Except to Heaven, she is naught.
Except for Angels-lone.
Except to some wide-wandering Bee
A flower superfluous blown.
Except for winds-provincial.
Except for Butterflies
Unnoticed as a single dew
That on the Acre lies.
The smallest Housewife in the grass,
Yet take her from the Lawn
And somebody has lost the face
That made Existence-Home!
Emily Dickinson
Wolfie is one of my longtime lifetime friends
Wolfie first began his howling at our command
In the watermelon fields out from Williston
Wolfie was young and strong and could toss
them long after Eddie and I were bear caught.
Wolfie went on to work in clothing apparel
Retiring to howl from treehouses in Asheville
Eddie became a roofer around Wacahoota
Nights as these I’m wondering if from the
treehouse and from the rooftop they do
not let out a long mournful howl for me?
Magic globe
Johnclarestokes
I'm getting a days head start
Shaking back to Sopchoppy
To January 30, 1956
A one year old dreamer
Stirring the snow in the globe
Watching the years depart
Back to when I cried
Boat! Boat!
And Captain Becton
Would slip in
To sit on the back pew
of Sopchoppy Methodist
late again
from net mending
as father Luther Ray was deep in prayer
at the pulpit
Captain Paul Fred and John Clare
Could now with eyes closed dream of
Deep sea fishing
off Panacea
It only occurs once a year
I want to give you a heads up
Tomorrow is the day
I grant you a pardon
From your lack of interest
In poetry
In artistry
In trickery
In imagination
In dreaming
I give you a new start
From your void of
Metaphor
Alliteration
Parable
Humor
I free you from your
Humorlessness
Literalness
Narrowness
Idiotness
Tomorrow
You're on your own til then....
john clare stokes
One is for Bluefield,WV from where I was born,
Uncle Kermit driving mamma that January 30th in the snow storm.
Two is for coming from Vicco in
Kentucky to Sopchoppy in a Packard.
Three is for Mrs Mary and her bread pudding
Four is for Angeline and her red butcher knife
Robert,Sam and me running for our lives.
Five is for my Uncles in Mississippi staying summers happily
Six is for first loves, first grades and Helen Roussey from Panacea
Seven is for John Lloyd crying loudly
Miss Townsend saying I'd be moving
Eight is for Monticello and Lewis being born
Nine is for leaving the loved two story Victorian parsonage
Ten is for returning to Kentucky at Asbury in Wilmore
Eleven is for walking April Wells her answer I will forever be waiting for
Twelve is for the long 7th grade journey to Williston
Not believing Bill and Jack were not grown men
Thirteen is for JV Football and long haul fast end sweeping
Fourteen is for down by the Blue Grotto Melissa meeting
Fifteen is for playing point guard with the brothers
Sixteen and finding that Purple Haze a lot of love covers
Seventeen is for the Red Devil Class of seventy- three
Eighteen is for the perfect GPA at Santa Fe
Nineteen is for George Amica and working at Williston Memorial
Twenty is for Catherine Wilson singing Healing Love gloriously
Twenty one is for living with Dr ZT Johnson at Asbury
The F in Spanish and returning to Williston sadly
Twenty two is for the painting the hospital walls a second time
Daddy saying, we can pay for college by cutting the pines
Twenty three is for repeating a Junior year at Florida Southern
Twenty four for earning a BA degree finally.
Twenty five is for working as a service writer at Powers with Frankie
To turn down a job in Monticello teaching art convincing me
Twenty six is for wanting badly a photojournalist my career spending
Twenty seven is for Lucille and Lynn Counts hiring me to change mannequins at JCP
Twenty eight is for running 10k's with Forrest and Buddy
Twenty nine is for winning the city logo contest soundly.
Thirty is for canoeing the Suwannee with Bob Jones
Thirty one is for running the first marathon 26.2 miles long
Thirty two is for meeting a nurse at Shands named Melanie
Thirty three Jesus died but in Whitehurst chapel we were married
Thirty four and to our garage apartment on Camp came Landon
Mrs Beverly a job in JCP management offering
Thirty five is for that suit I now wore all the time
Thirty six is for Alan Crews his home on Camp selling
Thirty seven is for the Alachua General coming of Jordon
Thirty eight is for jumping on the trampoline under the pecan
Thirty nine is for the stucco house outgrowing
Forty is for postman Brian and to his Tevis house moving
Forty one is for winning nationally and to Dallas awarding sending
Forty two is for Rick Bringger and Hambone putting up with me
Forty three is for not taking the job in Albany
Forty four is for staying with family and friends in Lake City
Forty five is for letting Valerie take the job in Ocala
She wanting out of town so badly
Forty six and that sick feeling after telling Calise to chill
Forty seven is for that Friday in April
I can see it still
We are letting you go, with a gold retiree card
Twenty percent off a tad too hard
Forty eight is for Russell coming to Westside Chapel
Forty nine is for voting with Tom Bart not to build that Grace Babel
Fifty is for Ruth Garner hiring me at Sears
Fifty one and the Weasel is the top commissioned salesman to no cheers
Fifty two is for the coming end of biking centuries with Roger Sessler
Fifty three is for lamenting the loss of Bobs memory in his nineties
Fifty four is for one last River Run
Fifty five is for the sudden Sears closing
Fifty six is for the coming of my Grandson Nathaniel Manoa
Fifty seven is for Bill Giebeig hiring me to read meters slowly
Fifty eight is for continual prayer for Landon and family
Fifty nine is for volunteering down at the gallery
Sixty was for dreaming of being once again in ole Sopchoppy.
Sixty one for driving the Baya van delivering beds and oxygen, then driving to Homewood to Uncle William Clark’s funeral
Sixty two the saddest year for losing my mother
on the day before her 89th birthday.
Sixty three for son Jordon in Korea in the Army
Praying for his safety monitoring the DMZ.
Sixty four for being fired for taking photos then being hired by Ray the same day to take photos.
Sixty five for retiring in a Covid crazed world, while under Biden we downwards swirled.
Sixty six was for becoming a porter of cars, never dreamed I’d end up not going this far.
Sixty seven was for losing Uncle Jimmy in Mississippi, the last of the Stokes brothers missed greatly.
Sixty eight was for a vacation with Melanie and Jordon, Roscoe too in the cold Carolina mountains freezing.
Sixty nine and will this be at last the year, family so long missed will once again come near?
Seventy and a stroke set me back to learn again how to run. But I did return to the Gateway Gallery.
Seventy one, here I come.
You are to read your Robert Frost
How else will you know the path to seek
You are to read your Emily Dickinson
How else to stay the homesick-
Homesick feet.
The paddle wheel rests
on Suwannee's shore
Fill the Lona Lord
Brother Fountain
is counting
on you
to carry him across.
This photograph was taken on the eastern bank of Lake Lona. Lona was once deep and full and they say a steam boat of some sort floated upon it. Rev Fritz Fountain, the interim pastor of Bronson Baptist, a friend of mine from his daughters working at JCPenney with me, lives on the southern bank. That is the reason I used his name, simply taking poetic license that he needs a way across. The western bank is on the Suwannee County side.
It is a take off on the song, Fill my cup Lord.
Again as so many times I’ve followed the light line
up the Rossi Hill, paces once swift within the five minute range, now but a puffing ten at best with pauses to catch the breath, carrying less burden up the hill these days, casting along the line those for many years I was desperate to carry, and that is sad but necessary, they have the burden now unto themselves, I am old, but I am light.
John Clare Stokes
All creation groans in travail,
to see the birth of the coming,
seas and stars and moon and
men aligning for the day,
whispers heard above the wind
flickering seen upon the horizon.
its the way of oaks...to slip up on graves...their roots slowly tickling...the blissfully sleeping folk.
All creation groans in travail,
to see the birth of the coming,
seas and stars and moon and
men aligning for the day,
whispers heard above the wind
flickering seen upon the horizon.
Johnclarestokes
It’s the way with artists
poets
the mystics among us
Pouring their heart out
thinking they have ruptured
the vein to seeing
when all that is said in the end,
Did you use
Cadmium red
or alizarin crimson
for the color of the blood?
