Category: Saint Johns

“Northern Lass”

She musta come from

Up Nawff, say, meebe DeLand:*

tattoos not from here!

 

*(DeLand, Florida, is just across The St. Johns River and North of Lake Monroe.  When kids of 20 or so and feeling frisky he’d hit the highlife nitespots like Green’s Grocery on US 17-92 just across the river en route to Club Diamond below The Hill below DeBary and continue on a nice nighttime ramble through Orange City and later DeLand, where somehow we were accorded adult status – our green folding ID cards with fives and 10s on them served just fine so long as we ran not afoul of one of the County Constables.)

by Categories: 1966, 1967, 1968, Bible Story, Donna, Drinking, J Richards, Lake Monroe, Poem, Poetry, Saint JohnsTags: , ,

Found Scribbled on the inside and backside covers of a David Weber paperback

…(to Robert Frost and woods lovers everywhere) These two lone Cypress trees innundated for almost a month after the September 4-5, 2004 final Summer hurricane, point to the former Valdez Hotel, now the international headquarters of New Tribes Missions, which just escaped the floodwaters that in 1954 had flooded downtown Sanford all the way up to Third Street.

“Something About Sanford”

 

Along its curved path from Spanish bell towers to silent

vigiling angels who’ve fought in our wars,

this Melon-slice of Monroe’s Lake

comes slowly to life, like many of us,

ignoring or, at best, appeasing the sun’s full-throated roar

behind shading pillars and fangled new porch swings.

 

Dew-dropped diamonds under a lightly speckled sky –

centaurs gallop across the view as sail yatchits slumber

on a mirror-scape, a hinted shimmer its only giveaway:

a succulent late Spring in Sanford between mulberries and muscadines

and old terrorist time sheds still-abandoned hibiscus

after the great azalea massacre of yesteryear just a park up the street,

and friends old and new push past this piece of tannic heaven.

by Categories: Central, Florida, J Richards, Lake Monroe, Poem, Poetry, Saint Johns, Sanford

A Sunset Painted

A sunset painted

perfectly in rust orange

across The Saint Johns.

by Categories: Haiku, J Richards, Poem, Poetry, Saint Johns, SunsetTags: , ,

A Sunset Painted

A sunset painted

perfectly in rust orange

across The Saint Johns.

by Categories: Haiku, J Richards, Poem, Poetry, Saint Johns, SunsetTags: , ,