Pappa’s hammer

 

John Frost

 John Frost

I see a few step out

To see what I have left

While they slept

I like to cover the landscape

In ice rhyme and cold prose

Hear the crunch beneath

My bared toes

Every field a sheet of paper

Every limb a pen

And I write for them

Before the sun my erasure 

Corrects my spelling

Cows in the cradle

 And as I chewed on my cud

it occurred to me

My calf was just like me

My calf was just like me.

And the calf’s in the field

With his cud a chewing 

Little boy moos and  

he says how I’m a doing?

She leadeth me

She leadeth me

John Clare Stokes

She led the blind birdwatcher

Down the dike trail

Leopold binoculars round the neck

By sound he could tell

What warbler it was

He heard before she saw 

Orange Hill

 Orange Hill

John Clare Stokes 

What is your attraction Orange Hill?

that keeps us coming,your spanse to fill?

Is it that we all know one another

Or knew others who knew each other?

Is it the mother’s with the brothers 

and sisters and the fathers with the

cousins and the ones we casually knew?

Who came for a season to our dwellings

to fix the plumbing or adjust the TV

or take our money in the teller windows,

who sat beside us in the pew on Sunday

and bagged our groceries on Monday?

What is your attraction Orange Hill?

Seems the longer I come the more I know

gathering here and the less I know 

living so near.

Daubers

 Daubers

John Clare Stokes

In the loft the old volumes found

Long out of print in dusky slow rot

Words gone unread with pages bound

by homes the daubers long forgot.

In the shed the old Briggs chugs

Pull rope frayed, varnished gas 

Fuel lines stopped up with mud

Dauber homes from the past.

In the barn the Columbus cooking vat

Georgia Red cane grinding to a halt

Tobacco barn rabbit burners sputter and spat

it’s tiered rows the daubers sought.

On the porch the bare bulb is dim

We chip and chip for a yellow glow

A muddy mist casts a shadow slim

Keeping daubers warm long ago.

So brilliant were our golden guilds

Forever and ever they would last

But patiently the daubers build

His kingdom clogging, long after

ours is past.

Sensuous sand

 

Blue blood

 Is it too much to ask Coach John Calipari

To recruit some boys from Old Kentucky?

Boys like Issel, Riley, Dampier and Ford,

Boys who will stay for three maybe four?

We are so tired of your one and done,

Whose only double-double is in the millions.

Give us boys like Farmer, Pelphrey or Macy

who grew up dreaming of playing for Kentucky.

We do not need a Freshman Pro Team in Lexington,

who even remembers Hood, Wall or Tashun?

For certain, we need a few planet Davis and Cousins,

surrounded by some of Kentucky's finest sons,

Boys like Cameron who come off that storied bench,

to sink the three and for Rupp and his runts another

title clinch.  2014

Giants in the land

 Giants in the land Dan

Dan, I recently came to spy out the land

This Gator got in cause I knew the password

Do you know it Dan?

For lately it hasn't been heard

Not a mention of being number one

Of ten wins this last season

Seems the word is you are leaving

The Promise land and going after

Philistines and Floridians and every

Manner of some other state giant while

Overlooking the David's tending the

Flocks on States own fair fields

Dan these folks paint their vaults 

Maroon

They send balloons with messages

State! State! Ole Miss we so hate!

So take the recruiters Dan down to

Yazoo City, send them to Moss Point

Stay awhile over at Col Lin my old former

Florida friend

State don't won't to win with Floridians

They just want to beat the Rebels with

Their own Native Dakvidians.

Sunrise sonata

 Sunrise Sonata

Morning by morning the symphony 

assembling, tuning the day to come

In from the horizon the conductor enters

Taps the trees, lifts the wand ray

Marvelous music rising gloriously.

Prodigal chair

Prodigal chair

In the backyard 

by the fire kettle

a chair is kept

the stack of kindling near

lighter and heart pine sticks

in the ziplock

the steaks wrapped in the freezer

all in ready

just in case

the prodigal returns weary

we want to hurry

and begin the celebration.

The harvester

 At 89 my hearing may not be fine

But can you lift a creosote coated

pole? 

Keep yer trap shut then. 

BTW

That mound is the last fellow

Questioning my aim....