Suwannee Siago

Suwannee Sigao

JohnClare Stokes

I know that dwelling beneath

The ground, are the thriving, 

Bustling silent towns,

The grist mill grinding up

The corn, the calves upon

The hill being born,

Brick makers firing up

The kilns, the black smiths

Pounding on the steel

The one law in the town

To keep silent

For Indians are seeking

The hidden silver

DeSoto's are ever digging

For the hidden gold

Keep the secret

Of your borders

Worship quietly you

Saturday Adventist 

Be as the Methodists

Stoic and silently staid 

Not giving away

The place where the

Seminole would wade 

To raid the offering made

To silence the shaped note

Song

From lips of those

Told o'er and o'er

Keep silent

Keep still

Until they pass beyond

The ever grinding  mill. 

Slip sliding away

 Slip sliding away 

John Clare Stokes 

What do you think?

I think I see Earnest

And there's Ethel Marie

Over in the shade

I hear that snuff hitting

The Folger’s coffee can

The snap of field acre peas

Hitting the galvanized pail 

Outhouse aromas wafting past

Sure hope that east breeze 

Don't shift our

Homewood Lazing

Bringing in them 

Pea Ridge yellow flies 

My how the times slide by

Magic Canvas

Magic canvas

We gathered round the magic canvas

If it would please reveal something to us

If inspiration was in our future

Or more misery void of color 

It took an entire bottle of wine

But in the magic canvas own time

This image emerged with profound words

 But before we could write it down

Gesso was applied and the 

Inspiration never found. 

Pedal Prophets

 Pedal Prophets 

And in the latter days 

The days after fossil fuel

Electric too

The days of malaise

The pedal prophets came

Exclaiming, lube your chains

But we of the beastly mark 

Our bikes could not start

for our lube was of

Petroleum product.

Catch a river

 Catch a river

It was the most unorthodox method

My only lure was Suwannee inside 

I cast upon the land the liquid

Oh how I like my river fried.

Chains Reaction

 Chains reaction 

Johnclarestokes 

Last evening an angel came

Unlocked the chains

Opened the cell windows 

The heavy doors 

With light blinding streaming in

Quickly now!come! The angel said

Looking about

All the clinging chains clamored,

Stay! Stay!

We are your friends!

Do not abandon us here!

I almost said, I'll stay

When the angel told me

Weep not for the chains 

Tomorrow comes another 

Shackled to comfort them

Forgetting they ever

Held you tight.

Above me

 Above me

In my deepest dreams above me

One comes floating gently

Wake, wake the day awaits

Reaching, the tiny hand I take

Rising to greet the happy day

We float higher along our way.

Once upon a time

 Once upon a time

Over Once Upon A Time

Elephant herds roamed

The heavens

But they were heavy

And fell

Vera

 Irene and Vera. A kind man gave me a rare tip today and I passed it on, telling Vera, 92 that I would give her a print of her mother Irene and her, whom she lost at the age of eleven, her mother dying in childbirth. My father lost his own mother, a year later in 1937 from a blood cot. He never forgot his Ethel Marie either.

Swoosh

 Startled from his silence  

The swoosh swoosh strode past  

The old strider saluted the steeds 

 Silent in the recall of lost speed

Flowing fountain

 By the flowing fountain

Near the flowing well to forever dwell

Old Sopchoppy under your long spell

Though far I've roamed from your halls

In my heart the flowing fountain calls

Come John, drink anew from me

Stay, stay forever in old Sopchoppy.

The burning

 The burning

Saturday we burned the pile

of hard raked leaves along

with the limbs long while

laying about the cluttered throng.

It is good to burn the dross

to see the ground again in May

steel it for the eventual frost

reveal the paths of children’s play

Now rise the planted sprouts

now falls the jasmine from above

we count our costs and gather about

nurture the ones we long have loved.