All along that grey draped zig-zagging shoreline
The men sat or stood in resolute silence
Each trying to reach back into minds
Scrambled like eggs by the fear of impending violence

Soon the hard faced men will open the gates
As the race will start as hearts will change pace
Then by push and twist they load like cattle
Into great grey hulking hearse's barely floating
Plunging through grey roiling seas toward thunder
Echoing across the channel quotation marks of the battle

That rages ,engages not turning ÷ripping out pages of history
When the water turns red punctuated by the floating dead....
........The question marks and periods
Exclamation marks in the book thats still being written ...
        ......to what end?
That is what makes any plot a vagrant thought
With a premise being an unresolved mystery
Such are .....
The vagaries of the ever repeating chapters of human history!

When I first met you
it was
through an.... open door
But I'm not so sure
that I'm
welcome here ...no more
So i ....
Im gonna say goodbye

Don't get me wrong
Its not to say
We didn't  have some fun
It just seems to be
that those ....days... are done

And so ... can not  say
That  we  both ...
....didn't know
Once  the minutes ....
....and the days
had began to move ......so slow
And i could tell ...you too
Knew....That it wasnt how
It    was    before

So for all the lonely time
I will now have
I can  say without regret
That I've been paid in full
As i hope you can say
That you
As well ...have good memories
You can retain
When its all  over and done
memories will echo
Those sad refrains as silence reigns
Because I've been there
I know just how it feels
I know .....just how bad it feels

And its never easy ...never
Never ever easy

When i first met you
it was .. like
stepping through
an open door
So now ..I'm leaving
but by a different way
So not to spoil
The way it began
back then .....when
You first let me in

But i cannot or will not pretend
That I don't know
It never ever really ends

So even though
We both know
That of late it has all ..
mostly been just for show
Just for show

I leave out by the back door now
So gently do I pull it closed behind me
Dont want a scene or any slamming doors
TO REMIND ME!
It had its time and had run its course
There's no denying that as  i depart
I carry pain in my heart
and heavy weight of remorse
Upon my back

I know someday it will ease
into a back corner of my mind
But i also know that days will
Will not be coming soon when ill find
It weighs less and less each passing day
But i will also be aware that while
I will have begun to seek a happier tune
For my empty core after i find my  smile

Now that I've walked a thousand yards
I turn back to wave goodbye to what once was
The shades are drawn and its all dark inside
So though i am not sneaking away and we
In silent conversation we said all we needed to say
Yesterday
Yesterday we agreed but today i realize my leaving
Has hurt your pride  ... has really hurt your pride
I know I know i know I know I know we both drowned
Through the night and all the tears we each cried
So i do i do know just how it feels as i have been  here
Been here so many times before and its never ever been easy
And it never will ..never will ...i know from so many times before


But when we first met ..it was like i was...
....walking through an open door .
.a door like no other ...i had ever
walked through before and thats why i left my keys
on the kitchen table
Along with my last smile .....at least........
My last one ..... for a long..... long while !

Irony often oozes the blood stain
That history will use to paint
An honest portrait of erstwhile deeds
Or to turn some altered soul to saint
Few are those that exist within the mist
Who loom larger than the shadow portrays
And seldom does a shadow exist undiminished
By the dreariest of all darkest days
So when seeking blood in passionate resolve
There comes a mordant aberration of unheralded stature
Rising to fly above mortal attributes into unremitted immortality
By assiduous conviction born of monstrous evil of unparalleled scale

Born among the Carpathian mountains
From the ancient and mysterious Transylvanian forests
One who seeks blood for righteous alliterations
Not for glory but for the saving grace
A quest to alleviate all alien allagory   alligned along the meandering memories of non-mordant minded men

No imagery conjured by Bram Stoker thru Van Helsing
Encompasses the unmitigated reality seen
The lifelong - still beating strong - near century long shadow of the denizen of our brightest outlook

The creation of circumstance as much as man ( unkind ) made

Maybe unheralded by too many
For such a knave am I so sorely cursed now...
With shame
I ...who have always strived
to drape myself
in the raiment of the eternal optimist
Now pay overdue homage to the true and absolute optimist
     BEN FERENCZ.... Is his name
Seek out his story now ..
.while he still lives
Reach back ..
Into those dark, dreary days
To share what history gives
and you will see what he means
    when he say's     
" I'm Right. "
     For I truly know that he is!  
     
 Keith w. Fletcher
      Humbled by the humanity exhibited.

How shallow lies
the depravity....
....the obscenity ....
beneath the obscurity
That veiled visage of such audacity
then how quickly
It all falls away
As I have stood
Astonished
Admonished ... By my naivete
Seeing... As it all crumbles
Tumbles away ... with all my faith
the humanity of my being
Like dominoes...down the timeline
of what once was me!

Scattered now
Stomped on and shattered
Battered
Bruised and tattered
Everything that once mattered
Had now vanished
Banished and leaving great voids
Of emptiness
Monuments to those lessons learned
That now awaits...the fates
To fill back in ...if or when
We begin ....to value what was earned

Those precious gifts...
....that so many
have paid..... so much for !!