Humility

 humility

one of the thousands

and ten

we as one bend

seeking not

a singular beauty

to draw the

attention

of the wind

to waft only my

beauty

sway my glory

our humility

our glory

to simply be

one with the

thousands and ten.

Lonesome ride

Riding some low,lonesome saddle

I ride so low I need a little pick me up

I ride so high I need a little bring-me-down.

Closet Angel

 Closet Angel 

Once I knew a closet angel

She was such a shy seraphim 

Didn’t like to show off her wings

No one knew her from me or you

Said she was a guardian by night

Didn’t question her peculiar ways

She wore gowns in shades of light

Hung them neatly come the day

Who knew there was an angel among us

Today her closet remains just the same

Gathering fine specks of golden dust

You’d never know one as she ever came

Somewhere in some far unknown place

We must assume she has found a covert

And in the night moves without a trace 

Protecting another dearly loved lost loner.

Seer

 Through the looking leaf

He could take the looking leaf

And see fall in spring

Winter in summer

It was a wonder

People would travel from afar

To get a word from the seer

He would gaze long through the leaf

And soon tell 

If joy or grief

Was in their future

Emily

 XX.

Emily Dickenson

Emily kept her poems hidden beneath her bed, rough bound, she in life was not known as a poet, but more a gardner or botanist. Like Vincent, her fame came posthumously.

I taste a liquor never brewed,

From tankards scooped in pearl;

Not all the vats upon the Rhine

Yield such an alcohol!

Inebriate of air am I,

And debauchee of dew,

Reeling, through endless summer days,

From inns of molten blue.

When landlords turn the drunken

Bee 

Out of the foxglove's door,

When butterflies renounce their

Drams,

I shall but drink the more!

Till Seraphs swing their snowy

Hats,

And saints to windows run,

To see the little tippler

Leaning against the sun!

I do not care, Burns, Yeats, Poe or Emily

But find at least one poet to inspire thee 

What is life, if all is science and math?

How can one assuage mendacious wrath? 

John Clare Stokes

Tiger Swallowtail upon a blazing star from afar

Dream with Ginsberg

 Dreamed that bluebirds made the moon

Told them, I’ll be there soon.

“The weight of the world is love. 

Under the burden of solitude, 

under the burden of dissatisfaction 

the weight,the weight we carry is love. ” 

Allen Ginsberg

Bluebird to the moon

Photo Illustration

Three Pelicans

 Three pelicans cross’d an ocean;

One with the memory of the charted way

Another the present strength in play

The third a future hope of port far away.

Crescent Beach

Who hath ascended

 Who hath ascended?

Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended? who hath gathered the wind in his fists? who hath bound the waters in a garment? who hath established all the ends of the earth?

what is his name, and what is his son’s name, if thou canst tell?

Prov 30:4

It was upon this day two years hence

That upon the wind a song was sung

Shall today the same song commence?

To tell alas the Sandhills have come?

Johnclarestokes 

Sandhills over Alligator from afar

Laura Ruth

 The day Laura Ruth disappeared from the Bascomb Norris bridge

john clare stokes

It was your typical mid November North Florida kind of Friday,

The local team was in the first round of the playoffs,

A liberating sort of autumn day,

Where according to the rules, the reserved seats must be open to general admission

allowing the Five Pointers to sit among the Marion Placers,

Annoying them with their cowbells and raucous cheer

while down by Lowes the same reserved seat er's were posing for the ribbon cutting 

The opening of the final leg of the loop around the city

A thirty-three year affair just to go around town.

It was on this road named for her daddy on this bridge over the East-West CSX she stood

looking East toward the' we kill 'Animal Shelter's continual howling.

Before this section through the chain of lakes to Lona, she could avoid the noise by going around Lake Jeffery,

And this troubled her beyond convention, 

Akin to the slaughter of the elephants,

Or the caged creatures at Swampy Rusty Acres,

Tenacious to the point even her cousin next door distanced her.

In the west near Columbia  Grain from this height she could see the approaching light

Hear the whistling and the howling, even the ribbon falling.

She saw Bascomb and Gwendolyn and a great parade aprroaching in their Electra-Matics, fine machines for inaugural crossings.

By the time the CSX slowed in the Baldwin Freight Yards, she was reported missing, as were the myriad animals awaiting the chair.

Her little Electra parked near the apex.

Not a trace.

They placed a marker near where Kimberly Leach rests, the howls of Bundy silenced,

In sight of the tracks, in hearing distance where once the howling came, east of the bridge the reserved named in honor of her.

To the memory of a friend

Laura Ruth Norris

Dottie and Del

Dottie and Del

John Clare Stokes

You do not retire from artistry

I never understood those in ministry

the old preacher should proclaim 

until his call to glory on chariots came

There stood Dottie and Del

Exuberant and inspired as color swirled

Excited as a school boy and girl

Oh true artists never lose the awe

We gather near lest upon us inspiration falls. 

Suwannee Gauntlet

 Suwannee Gauntlet

John Clare Stokes

Through the gauntlet of black bear and watery mire

I paddled the tipsy skiff warily 

Upon every root a beady eyed moccasin 

With every strike a snapping turtle grinning

On the bow, the bellicose bull gator scowls

On the stern, the who!who! dares of the barred owl

Off the starboard, piney rooters tusks shine

To the port, pileated’s fell the beetle full pines

Tis’not a place for the faint in heart

The cypress in chorus with Luna whispers depart, depart!

There’s mystra aflow below the Tupelo tree

The place where de Soto’s yet seek

The gold beyond the gauntlet of Suwannee.

Life

 Getting On

John Clare Stokes

It's as the merry-go-round 

Once we spun fast as we could

To see if it would cast off

Those hanging on for

Dear life

Little did we know

We were playing

Real life