Poison man

 Write me off

John Clare Stokes

Often it crosses my thought

What thing did I do

For one to cross me from

Their life?

I think for some I may have placed

A moon in a moonless scene and 

maybe another I took

A photo of a coed crossing the street

And they see me as some voyeur

Still another I may have said

I took this photo yesterday

When I took it in seventy three

I mean

Couldn’t they tell I am now hairless?

And there was maybe one

I said Hillary should have frozen atop 

Everest 

Or what of the one I think wrote me off

because I said God is a chicken

and I’m under His wing

Couldn’t figure if he took the Bible

Literally or figuratively 

Or allegorically.

But either way

It wasn’t funny I think.

And that great group of many

Who left me simply because I left

Their congregation 

And I wasn’t even thinking myself

Southern baptist

Having grown up United Methodist

I must have mistook my dispensation 

I was thinking I was in all grace

It must have been all law after all.

Throne of John

 Throne of first John 

Once I was a king with a throne

I ruled the realm from Faith, Rose

Orange and Dickson Street in the land

of Sopchoppy, the county Wakulla, the State of Florida in the great 50’s America 

There was a sister one Paula Jean

meant to sit upon the throne

She was to be called King Paul

but she came out gender wrong

Morning song

 Alborada(sp)

Morning Song.

The new fall begins;

To thresholds Holy guide

our steps into the temple

in which you reside.

Grant us the halt and lame

to your portals ascend

light anew the waning flame

A new fall to begin.

In the sweet

 In the sweet 

Johnclarestokes 

Soon comes the time

To grind the cane

Strip the stalks

Standing in the field

Gather the strainers

Sharpen the machete 

Scrub the kettle clean

Grease the rollers

Stack the bottles 

Teach again the oxen

The routine of

clockwise circling

Pleasant Hill

Kentucky

We hung summer

We hung the summer

John Clare Stokes 

In the loft above the straw strewn

in the cool dim air pungent with

the fields yield of toiling long

fading to the muted hues once

we knew vibrant to the light reaching

through the autumn 

through the winter 

to the spring returning

In lofts we hung the dying 

to the fields of summer giving life.

Pleasant Hill

Kentucky

Owl

 Owl

It was a loud evening

The crows in the pines

Treeing the great horned owl

Trespassing in their hood

Long after dusk 

When the crows had given

Up the chase

Over me

The owl silently soared

From the outer pines

I would have offered 

him a chicken or something

But they were on the roost

Home

 Home

It’s not one of those fussed over

Bragged over type places we envy

It doesn’t get myriad likes for decoration

And that is fine

I’d so dislike living in a magazine place

Where every angle coordinates with the theme

No, give me incongruity

Even a splash of tacky

Cat scratched furniture

Dog scented throw blankets

I don’t need to impress you with the place

We’re content if you come

And leave saying

Glad we don’t live there

Nothing matches

Colors are off

Don’t they know anything

About decoration?

Imagine

Moon sitter

I want to sit with the 

Moon

Keep it company

If by some chance

It’s attacked

Sliced open by a

Southern flying Delta

That would be tragic

Imagine

A dying moon

Dark evenings

Pining away the night 

Shaken up

 Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill

Harrodsburg, Kentucky

I can already feel this shaking within

The simple line, the swirling,spiraling

Upward, upward, we are spinning

This shaped note upon my lips forming.

The light

 The light it's wondrous circuit takes

Upon no creature does it wait

In shadows night they turn

For in the dark they learn

To align just so in the way

For but a touch of His day.

Life goes on

 Life must go on

Dwell not long

Upon words bygone

Break out in song

Alone

Of course

Calling me home

 I hear a language unknown

I travel in a wilderness alone

I sing the strains of a forgotten song

I think the long gone are calling me home.