A friend

 I waited for my familiar friend

For today I said, to you I shall be kind

So good my friend behind a cloud hid

In order that I’d not go blind.

Wheresoever

 Wheresoever he roamed

John Clare Stokes

Wheresoever he roamed

He was never alone

Pausing often upon trails

And He would tell

Of what lay beyond

And from what we'd come

Wanting to run on

Or turn back winsome 

He'd whisper gently

Abide right here with me.

Trail along Suwannee

With two in tree

True Blue

Someday you will

Mysteriously cheer for Kentucky 

And love the color

Royal blue

Extremely 

They will try and sway your mind

Not recalling the far gone time

The love was bestowed to you

From ole papa passed

Watching proudly from

The heavenly bluegrass.

Stairway

 Stairway Made

johnclarestokes 

Walking low we 

 grow accustomed 

To the cadence 

Of the downcast

Seeing not

The Aufzug

The pulling up

For but a moment

Revealing the stairway

Made upon the clouds

Then the curtain lowers

And we walk on

Low below the

Stairway made.

Between the swings

Between the swings

John Clare Stokes

Between every pull upon the ropes

Nearer would we hover over 

Gazing below to the other

side of a life so full with hope

From the apex of lift we’d return

Below the little ones so joyful

A mother with her little boys

And between the swings we’d yearn. 

Standoff

 The stand off

Both of us were bounding merrily up the trail, when our eyes met, precisely about the time we both froze. She thought me an odd one eyed creature as I kept the camera to my face. I won the day eventually as she, with a stamp of hoof, took to the swamp instead of passing nearer to me. I have that affect upon them.

Blacker than black

 Blacker than black

 by John Clare 

 There is a black we were told that was blacker  

 than all the coal that came from the company mine 

 A black always black for all of time 

 Worse than the black lungs of miners hacking 

 Some escaped from those Crumpler black hills 

 Beyond the black snow covering the death 

 To anywhere from the black Sabbath killing 

 Empty pews with few black shrouded widows bereft.

  The Pocahontas mine is now but a memory 

 Company script not worth a wheat penny

  Yet still they speak fondly of this entrance to hell

  Blacker than black where once the devil did dwell.

Stroke

 From the age of eight on

Bouquet boy heard a certain song

From Patience to perseverance 

A life of stroke, shutter and sonnet.

Odysseus

 Odysseus 

Johnclarestokes 

It was in the fall of fifty one

When first in the semi- circle she heard his Greek

Innocent one from the hills she had come

A preacher man to find

He from the Navy 

 a bride to seek.

Had she but known the 

Language sailors speak

Laced with tales not often found in testaments 

She thought of the tears she would never weep.

Beware the sailors who sit and speak in Greek.

There must have been

 

Crimson crowns

 Crimson crowns

My gold crowned lady of crimson beauty

I defend thee from the visage of me

For who best to know the enemy within

Than he who knows where treachery begins?

My crimson crowned warrior of renown 

Who defends this the honor of my golden crown

Do you not know within that for which you fall

Is but a heart of common straw?

Crossing the mists

 Crossing the mist

Johnclarestokes 

Quietly as the breathing tide drew from shore

Til but a faint trickle then a still pool

Into the distance mists another drew

The muted life with the mists in a swirl

Cold grew the once warm life on earth

Warmer grew the rising glow beyond

Til into eternal arms time was flung

To envelope the years of tearful mirth

Into the mists we vainly peered

Where goes our love held so dear?

How travels this spirit into the drear?

What mists can dry such tears?

Then in a gentle lifting of the mist

The mystery of the word in flesh

By faith grace the spirit does caress

In joy our downtrodden spirits lift.

We fear not the gathering gloom

It’s given that our years dwell in dim

Preparing us for the eternal realm

Our darkness into the light consume.