March Madness

 March Madness 

We don the blue

But a different shade

of blue

The true blues color

not that Kentucky blue

the little boy blue 

hue.

For Meme

 Rain lily for meme 

The ditch down from the house

is always the first place I see the

rain lilies appear. 

Used to be with meme on our

way passing, she’d remark, and

I’d pull over and pick a few for her.

The bouquet boy misses that duty.

Stokes

 Stokes 

Why some folks

they smoke 

Some they brush

On the 

Down stroke 

Some they just

Sit there like a

Pig in a poke

No joke

Watch that box

All day 

Who you say?

Why some’s my

own kinfolk

Body of work

 Body of work 

John Clare Stokes

One thing for certain

When I’m gone

If anyone dares

Or cares

I’ve amassed a 

Body of work

Of absolute worthless

Proportions

Of homeless at intersections

Of bikers on back roads

Of college co ed’s crossing 

Of Skinny ones behind poles 

Of white face cows conversing 

Of even road kills 

Nothing much was ever missed

The ever observing lens

Taking it all in

A streaming daily account

Of our lives passing through.

The hydrangeas and the pioneers

Price Creek Cemetery

Swollen Suwannee

 Swollen Suwannee

Few are those who care for a swollen Suwannee

hiding the limestone and sand banks

Smoothing over the shoals and falls

Causing one to walk the trail above the trail

Give me the low trickling lazy Suwannee

Not this rapid racing torrent to the Gulf

Old men

 The Old Men Admiring Themselves in the Water

by W.B.Yeats.

I heard the old, old men say,

'Everything alters,

And one by one we drop away.'

They had hands like claws, and their knees

Were twisted like the old thorn-trees

By the waters.

I heard the old, old men say,

'All that's beautiful drifts away

Like the waters.'

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.