There are the certain stack of books I keep near....special books able to transport....beyond the narrow gate of the pedantic ordinary....opening to a freedom familiar yet foreign to this Helot....
Sunday, August 9, 2026
Helot
There are the certain stack of books I keep near....special books able to transport....beyond the narrow gate of the pedantic ordinary....opening to a freedom familiar yet foreign to this Helot....
O sing
O sing
O sing of wings
Of things that bring
Joy upon the wind
Praise to the One
The Creator to
Whom we sing.
When the trumpet
When the trumpet
Johnclarestokes
Lately we’ve been spending
our time with our ears tuned
toward the eastern skies
while below seems one great gulf of
separation from the song
we can faintly discern
even in the hummingbird wing
BreeZy
Someday Breezy
When all is calm
The storms long gone
You'll gaze sadly
Beyond to a distant memory
Of a once stormy meme.
Saturday, August 8, 2026
Mamma prayed
Let him in
It's ok
He's your own
So long
Gone
Daily meme says she prayed for the great grandson and grandson. We too pray that meme's prayer will be answered and…yet
She never again got to see her two loved ones.
I fear the same for us.
Morning story
Morning Story
john clare
not even the first morning glory
of the season opening beside
the Sopchoppy steeple could
appease me...no
this cometh not out but by
mowing and Vivaldi
thinking of the sixty
degree Alaskan scenery
a brother chose to go without
even asking me...no
so in the ninety degree
pushing to Vivaldi
I hit a post in anger
and wasps arose madly
about the time a yellow
sulphur was passing
stinging him instead of me
perhaps sacrificing himself
knowing for him his
Vivaldi season had come
to an end
never seeing that Alaskan
scenery....no
and it grieved me
to be mowing so selfishly
thinking only of my misery
so i came inside
poured a glass of tea
and determined as the worm
ate the gourd in the sun
that today....today
i would take mamma
and go hear her boyfriend...Larry
lecture on Ecclesiastes
that way mamma and me
would have company in the misery
far, far from the
Alaskan scenery.
Block
Block
It’s easy in our society
When we only want
The ones who think
Like us only to exist
To block them
In a manner slaying them
Consigning them
From our timeline
Most awkward
By chance to run into them
On the third aisle at
Winn Dixie
To feign a sincerity
That we certainly must
Renew old times
Hasting on to the self check out lane
Not wanting anything
To block your retreat
Blue Grass State
Blue grass state
Six grade can last a lifetime
It did for the tow headed poet
Never advancing beyond
Mrs Turners homeroom
Hiding beneath the desk
during daily nuclear war drill
Deciding it won’t ever get better
But in that summer of sixty seven
He had to move on
To a state of Bahia grass
Sandspurs and allergy
Not even Ann or Pam or Missy
could make him get beyond
the grass of Kentucky
He’d take to grotto trees
He’d take to canoes down Rainbows
He’d take to sandhill hippies
Even tried to be a basketball star
for that is expected of Blue grass boys
But he wasn’t much good
Maybe for a white boy
Far cry from Truby or Dean
But back to the sixth grade
Recently the poet found where
the source of the blue grass
zenith in life dwelled
Looking in at the sixty four year
old Girl Scout
He slowly backed away
Not to disturb a life looking
so happy
The sixth grader finally graduated
beyond the blue grass state
Painting by Jim Riley
One’s dimension
Ones dimension
Times I feel
I’m cheating
By only posting mostly here
There are those
Who think I’m some
Wendell Berry
Of North Florida
Based only upon one
Page they visit
Others say
I just love your poetry
Based upon one page
I seldom post poetry on
They don’t really know me
Or
Like to blow smoke at me
Beyond the pail
Beyond the pail
All about the past permeates
every pail, plant and pot
holding something at one time
a tale, a moment, not forgot
Cemetery like yet alive
Resurrection like
Awaiting consummation
in hope another one after we are gone
will see in the pail, the plant, the pot
Things this one
Never forgot.
Yes
Yes...perhaps I shall paddle with you...but first....promise me....not to speak of eschatology( pridefully), philosophy( unintelligibly),democracy( ignorantly) or ecology(religiously)....but silently....breath in poetry....exhale knowingly....and possibly... take fewer strokes....as you paddle SLOWLY along with a mute john stokes.
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