Keith W Fletcher

Keith W Fletcher Mar 4

I tried to be civilized until I realized ....
... That ain't never going to be me
For some it may be the door to success
To me it's always been just another lock door
And I ain't got no effing key
Won't try knocking or ringing the bell
Cuz there ain't nobody inside that I need to see

So I just kept on walking and then  I began  to notice
all the windows were full of people
nd all those people
Were staring out at me.

I tried waving as I was passing
All I got in return was blank stares at me
It was as if they had no clue
As to what it is that  they should do
I want to say I'm as sorry as I can be
If one of those people turns out to be you

Those who believe that the fancy overpriced car
Makes them who they are
or followung  what is  trending
from day to day
In order to decide what is good
Without making up their own mind
As to why it is said to be so......
So?
Soooo .....so WHAT?

If everyone in the world turned their back on you
Would you take this as a clue...
...about what it takes to be you?
Or will you turn your back the same
In order not to stand out or be noticed
By joining the clic

To become  just another unmorticed brick...
...in the wall?
Then that click click....clickity clack
sound
You hear echoing loud and clear
Will be the sound of my shoes quick steppin
Getting me the hell out of here

Are any of your opinions
From you and you alone... or you
as one of the minions
Or .. do you truly not know,...
Then I hope it's understood
that the question
Will never be answered
Nor will the non-answer ever be questioned

For no one but you has a single clue
When it comes to what you truly believe.

Following the trends in order to make friends
That's what is commonly called
a means to an end
or - too often -simply just dust in the winds

Like a young sapling in the woods
without any means to defend
Bebt to and fro
While at the mercy of the prevailing winds
That aids in its flexibility...
...ensuring it has the facility
To take on the heavy winds of lifes ever changing courses
Going stronger evermore
by using the winds own forces
while across the way
  that sheltered oak
Growing in the enormous shadow of a most magnificent oak
With its ability
to obscure even the most ardent of prevailing winds
Ensuring that it's prodigy
grows tall and straight ...
and never bends . Until the day
eventually comes
The results of nature's whims lightning.... fire or as time and age descends
Upon the spot so long occupied

Left alone and on its own
There stands the acorn born
magestic  oaks living clone.. as it were.... Although sad to say it is not.

It's a structure standing
Of rigid stance.
Sans crowning joy
Or twisted limbs
Courtesy of the over protection
That afforded it no chance .... No chance to be itself
And  live its own life.

*
*

We will be back for this one soon enough "said the arborist " who had accompanied the forestry crew as the they ascended upon the backwoods and heavy forest on a mercy mission to safely bring down and salvage the old growth wood of the  mighty oak.
" What's that you say there Bert?" said Bob Aaron the crew chief .
" I said that we ..or as you might put it Bob....Oh heck  in a hand basket listen to this" and he slapped palm to trunk and the drum beat ( as old as time itself ) announced the emptyness within .
  " Oh Good golly what do you think happened to it b/c she sure looks good from the outside.?"
   "A lot of things I suppose happened in this time here ,..but mostly what didn't happen that did most damage as it was shaded from the Sun... protected from the winds and h ail or lightning and was essentially doomed by overprotection and not being able to live the kind of life where one needs a few hard knocks and stresses put upon it..... In order to grow strong and have a solid interior or soul - you might say "
"Well I'll be darned as a fisherman's sock Bert .,. You're a poet and a philosopher."
  " Well, maybe so.. but mostly I'm an arborist and my job is to make things strong, give it the  ability to live better ...or decide when their time has come to give up the ghost and move to the next phase...and when you think about it all living things- be a tree ,plants or man- the only difference in our lives and death is that a tree orr most bushes live a life of green and when they've died and fallen to the ground they turn brown; whereashumans for the most part live one shade or another brown and when they die and fall to the ground they will turn to a green color..... if nobody comes along to pick them upm up and take them to the mortician " said the arborist Bert to the astonished crew boss Bob .
  " What the damp rag are you talking about and ...and ...?
  " You forgot to saycomedian in that list of things earlier" said Bert with a smile beeaking through his deeply tanned and wrinkled outdoors man's face ..." And did I just hear you say damp rag? he chuckled.
  " Yeah ,well you almost got me on that one Bert and I came really close to slipping up for the first time in 4 years."
" Four years.... I didn't know,or I would perhaps have thought twice had I known that "
   " No worries Bert if I had lost the record to that one it would have been f__ing well worth it.!"
It was Bert's time to be astonished as he whipped his head quickly to gaze over toward Bob, who continued- without a break in the conversation - "you didn't think you were the only comedian in these woods there did ya...besides it's only been 4 weeks 2 days and whatever... Hey guys we're going to go ahead and take that the other one right there down but be careful she's just as hollow is Berts wallet whenever  we go out to dinner together "
  "We ain't never been out to dinner together Bob"
  " Yeah" said Bob" and now you know why that's true" and with that he quickly moved on to join his crew  ahead leaving  Bert standing there as static is an old growth tree an, staring after Bob with astonishment and a bit of admiration as he said  "well I'll be a damp rag!
   "I heard that!
    ----***---

The real truth here is that we never really know people like we think we do, if we never take /took the chance... or we are never given the chance to...

Keith W Fletcher Jan 14

Taken for a ride. 2015 by KwF

You think you're in the driver's seat
Well you've been taken for a ride so many things that you once had have been taken away...
.. denied
They keep giving you the runaround
Until you are too tired to notice
that you are nothing but a pawn
Inventory... to fulfill the quotas

Moving forward toward the destination
As we fall backward into self-segregation
Cops on one side
Citizens taking up positions on the other
Long gone seem to be those days
When we consider each other our brothers

Learn to park the car so the camera can't see the action...
the infraction
What good is a camera on the chest
If all it takes is a thumb
to cover up the reality... the brutality of a retaliatory arrest

Army surplus fulfilling the wish list
Demoralizing the urban vision
Where things have risen
To the point that if you do not know your station
They always have a backup plan in the form of private prisons

"BUILD IT AND THEY WILL COME!"

BUSINESS AS USUAL TRUMP'S THE VISUAL
Seeing isn't always believing
Pain for you will always profit some
The rich keep getting richer..
... As the poor keep getting trod on
And politicians keep saying that's just what they brought on... To themselves

Not the way that I see it
ONE PERSON - ONE VOTE
SO IF YOU ARE TAKING NOTE
You will see
How they all keep trying to gerrymander us into their encampment
And now everyone is building camps... Of their own

Self - segregation...
Falling into a wayward Nation
Of tribal bands as they expand
With any vision it's easy to see
That the cost of preservation
will be that gang with which you hang
Even if it means a gun battle in a parking lot..
.. a crowded parking lot when the cops are present and aware

Because a nation of too many laws
Will become a lawless Nation
Much like the one we already have
But if you think that I have gone too far
Just ask yourself... ask yourself
Who it is.. who it is..
... That we really are.

Keith W Fletcher Dec 2023

Make love not war

Make Love not war
Make peace not pieces
Break bread not treaties
never stops until it ceases
To be a trade off...
... Instead of a trade up
A right of passage
Instead of passing our rights
Like they are non- existent
Ghostly memories of...
Dead cars on highway shoulders
Oil stained ,shattered diamond pieces
Shimmering in the afternoon sun
Ominous reflections at the periphery
Of the headlamps nighttime gaze
among the maze
Of shadowed voids
and truncated moments of reflective light
Gone as quickly as they appear
Just as I fear will besmirch
any rising hope seen... feared.... disappeared
In a disallusioned world weary quest
To accept what is ,what was and what wasn't as what will be
Simply because there are too many
Who want to make war & not love
and shatter into pieces ...all talk of
...or chances for true peace
Remember the drama, hopes and pain
That bit of chrome or reflective red plastic
Tells to those rushing by
from time to endless time
Your story awaits your presence
Somewhere up the line

Keith W Fletcher Nov 2023

Main course

People always say
" You will eat those words!"
and I think how stupid it is
to believe that...
as your words are more likely to eat you, than the other way round.

Keith W Fletcher Nov 2023

....then I feel sorry for your loss .

If you could truly imagine
What it would be like to be blind
From birth or later in life …..obviously would change your state of mind
yet either course would be a source
of altered apperceptions …deceptions and apparitions
So that which was never seen
May or may not really mean
the same to those who once could see
therefore there are  those
who choose to believe
that they can conceive
by concept and projection
the differences…. that lay between
weak or strong-right or wrong
all truths remain
subjects to
the status of ..
   that portal to the mind
and in what way
one chooses and uses
their power of perception

Consider for a moment
What might life be like
were you unable to hear
to never know all
those things
being unaware of caused you to miss
from chirping birds
to a honking horn
of bitter scorn
or one whose purpose was to warn
for again we find
it's all intwined
with the threshold
at the doorway of
…an open or closed mind!

You might believe you can conceive
what life without arms would entail
a body without legs..or both
begs considerations
few able-bodied choose to make
as they pass by…
diverting their eye
to get beyond and leave them in your wake
sad how quickly that was accomplished
physically …at least
but how it's done mentally, emotionally,
or morally
is for each to deal with in turn
with lingering regret
or complete absence
of concern
ones own life moves on
in every sense of the word…until suddenly it doesn't
and maybe then you  realize
what you imagined wasn't anything like you thought
Think about that next time you wake up
get dressed,
grab your keys and walk out to your car,
tune up some media,
check the mirror view,
back up a bit
and move forward into your day …as you encounter someone crowding into your lane,
cutting you off as if you were unseen,
as they rush to leave you behind..
be they unconcerned by your honking
distracted by the real world
or within the vagaries of their mind
barely missing you
as they run the light
and you wonder, mumble or yell out " Are you deaf or are you blind?
Then go see what you can do about propping open or removing what exists …at the threshold of …
Otherwise you need to accept that they were just people moving forward in their lives.
no different than you are….if you cannot truly imagine anything like that…then I feel sorry for your loss.

Keith W Fletcher Oct 2023

A mess made in heaven

...Something so familiar
seemed to be hanging
just outside my periphery...
like an annoying honey bee
Suddenly I popped up
from a languid moment
of heat driven exhaustion....
knowing something
had to be done.
So I grabbed my official hat
out my office door I...hobbled along
due...to... my left leg being asleep
"wake up you fool"
I muttered as I angled
past the front desk
where
that new deputy stood playing on some little box
"Is that an IPOD?"
No sir! what's an Ipod ?
never mind
just keep people off that bridge
till I return and tell you different! Is that clear?
Yes sir Danial...uhhh chief ...!
Good now get going.

I got to go talk to the D. A.
then out I went to the most oppressive sept heat seen in decades

"NO! No way! That's not possible!"
You think so...? the chief asked
well just look out there in the streets.
Where are the kids-
home studying for school when it's still 2 days away?
Raymond Frazer D.A. for Upton county + 2 more back in the hill country.
"I am...de...
doodlytermined
so you coming?
"Yeah chief...but just to prove you...
can't and won't
overstep your authority."
And who would determine that? Judge.... Willoughby?well let's go see what he has to say then.
If you can get him
to approve your overreach
I won't say another word!

Hello Judge my dispatcher call you?
"Yes. She did and ,I must say...lunch?sure ,but it sounds like a walk down memory land lane
We might as well! gonna get some good bbq and cold beer out on the hiway.
10 minutes.
We will pick you up
after you get done with Betty Lou

oh and write this on a sheet of of cardboard and post it. .*** the judge chuckled
be there to pick you up in a jif.

Who's Betty Lou? And where we going now?
Find that Deputy of mine give him a special assignment.

County ordinance or 2
So ....
Technically
we were trespassers
By all truth of right, wrong or law...but
No harm meant by the rules
we bent
MAYBE...
Telling too many seemed the major flaw

That overbearing, solar flaring, heat streak
summer of desperation turned inspiration
When seeing people instead of watching people
Gave me different ways of creating separation

From what I see and what I'm shown
What I'm told and what it is
I actually hear
What I say and what I truly believe
And how somethings really are...just as they appear

Amazingly enough this cyber shift implosion
Crashed thru the outer me
careening around within my fragile core
While crouching down in a clump of bushes
Staring into caramel brown eyes of a girl...who was
Just as naked as me

It blew through town back then  like a hot dry wind on a July day
When people were melting like long stick candles   bowing
like an emissary to a King
In any window where the aftenoon sun shines bright
As it is
magnified...like the stupid cruel rumor

A rumor that a farmer broke a water main while plowing

Literally what else would it take to break
That fragil overbearingly irriatatingly ******* monotony
that held the midwest
American small towns dying summer that
year
a near-death grip
Except.... maybe...if
the rumor had
turned out to be phony

The trail of misfit cars, pickups, motorcycles rolling North
must have looked like the jailbreak/ carnival parade it was...that
seemed to gather stragglers like a magnet gathers iron filings
Soon on saddle bank road 120+ kids
Naked and as innocent in the fact...
That one might think that today was the day
they were born and in some ways...
they were! Fully fledged
in exodus
from the womb
of pure monotonous ladened
claustrophobic morality... have way to languished hedonistic daydreams

Static groups of slow-melting apparitions
Unaware uninspired unintended refugees
Of homes...
of family...
and abject boredom
of that sad summer of high petrol- low crude performance and
Summer jobs never blooming and now... add a drought.

As the final Saturday wilted on the absentee mind
Before the Monday rises to drag them back in...
...to the ritualized killing of all who found
The looming tedium  of lessons and tests
unbearably cruel to have school begin its pull
Without ever even having a glimpse
Of the dying ghost
of a summer break that never was.

Until...that steady drone
rose from a distance
Those 90cc pistons
spitting hope as its frantic echo
Seemed
to somehow announce
from 3 miles away
"help he's killing me!"

Razer was making that hybrid bike scream
then...right down main he came shouting thunderously
But to no avail...
....as every word
unheard...
undecipherable

"...daughter shake
bigganake
common shop..." was the word that ppl heard....

...then it died
PISTON ROD took off over the barbershop
Headed for the moon

Razer stood over the smoking carcus
Spit on it ...kicked it... then saluted it ...
Before saying hey common nowz its flowing and growing
Quicker than quick ...
and that was how summer came to a glorious end.

with a ten acres puddle
Water spraying 30 ft high and by gawd we took to it like
butter to hot biscuits.
until that is
the cops arrived!

And we all run to hide.
.. so here's where
I started this tale

Shhh.. I said
to this *******
beside me
Flesh-colored and glistening ...
We better stay put
you know...
... till it calms down
Hey!  I don't believe I've ever seen you around...the town before...
do you live here... in Braeden  I mean?

We just moved here
she said.
Hi, I'm Joy-Ann Hope
And she surely was at that!
  forever  ...well
Until I changed her last name and she became Joy-Ann PAYNE.
HEY IM NOT TO BLAME
9 MONTHS  later we
met a little girl
named Summer Dawn Payne!

We know all that Daniel...but you cannot expect us...the DA and Chief judge ..not to mention members of the school board and...
Shut that up Judge Willoughby...
and be Mickey Willoughby and Ray Ray ...not D.A.Frazier for a second so you can remember.
Think back 38 yrs and how that line of dried out ,dusty, forlorn kids suddenly came alive that day ...the horns honking, bicycle tires spinning and Ol Joey P ...rest his soul on that horse of his as it clattered along the concrete and clopped by the lead car by galloping along the grass shoulder.
Beat us all to the puddle and I will never forget what we saw when we got close
Him and the mare neck deep ...ha haha ha Yes. Joey P and Nantucket Grey were good people. Rest in peace old friends.

Okay ...the heck with it say the judge mickey to the sad moment of revered silence ...I'm about ready to retire and as I recall that day now I realize 1 thing
Crystal effen clear now
I saw Mary Hortons ...uhh Who that day..and that I somehow got old.
I'm sold Chief ...Sorry, Daniel what do we do?
Well Ray Ray County DA what do you not have to say now?

Just Question guys...shall we go get a tractor or sledge hammers?

Oh come on guys this is the 21 century and I am chief of police with ... well army surplus courtesy
of the fed gov and everything we said we would fix when we got "growed up"
Maybe today we help the next gen or two know what freedom really feels like.
Ray .. call the sheriff " little Bobbie Jones " and tell him
- and them-
to stay the f away.
Judges order.
Hope wins again.

#chuckl

Keith W Fletcher Oct 2023

Whats in... titled?

WHATS IN FASHION
IS...
THE DREAMS OF THIS GENERATION
IN HOPE
THAT THIS NATION
CAN MAN ITS STATION
IN THESE....
.... ESSENTIAL TIMES
WE ARE FACING
TRUTH IS A DYING BREED TO THE FALLEN SEED
OF A WITHERED ****
THAT RESTS ITS PEACE
IN THE BATTLE FIELD
WHICH FACES EAST
TO A RISING SON
THAT COMES SEEKING
POWER
TO BE HONORED
BY MANY WHO SHALL NEVER KNOW PEACE
IN THIS LIFE
OR IN THE WISDOM THEY ARE AFTER
BUT I SHALL HOPE .