of the store. It was from a fuzzy photo of her, and since I didn’t know her, it looked good. It even changed the pumps to older versions. 

The silliest was my daddy and Laurice Robert’s and his dog who I asked to put in front of his station. Even though I had a photo it switched heights on daddy, making him taller than Mr Robert’s who towered over him. 

Days after

 Days after

Today is another one of those days after

When we’ve completed our reflecting

Faintly expecting the return of the son

This one the day after his thirtieth birthday

But why should we expect it

All the days once celebrated are now

Days after, weeks after, years after

We quit long ago counting

The days after

Lonely

In the morning expectation

awaiting the prodigal coming

You would settle in the interim 

For something to come along

A hummingbird 

A crow

A dragonfly 

A Cardinal

Anything

Lately there is such a dearth

Of something coming

It’s a lonely place.

Moon tipping two

 Mornings 

We’d take our red jet

And go out 

Moon tipping

Upset so

his setting

Moon tipping

 But those in the

Blue plane

We tried to explain

The art of

Moon tipping

They didn’t get it

And flew on past

Quite fast

I may add