Moon ache

Moon ache

John Clare Stokes

How many years shall it take

to heal the everlasting moon ache

Years the waxing and waning arches 

over the prayers pleas and petitions

Silently in a nonchalant cold aloof way

the moon sets yet the ache goes not away.

Low Lake Sunday

 Low the lake

We were on our way from forty-nine...upon the intersection of Low Lake and Bulb Farm roads...the old Spanish style church was still standing....eventually crossing US90 and going into Wellborn...stopping at the Jiffy Store for the drink and ice cream...Roger would catch up on his girls....he knew all the clerks.....Bob and I would lag behind...Roger kept an up tempo pace on the Vitus....I had the yellow Cannondale...Bob the Super Sport Schwinn....we finished up at Bob's no A/C trailer off Turner Road in Lake City...it was a typical Sunday afternoon ride of over forty-nine miles to forty-nine and back....Roger like the church no longer stands…the  Jiffy now closed and the girls gone...Bob... was lost in a world of fading memory...making it to age ninety…..mostly spending  his last days reminiscing...along with me at past seventy and rapidly  keeping their pace....

Downy

 Downy Boy

I think if I were with wings

I would not be affiliated

With the pileated 

His fiery, flamboyant red

His constant cackling

Nor the crow

A know it all

Nor the red-tail hawk

Again

Always having to squawk 

And I feign to diss

Their purpose

Their ways are just not for me

And I'd be hard pressed

To find a bird that's best

Perhaps the Downy

Not too showy 

Just a tad of red

Common and looks like a miniature hairy

Of which I am not

Often mistaken for a 

Sapsucker 

Who drill the parallel

Holes in living trees

To feed on sap that

Drips so gewey 

Or perhaps a turkey

But not a Jake or a Tom

Always looking for some

Oh, just little, quiet 

Downy!

Veils

 We live in what we deem

Sunlight bright

But it’s just the glare of night

We do not see clearly at all

We peer as through a veil

A glass of deepest hue

There is a certain kind of light

We perceive beyond the night

Faces close as can be pressed

For but a glimpse

A drawing near to

 the figure of one blessed

Who dwells within the light

Of His own eternal glory.

Road art

 Passing the angel art on the fence yesterday, the poem from this day in 2009 immediately came to mind:

Sephiroth Sonnet

Dear Yahweh send an Uriel this night

From the southern heavens fly our way

From your Holy presence flaming light

Take our prayers to your heart we pray

On heavenly heights one mighty stands

With precious healing sent from our God

Grant us mercy to our outstretched hands

Bud anew upon this dry and withered rod 

Come Michael, O warrior of God grand

Smite this plague that thirsts to kill

Blood of the Lamb, cover this dark land

with celestial healing may lungs so fill

Come Gabriel, Come Michael, Uriel do sail

Oh Holy God, may your heavenly glory prevail!

One night stands

 One night stands

John Clare Stokes 

For one night we allowed ourselves 

to return to the field of play

bringing the ball up the court

for the brothers in red

Galloping down the field in

the loose fitting jersey 

Splitting wide in the homespun

Cheerleading uniform

Heading up the hill in the Charger

out to ghost light frights

Not daring to ask her out in our shyness

Taking a half century to muster courage 

But by then what does one do

when all the places to go are gone

even the very school and the home room

to return to on Monday 

Your friends anxiously waiting to ask

What did you do

How far did you go

And you lie and of course say

All the way to State.

Upon the 50th high school class reunion

Pan the man

 Little Pan

To us he will always be

Our Little Pan

He will grow into a man

Put aside flying with

Tinkerbell

In a far off land dwell

But we will never

Cease to tell

Of the magical dust

Little Pan once

Sprinkled over us.

Sopchoppy swimming

 Swing Lo, Swing Sopchoppy

    My brother Lewis years ago swinging into the Sopchoppy 

River across from our parsonage in Sopchoppy. Lewis wasn't born until we moved from Sopchoppy to Monticello in November of 1963. My sister Paula and I both learned to swim here. It was quite an accomplishment we thought to be able to swim to the dock across the black waters. My father rarely swam, the only time I recall him in water was at Blue Springs and even then he wore long pants in the water. My mother likewise was not a swimmer, only once I recall her getting in the Sopchoppy with me in her black one piece and black inner tube.  We were probably the only kids not allowed to swim on Sunday when all the town seemed to gather in front of the house. Now the swimming hole is grown over and totally unseen from the road. What then seemed a large river to a child, is to an adult a mere creek.

Some free poetry

 Some free poetry

Don't make life more difficult than it is,

Like don't shake the bottle,

It won't fizz.

Be kind to ma, who can't hear or see,

She put up with you,

When you were ugly and smelly.

Appreciate your pastor, give him a Mac,

And when he's attacked,

How bout 'gettin his back!'

And settle down,marry her and quit the beer,

And quit talking deer,deer,deer!

Tell the bride she's mighty pretty,

Not too fat, not too skinny(in all sincerity)

And you will live a long life and not at a young age croak,

And by the way,

Slow down and only pass when them yellow lines are broke.

Bee Monday

 When Tuesday looks gloomy

I return to Monday 

And the memory 

Of leaving the bike

To watch a bee....

Class 4 sink

 When you think

Life stinks

And you’re in a 

Class four sink

Think how great 

You did think

To have your

Paddle and kayak 

For just such times

In the brink...

Modular man

 Would the pieces fit

The modular man

Eyes from a Keller

Ears from a deaf fellow

Tongue from poison asp

Nose of Jimmy Durante 

Mouth of Navy sailor

Brain of one insane