Mid terms

 Mid Term 

John Clare Stokes

Come ye Triumphant sons

Before our homeland burns

The blue invader comes

For kingdom come we yearn.

Til  the day comes

Vote red for our sons sons.

Cotton Field 

Providence

If I but dip

 If I but dip

We all have in our lives the maladies that are in such need of that dip within the angelic pools of stirring waters. October on is to me the best time to dip ones maladies in the Itchetucknee.

The sun

 They say the sun is round

Down at Watertown 

I went down

To see if it was to be found

Just as they said it would be.

The finest fog

 The finest fog

It was the finest fog

A perfect blend

Of cane syrup cooking

Smoke house hams 

Curing

Autumn leaves burning

I've yet to dwell in 

A finer fog

The elusive light

 Through the cypress

It was a rapid walk at six

To reach the edge of the cypress

By the time I arrived

The elusive light

Was just beyond my reach.

Comes the opening

 Comes the opening

Do you not sense at times

in your mortal flesh

a distant quickening

that you were not one

created for long slumbering

that there is coming

an opening

A way into the 

ancient of days?

Counting crow

 The summer like day

Then comes the summer-like day,

Bids the old man rejoice!

His joy! his last! Oh, the man gray

Loveth that ever-soft voice,

Gentle and low.

Auden

Featured artist

 My turn this week. 

In dream

 In dream

by John Clare Stokes

I cannot escape this stream

forever taking me further

down in the strong current

toward an open gulf 

depositing me to bob

in a tide of the moons clutch

this dream of making it

upstream just once

past the Dottie tupelo

we once measured 

exclaiming it was a record

tree way up here alone

on this upper Suwannee

sending her jams down

to sweeten the journey

jars upon jars of the 

spread upon the sands

to sustain those journey

struck longing to return

 to their Dottie tree.

Harlot route

 Harlot Rout

John Clare Stokes

Must the Harlots always win

Taking at will the fatted men

Making no distinction

Of age or ability 

To function

Just taking the money

Without compunction 

Must the harlots always win

Grinning from the screen

In unseen dens of home

Alluring the gawking in

Giving in to the sin

Must the Harlots always win

Taking all the men

Leaving them but shells

Of guilty Deacons 

Seeking victory over

The overwhelming odds

With God their conquerer 

Kicked to the curb.

Williston

 Three from Williston First United Methodist 

Free oak

 Lone Oak of Lona

Many trees grow by stealth, ignored until they grow to intrude upon power lines or property lines or become belligerent, dropping limbs on roofs or leaves in pools. Happy the tree planted to grow to maturity for generations, free to drop limbs and leaves with abandon.