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(man enters a tavern)
I'd like a room and a bath please

(tavern keeper)
a room I can do, but, a bath, totally out of the question

(man)
your sign says "rooms with baths", and I would like a room with a bath, as advertised

(tk)
you aren't from around here are you?

(man)
no, why?



(tk)
I thought not, so, I will say this slow...A room I can do, but a bath is totally out of the question

(man)
there is no need to take that tone with me. I made a perfectly legitimate request, as per your signage, and you take umbrage with me.

(tk)
I did not, and besides, I can't take it, if I don't know what it is. Hold on one minute....(walks outside, grabs a shovel on the way out...knocks sign down).

(tk)
(upon re-entry)....now, about that sign you said you saw. I believe you were mistaken.

(man)
this is the "three rivers tavern" as per the sign, which I assume is no longer hanging out front.

(tk)
It is, and your assumption is correct...it isn't

(man)
so, being the "three rivers tavern" would there not be three rivers in the proximity of this establishment from which you would be able to draw water for me, a bypasser, to get a bath

(tk)
yes...and no

(man)
what kind of an answer is that?

(tk)
Yes, it is the "three rivers tavern" and no, there are not three rivers in close proximity of this establishment from which I, a humble tavern keeper, and former owner of a sign, advertising, falesly, I might add...the presence of a bath in this establishment.

(man)
you are called "three rivers tavern" yet, there are no rivers nearby.? what kind of advertising is that?

(tk)
firstly, the sign was already made up, so, it was cheap. Secondly, who are you to question the name of my establishment, which I might add, is quite famous  in the region for many things, other than it's name, which, we may now be changing due to the sudden loss of our sign.

(man)
I sir, am Robin Hood of Sherwood.

(tk)
your'e not

(man)
I am. I am Robin Hood, Sir Robin of Loxley, if you please.

(tk)
I repeat...you're not. Not in those tights.

(man)
And what is wrong with my tights?

(tk)
Seriously? Do I really have to tell you that?

(man)
Yes, what is wrong with these tights?

(tk)
First off, Robin Hood, The REAL Robin Hood wouldn't be caught dead in those. Baggy, Saggy, there's leaves on them, holes...Robin Hood would have nice tight tights that were in good kip and accentuated his....

(man)
*******!

(tk)
exactly

(man)
No, I mean, how would you know what Robin Hood would wear? I mean, what I would wear? The condition of these tights helps me keep incognito in local archery competitions. If I went around showing ...

(tk)
*******!!! INCOGNITO? You are no more than a wayward traveller trying to get a free room on the reputation of someone else, namely...Robin Hood

(man)
My good sir, these are old, tights, ripped from swinging through the trees over time.

(tk)
If you are Robin Hood, tights or not...prove it to me. I'll give you the room, and go for the water myself.

(man)
How should I prove it, with no arrows, bow, and apparently no weaponry in sight. How do I go about showing I am Robin Hood?

(tk)
Use mine. Yep...use my bow, and I dare you to...to...shoot an apple off of his head over there. Oy....wake up. Catch (tosses an apple to man in the corner)
Put that on your head...he's gonna shoot it off.

(man in corner)
He's gonna what? off my...no he's not.

(man)
No, I will not. You obviously have me confused with William Tell. He's Swiss, they do things differently over there.

(tk)
You will, or you won't get your room

(man)
And if I should miss, what then?

(tk)
Not a problem. I've got lots of arrows and apples. We can just keep trying.

(man)
I mean HIM, what if I hit HIM.?

(tk)
You won't if you are who you say you are, and besides, I said I've got lots.

(man in corner)
But I'm your brother in law

(tk)
I've lots of those too. Now, here (hands arrow and bow to Robin)
Step back 10 paces, I'll open the door, and you....put that apple up.
One shot...hit the apple,....room and a bath....miss, and it's off with you

(man)
I really don't think...

(tk)
shoot or leave. Or...I can call the sherrif. If you are Robin Hood, he'll certainly want to see you.

(man)
Fine, give me those. (walks back 10 paces as the tavern owner opens the door).
(He fires, splitting the arrow in two, as the man in the corner slides to the floor)

(tk)
ROBIN!!!! Why didn't you say so? I knew it was you all the time. What can I do for you?

(Robin)
First, pick him up. Next that room. Then I have some requirements, that I need not be tested on. A bow, arrows, clothing, footwear. I need to look the part at the tournament coming up, when I do the big reveal, and I need the proper equipment. You, will help me with that, and seeing as how I have little to no money, as I said, I will need to put this on account which I will pay after the tournament.

(tk)
credit? You want credit?

(Robin)
Yes, as you can see, I am good for it.

(tk)
I saw you shoot an apple off a mans head from ten paces, not...win an archery competition with archers from all over Europe. CREDIT?

(Robin)
Here, hold this apple.

(tk)
Right, First things first...bow and arrows!!

(Robin)
I shall need to see the fletcher.

(tk)
that would be baker

(Robin)
No, I need a bow and arrows. I need a fletcher

(tk)
Exactly, Baker

(Robin)
I am at a loss. I need to see a fletcher and yet you keep saying Baker

(tk)
Right, The Fletcher is Baker. That's the man's name. You need to see Baker, the fletcher.

(Robin)
I see....I think. So I see the baker.

(tk)
You see the fletcher

(Robin)
Baker

(tk)
exactly

(Robin)
that's what I said.

(tk)
No,you said the baker

(Robin)
That's what you told me.

(tk)
No, I did not. I said The Fletcher was Baker. That's the mans name

(Robin)
Baker

(tk)
Now,you have it

(Robin)
Assuming I get what I need from the fletcher. I need a tailor.

(tk)
pastor

(Robin)
No, I do not need to see a pastor, I need a tailor

(tk)
That's the man's name. Pastor is the tailor

(Robin)
So, the pastor is the tailor

(tk)
No, Cooper is the pastor, pastor is the tailor.

(Robin)
I don't need a cooper, I need the tailor

(tk)
exactly. pastor

(Robin)
So, let me see...I go to see the pastor and the fletcher

(tk)
No, you see the tailor, pastor and then the fletcher

(Robin)
The Baker.

(tk)
Listen closely, or you'll never get your room. You see Baker the Fletcher and Pastor, the tailor. Not, the baker and the pastor. You keep getting mixed up

(Robin)
I'll need to write this down
Ok, for footwear, Cobbler

(tk)
Butcher

(Robin)
The butcher makes shoes too.?

(tk)
No. Butcher is the cobbler

(Robin)
That's what I said

(tk)
Look, it's dead easy, you go to see Baker, Pastor and Butcher and you'll be set

(Robin)
I'll end up with bread , a bible and meat. How does this help me in an archery competition?

(tk)
No...you see baker the fletcher, pastor the tailor and butcher the cobbler. It couldn't get any simpler

(Robin)
Maybe I don't need that room after all.

(tk)
follow...fletcher baker pastor tailor butcher cobbler. then back here.

(Robin)
No...I think maybe....is there another village close by.

(tk)
Yes, on the other side of the three bridges

(Robin)
Which, as we know, do not exist

(tk)
And...they speak Welsh!!! your choice

fade out
CHAPTER ONE

My geographic movements during the past year could be called “A Tale of Two Couches.” So as June draws to a close, I assume the position here again on Couch California. I am back in Hemet, the place the smug among us call Hemetucky--as if there was nothing a couple of Mint Juleps and a **** of Blue Grass wouldn’t cure. It is the year of our Lord, 2014: so far an interesting year for women. There was a woman who wore socks to bed. There was always my long-time, here today-gone tomorrow, long time companion, currently teaching somewhere remote on the Big Rez, a southwestern Navajo concentration camp near the 4 Corners.  Next, there’s my current object of affection, that fine and frisky lady from The Bronx by way of Bernalillo--currently at home in Laguna Beach, Orange County. Trixie: my main squeeze at the moment.

And now, completely out of the ******* blue this afternoon, my cell phone rings and it’s ******* Juanita--my all-time favorite woman, Juanita Mi Favorita de La Quinta--a Coachella Valley town and desert wadi, extending its lucrative winter tourist season to become a significant, year-round retirement venue and a robust service economy feeding off it.  Juanita arrived there in the late 80s, in middle of her early forties.  She was unemployed, homeless, just a suitcase to her name and a two-year old toddler in tow. Her parents were there, as was her Aunt Peggy.  Juanita was always Peggy’s favorite niece, her favorite child, actually, Peggy herself being childless, never married.  Aunt Peggy put her maternal instincts to work on Juanita Rodriguez, her Sister Rosalia’s second favorite twin daughter.

Maria, Rosalia’s first favorite daughter, Juanita’s twin sister—MARIA: lives in Newport Beach and acts as an extra in many commercial ads shot in southern California and elsewhere, an irony never without sting for Juanita. “Que lastima!” Poor Juanita: as her would-be Hollywood Movie star aspirations disintegrated over the years, along with her unrealized lower expectations to be TV star, and even those semi-glamorous modeling gigs at trade shows and fairs—the elephant’s graveyard of the acting profession—failed to materialize, and now her celebrity habitat shrunken even further, to that sporadic but consistent mockery of stardom, I refer to any would-be thespian’s ignominious one-celled visual protozoan: The Extra Call List.  And—*******-- what happens next? Juanita’s sister Maria starts getting these parts, starts getting hired by filling out a ******* postcard, starts getting paid to look good in the background. *******: no professional education or instruction, no agent, and no need to **** off both the producer, the producer’s cousin Morey, the director and the director’s wife’s huge Golden retriever, Genghis--actually a mighty handsome animal--or needing to spill $4K on that Derma-brasion, Juanita inflicted on herself last year.

Juanita, as you already know, was the second favorite daughter and the second favorite twin of the family. She became the third favorite child in her three-child family upon the arrival of her slick baby brother Nico-- the Golden Child, who grew up to be a glib Merrill-Lynch stockbroker, office and residence, Beverly Hills 90112.  (Enter forcefully into the narrative, His Nibs himself, Sir Nicodemus of Hollywood, Juanita and Maria’s baby brother Nico. He speaks: “Excuse me, stockbroker my ***, as it says in a 11 point Rockwell Boldfont, right here on my gold-leaf embossed business card: Senior Large Capital Investment Counselor.”)

No, Juanita had a hard time just treading water in that Cleveland shark tank. And though she lacked nothing in the cuteness department, she had this one fatal flaw, namely, the gift of ***** and sass and a reflex to speak truth to power. Juanita: rejected by Rosalia as a threat to her hegemony as Boss of the Girl’s Club, was cast adrift on a tempestuous childhood cruel Montserrat sea, out there on the briny deep . . .  
                

                                      



High Seas: where many a tuna has a Sorry Charlie moment: “Star-Kist don’t want no tuna with good taste; Star-Kist wants a tuna that tastes good.”

Finally, Juanita is rescued, taken aboard the Good/Soul Aunt Peggy—that wayward bark Elisabeta Rodriguez, home-ported in Southside, Chicago, Illinois—the rescue at sea performed in classy, rather low-key manner; no Andrea Doria drama, but understated:

{Camera One, Helicopter above, zooms over turbulent ocean surface. Peggy, an oasis of calm, aboard the raft Kon Tiki with Thor Heyerdahl and his crew, floats by, whispering, “Going my way, Honey? Climb aboard. Have a homemade oatmeal cookie and a small glass tumbler of Jack Daniels.” Okay, no, that’s not fair. Sure Aunt Peggy drank, but never got round to offering you a drink until you were well into your 30s. Let’s just say she offered you a warm glass of milk, the mother’s milk deprived you by your mother, her sister Rosalia. Dear Aunt Peggy: a seasoned survivor herself, flawed by early childhood deafness and grotesque speech.  Yet, she had refused to settle for life in an asylum. She made a go at life.  She learned; she prospered; she flourished. And when the time came, she was there for you in the Coachella Desert, there for her feisty niece Juanita Ann.  Aunt Peggy: a loving spirit personified, became Juanita’s special confidant and counselor, her personal cheer squad of one. Juanita, of course, a former cheerleader herself--an early hint of greatness to be sure, a highlight, perhaps the highlight of her life, shown off every Halloween, still celebrated at American high schools each Fall. She is the Principal’s secretary at a huge suburban high school in Indio. Each Halloween, if the date falls on a school day, Juanita arrives for work wearing that scrupulously preserved, vintage 1966 cheerleader uniform, looking real foxy still, snug now in all the right places. Eternal Truth: Juanita has always and will always be good looking. Life with Juanita is perpetual “ooh la-la.”

So, I am on the couch that afternoon, reading more of Gramsci’s prison notebooks, specifically the philosophy he calls “Praxis.”  Completely out of the ******* blue, Juanita calls me on a RESTRICTED phone, as I said, Juanita, a torch I’ve kept burning for years, flaring up like a refinery flame--oil still very much in the present energy mix--hope springing eternal as they say, and instantly my mission in life is rekindling our lost love. Juanita’s conceived her mission prior to her phone call:  using me to keep her son from being whacked by the local Eme--the Mexican Mafia—that ethnic-pride social club that the RICO-squad-- using family tree socio-grams and other expensively-printed graphics, the one RICO keeps trying to convince us is some sort of organized crime conspiracy. The Mexican Mafia: like everything else practical and utilitarian in this world: THAT’S ITALIAN! And, if you are starting to sense a bit of ethnic chauvinism on, between & below the lines, you are barking up the right tree.
                                                           ­     
      
                                                            
(AUTHOR’S POST-SCRIPT EDIT: And, an ad for dog food right here? Not the best choice of sponsors, perhaps, at the moment. Juanita was far off from the ****** ***** that start looking not half-bad at 2:30 in the glazy morning, not anywhere near those beasts you find lingering in the airport bars you usually frequent near closing time on Saturday nights. No, I remind you that Juanita was all “ooh la-la.” In my next printing—and my Lord, there have been so many, haven’t there, Paulie “Eat-a-Bag-of-****” Muldoon? I will change out the Alpo ad, plugging in a spot for Aunt Jemima pancake syrup or Betty Crocker whipped cream, you know, something more apropos.)

Juanita, I really must hand it to you. You showed the greatest staying power, year after year as I moved further and further away from La Quinta, California. Juanita: you embraced what was good in me, ignored my flaws and strengthened me with your love for so many years. As far as you and Peggy, I guess it was a case of the “apple not falling far from the tree” one of many endearing Midwestern metaphors you taught me.  Peggy taught you, taught you to be kind and then you taught me. No matter what bizarre venue I pulled out of my ***, you showed above-average staying power, continued to visit me wherever I went, Casa Grande & Buckeye, Arizona, Appalachia, West Virginia, and even Italy, when I thought I’d try Europe again after so many years.  With each move, each time, Juanita renewed her commitment to the relationship. Meanwhile, I continued to test her, quantifying her dedication, undermining her sense of mission to disprove my worldview on the expendability of women. Surely, you know that one: the unreliability of women, women who disappear without saying goodbye. That old deeply etched conviction to never get attached to a woman, any woman, based on the empirical fact that women have been known to suddenly die, a fact seared into my still tender metal by the surprise death of my mother on 11 January 1962.

1962. It was already an insecure world, to wit:  The Cuban Missile Crisis. Nikita Khrushchev, in his time both Dr. No and Dr. Evil, namely the Premier whom we Baby Boomers saw as Boogey Man of All Time (Although Putin is showing potential, lately)—the Kennedy ****** (what else could you call it?). All these events scary, whether or not I got the chronology right . . . I remained on high alert for any threat to my delicate adolescent psyche.  My mother-Rosa Teresa Sekaquaptewa-died at 2 o’clock in the morning, screaming in agony while apologizing to my father for not having his dinner on the table when he walked in from work that prior afternoon. She’d already been in bed since noon, attended by two of my aunts--both my father’s sisters--who loved their Hopi sister-in-law, Rosa.  Also present was Lafcadio Smirnoff, M.D.--last of the house call medicine men--a dapper, mustachioed, swarthy gentleman, misdiagnosing her abdominal pain as a 24-hour virus, while she bled out internally for at least eight more hours, her whimpers alternated with screams, well into the wee hours of the morning.

I was upstairs in that dormer bedroom listening to her die. An hour later, Father Numb-nuts of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish teleported in, beaming directly into my bedroom from the parish rectory.  Father Seamus Numb-nuts, an illuminated Burning Bush . . . not quite the bush I ‘d conjured at other times, so many times alone with Gwen Wong, ******* Playmate of the Year, 1961, one of Hefner’s hot centerfolds. No, give me a ******* break, you momo! Whacking off is the last thing on a libidinous, adolescent guinea’s brain when his mama is being tortured and killed by God. Even Alexander Portnoy, Philip Roth’s early avatar would have drawn the wanking line at that unforgettable moment.

No, perhaps what I’d had in mind was The Burning Bush Golf Course where so much of Fletcher Kneble’s political mischief and government shenanigans got cooked up. You remember his books, some of the Cold War’s finest: Seven Days in May, Vanished, etc.

Or better yet, perhaps the greatest political slogan of the 20th century: “STAY OUT THE BUSHES!” Thank you, Jesse. “Thank you, Reverend Jackson,” I slip into my Excellence in Broadcasting mode, my very own private Limbaugh. Announcing my on- air arrival is El Rushbo’s unmistakable, totally recognizable bass line bumper, courtesy of Chrissie Hynde’s Pretenders band mate, guitarist Tony Butler: Dum, dum, dum-dum, Da-dum, dum-dum-dum-dum-da-dum-dum. Single, “My City Was Gone” by The Pretenders
Rush Limbaugh Song– YouTube www.youtube.com/watch?v=SScW9r0y3c4

I become Reverend Jackson. I emerge from the vapors, an obscure abyss of deep family pangs and disappointments, ever-diminishing public relevance and fade to black (no pun intended) and media oblivion. The only thing left is that line:  “STAY OUT THE BUSHES!” You will always own that line, Jesse--true political genius (to wit: Rainbow Coalition) Jackson that you are, despite El Rush-Bo’s virulent anti-Black animus, his predilection to mock you, Al Sharpton, Corey Booker, Barack “Hussein” Obama, and any other professional ***** in America. Isn’t it time someone came right out and tagged Mr. Limbaugh as the Father Coughlin of our time.

Meanwhile back in The Bronx, enter another man of the cloth:  It’s Seamus Numb-nuts, making one of his many well-documented spectral visitations, his splendiferous miracles and wonders. How much longer will the Vatican ignore this humble Bronx priest, this epitome of Sainthood; this reverent man, lacking only the stigmata for a unanimous consent vote? Quote the Numb-nuts: “God Works in Mysterious Ways.” An old standard to be sure, but a lovely, all-purpose bromide for explaining why evil exists in our world. Needless to say, I was underwhelmed; I lost God at that moment, consequently shooting myself in the foot--metaphorically-speaking-condemning myself to an unshielded life, life OUT THE BUSHES!  I went forth into the world without God, without that handy divine crutch, that Andy Devine metaphor for when one’s legs grow weary: a puff of smoke, a reverb twang and a nasty frog croaking “Hi-ya, Kids. Hi-ya, Hi-ya. Hi-ya.”

   Andy's Gang - Pasta Fazooli vs. Froggy the Gremlin - YouTube
► 3:55► 3:55
www.youtube.com/watch?v=H35odPm7b3w Aug 8, 2012 - Uploaded by jmgilsinger
Froggy the Gremlin -Tuba ... Andy Devine (Aug 24, 1952)

Life for me became lonely and purposeless. And probably explains my susceptibility to military discipline and a subsequent career in clandestine government service. In 1968--the very day I turned nineteen, September 25th of that year—that fateful day when I should have shot myself in the foot—literally not metaphorically--earning that coveted 4-F physical rejection, a draft deferment to be desired, that 4-F classification of unfitness for duty, a necessary loophole in U.S. conscript service law.  The Draft: last used during that great commonwealth Cold War purge, that culling out of the unwashed, uneducated children of immigrants, that cut-rate, discount, lower socio-economic ***** bank—the only bank where after you make a deposit, you lose interest, to wit: most Black, Hispanic and Poor White Trash parents.  We were cannon fodder, many of us got to be planted at Arlington and other holy American shrines, still wrapped in black or olive drab leak-proof body bags, doing our generational bit to strengthen the gene pool left behind. A debt, some would say, we owed the country and, given the sorry state of the global wicket, increasingly an obligation to the species. And if I had to predict an outcome, Fascism in America will arrive riding the white horse of the environmental, anti-nuclear Bolsheviks. One could argue that Communism has moved so far left on the political spectrum that it’s now the far right.  Concoct a legislative policy goal, accomplish it legally as the bill becomes Law, signed by the President, endorsed and blessed by The U.S. Supreme Court, the highest court in the land.

To wit: “Three generations of imbeciles is enough?” declared Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., an Associate Supreme Court Justice at the time, buttressing a majority argument harnessing the power of U.S. law as a legal means of purifying the race.  When euthanasia failed to win over American hearts and mind, the Federal Government played the war card again and again. Vietnam: undeclared and therefore unconstitutional--except for that Gulf of Tonkin ******* resolution. Vietnam: a cost-plus eugenics project, if ever there was one, although responsive, of course, to the needs of the Military-Industrial Complex.  ******* Ike: he warned us against Fascism in America. As usual, we ignored the man in charge.

Eugenics? Why didn’t the government just put all the retards on the stand, as John Frankenheimer did in Judgment at Nuremberg, a crafty Maximilian Schell humiliating a feeble-minded Montgomery Clift?  Why not, make everyone face a public tribunal, forcing all of us to testify in court, exposing our many substandard and borderline substandard cerebral deficits?  Why not force everyone to demonstrate just how ******* dumb we are, using some clever intelligence test, something l
Zeeb Jul 2018
Tool of desperate confrontation
Object of pride for a grateful nation
In Baton Rouge on the mighty river
Kidd rests proudly
376' length overall,  Fletcher Class destroyer
Like every ship, of oil she does smell
When I boarded her, she had something to tell

I was with a scoutmaster, my son and the boys
Concerned with their fun, and the making of noise
But late in the night, as quiet set in
Kidd started whispering, to my within

She spoke of the men who gave up their lives
Their children, their girls, the tears of their wives
Thirty-eight men, in fiery fuel
Hell's agony touched, a death so cruel
Fifty-five more, burned badly that day
Defending our country, our homage we pay
Visiting sailors will stand at attention
… and for a young Kamikaze, scarcely a mention

The big war was over, Kidd passed her test
Now to San Diego, for a permanent rest
But as men will prescribe, it didn’t last long
Kidd went back into action, near Korea’s Kaesong

When in Baton Rouge, you can visit the Kidd
If you’re bold, listen carefully, just as I did
You'll get half of the story, the rest we don't know
The men who have fallen, to Kidd's mighty blow

Let's set a new tone and have us some fun
The Kidd's crew were pirates but they didn't run ***

Those flat-tops were fancy, their flyers elite
In the galley was ice-cream, their reward and their treat
When a pilot was downed, Kidd quickly steamed
Then radioed the skipper, "your man for  ice-cream"
emily jones Nov 2014
things that fall:
petals
teardrops
snowflakes
rain
stars
time
shadows
leaves
­the sun
and me
for you
Righteous anger is justifiable.
When it is called a pillage by those who do not understand, or those being enacted upon, it's context seems savage. When in fact, this anger is in its complete right.

A reasonable length of time to be angry is as long as the injustice prevails.
Where are we, if not in a place where justice is considered the norm?

We are here.

Standing upon our own bones in a burial ground we built ourselves,
By unceasingly digging graves for all of our problems and hoping the earth would provide wealth to our homeless.
Sometimes burying a problem only feeds it.

Instead of hiding it, we bury it in a shallow grave.
We allow it's toxicity to seep into our gardens, into our watering holes.
And it poisons us, it feeds us with inhuman practices guarded by a Cerberus built of lies.
Lies so poor in foundation we wind up burying our dead right along shallow graves.

Graves having constantly more and more dirt thrown upon them, failing to understand that a deeper hole couldn't even fix what handfuls of dirt sprinkled atop shallow graves are believed to.

So,
Perhaps the time has come.
For the dead to rise, because it's the dead who suffer. Poisoned while resting in supposed peace.
Perhaps it's time the dead find their expired hour glasses and empty them.
Refill them with gunpowder and make due for lost time.

Maybe these overgrown infants deserve the lesson, the one they fail to realize.
That shallow graves are swept aside by heavy rains.
That the dead don't rise on command, and that they lie in stillness by their own accord.

The streets need to ride the rising tides and open the empty plots. To begin writing the eulogies and engraving the tombstones. To commemorate the last of a dying breed.

And bury them in the cemetery behind the Heroes of Failed Revolutions.
Bury them in the graveyard that lies in the back of
The Fletcher Memorial Home
For
Incurable
Tyrants and Kings.
"Take all your overgrown infants away somewhere
and build them a home a little place of their own
the fletcher memorial
home for incurable tyrants and kings"
- Roger Waters, Pink Floyd
Thomas Bodoh Sep 2018
This Island, draped with the moss of the past
And drowned in the foggy mist of the future
Lies awake, breathing under a darkened sky.
My trembling hand touches the black silence,
Caressing its blank face and wooing it.
A lonely voice rips the quiet into dusty shreds
And leaves them to rot on the ground.
“It is him,” it says. “I remember him from long ago,
In a land far from here. I remember him
And his shining laugh, and his darting eyes.
He shot the hearts of young women with unseen arrows,
But from the ranks of men he remained
As a the dying earth to an newborn skylark
When it first tastes the sweet fragrance of freedom
And never looks back. Who would look back?”
A distant blue memory finds its feet in my mind
And travels down the forsaken labyrinth, invisible,
Until it gorges its divine spear into my heart
And shakes me awake. My eyes relent.
She hovers over my unfeeling face, and Lady Dream
Smiles on me. I find blessed comfort in that gaze
And my mind wanders into lush green meadows,
Blind once more to the Nightmare Forest.
The voice speaks again. It is Master Fletcher.
The Lady’s sharp retort slays his words.
“Shut your mouth,” says Dream. “He has known more
Than you can ever imagine. He has seen things.
Let him have his long-deserved repose.”
A thought from the Other World coils and wraps
Its snakelike loops around the victim of my mind.
Fletcher appears, young and bright as ever,
Regarding me with dancing eyes, under windswept hair.
Suspicions, secrets, wonderings, all rush inside
At the cheery sight of his roguish face.
I have heard tales of an unknown curse
On an unknown friend. Is it this friend?
Fire in my bones, a river of pain, I stand.
A whirlwind of feelings, colors, questions,
Drown me in the black sea of Unknown.
“Careful,” Dream warns. I gaze at her moonlit face.
My heavy question drops, and she watches it fall,
Wasted words wishing in a wasted world.
“I do not know,” she says. “It is a desolate place,
Forsaken in a jungle of twisted vines and branches.
Mother Earth breathed her sweet life here, softly,
Crafting a forest of flowers and outlandish beasts.
But it has left her wild mind for a thousand years
And in that aged time, it has become green and lost
Under an overgrown fortress of ruin and rock.
The trees have twisted faces, and all that grows
Can speak in tongues I understand, and Fletcher
Hears them likewise. The sky rages both in day
And in silver night, and the air is as a warm sea
Heavy and swirling in an unseen storm.
The beasts, fowl creatures, have manlike voices
And villainous minds, feeding like vultures
On the young, and wolves on the grown.
One day and one night have we lived here.
This is a desolate, abandoned place.”
Her flashing words release me from my spell;
The enchantment drops like silk to the grass.
“Endless water surrounds this place,” adds the boy.
“And serpent-demons dwell in that eternal ocean.”
The shaft of his beloved words pierces my heart,
Despite the poison on its sharpened tip.
“At least I am not alone,” say I, flogged by fear
And shackled by the chains of my affection.
To Be Continued...
CH Gorrie Oct 2013
for the students lost in World War II*

1.
Kids.
Could they have understood this "sacrifice"?

2.
Kids,
on the edge of living,
about to dip into life.

3.
Kids:
epitaphs, Sunday daydreams,
skeletons wrapped in flags.

4.
Kids
whose lives are packed into one plaque
near Hardy Tower, tucked
behind bushes by the biology labs.

5.
Kids
stop every so often,
linger a moment over the names,
mouthing one or two
before scooting off to class.
Geno Cattouse Aug 2013
The Ashes of a million souls drift down to the Baranco Wall and Moorland.

Seventeen thousand feet is All
Deep and dead is the cap on Kilimanjaro.

If a tree falls in the Forrest. you will hear it on Kilimanjaro.

Haunting stones on Easter Island whisper in the dead of night
and speak to Kilimanjaro.

Pitcairn Island far and lost.

Fletcher Christians mournful ghost wails and screams as the Bounty burned
a light seen from The  Kilimanjaro.

Supai City Arizona in the bowels of the gaping gorge
looks out to Kilimanjaro.

Oymyakon Siberia. Minus 93 degrees. chatter and freeze
akin to The Kilimanjaro

World ends in the stratosphere
Fight for breath face you fears.
Where minutes pass like plodding years

in grasp of Kilimanjaro.
This planet of ours is all we have to stand upon and call home.
It is a marvel and a wonder.
Marshal Gebbie Feb 2011
Orange hazards blink in gloom
Autumn mist in early light,
Traffic cones direct the flow
Attenuators keep it tight.
Through the mist construction looms
A mighty swath comes into sight
A structure massive, incomplete
Sweeps past the Birdcage portal light.

Burrowed deep within the Park
Surmounted by its stark white beams,
The tunnel curves towards the Bridge
To emerge near the Victory screens.
Symmetry in huge largess
Biblical in size and form,
Built by puny hands of flesh
Man inspired, conceived and born.

Columns in the concrete mass
Loom as sentries, side by side,
Level in majestic sweep
Through the tunnel’s corner glide.
Massive beams locked overhead
Cap the roof’s gigantic clasp,
Reinforced by gridlocked steel
Bound within the concrete’s grasp.

Mounds of blue, congealed wet clay
Layered in an old sea bed,
Hauled away from ancient crib
By Fletcher excavators red.
Roaring diesel truck and tray
Loaded overburden high,
Water blasted ***** and span
Keeping highways clean and dry.

Monstrous cranes with hanging rig
Lower weights of ponderous steel,
Gently to the tunnel base
Led by Dogman’s coaxing feel.
Urgency in every move
Hard hats drill with diamond core,
Fixing massive panel slabs
To the looming concrete’s bore.

Well below incoming tide
Pounded by the drenching rain,
Four inch pumps snake to the sump
Ensuring flood control’s maintained.
Foremen bark and keep control
Hard hats share a secret smile,
Safety first for every man
Think before you lift that pile.

Gate girls smile at passers bye
Politely chiding those who stray,
Holding up a halting hand
With trucks inbound in hazards way.
Smoko at the Bowling Club
Murmur of a hundred souls,
Grubby in their hi vis vests
Munching on the caterers rolls.

Morale amongst the working men
Is high because they feel the cause,
A project that is so worthwhile
They KNOW that it  deserves applause.
Traffic roars above it all
Passing in a steady stream,
Brake lights on the viaduct
Cop cars flash and sirens scream.

This project has a consciousness
A Heart, a mind, a soul.
And an inspirational spirit
Which guides us to the goal.
To eliminate the bottleneck
In Auckland's traffic day
And to streamline the system
Of our vehicular motorway.

Politicians snarl right now
Champing at the huge expense,
But by next year’s finish date
Congratulations will commence.
The jewel in the crown they say
Is found within our park of green,
The Victoria Park Tunnel, friend,
Is a true magnificence, to be seen.


Marshalg
Victoria Park Tunnel
5 February 2011
Keith W Fletcher Jul 2019
Hello, Poetry?  Keith W Fletcher   Poems     Dec 2016 Back from the edge

It will soon mark 7 long silent filled years since the pain and depression that ended up inspiring this poem. During the band days of yesteryear we always had a chance to get together on this type of summer/ autumn holidays and  raise hell and make noise and it was like a big family, so I repost this one here for whatever I can get out of it this time and for all that are ln need, for then (by all means) especially for you as well!

As if from out of nowhere  Gnarled Twisted fingers  With jagged rusting fingernails  Reached out ... Grabbing me  Dragging me... Back  From going over the precipice   Stopping the headlong tumble  Into that deep dark echoless Abyss  At that critical moment  of complete systems failure ...When the call of the Void  Seems impossible to deny   Convinced  That falling through the darkness  Would seem as if I could fly    Ive sensed  that the siren song was calling to me  As it had been all along   So ,Just as I let Go ... Leaning in  Relinquishing control  Those wrinkled withered hands With the Twisted gnarled fingers And those rusted over fingernails Pulled me back... With  Strength incomprehensible   Freeing a Sinister scream of agony  Pure pain and despair  Ripping out and splitting the air  As it rose up from the depths  Of that deep Darkness... that  Echoless void   Someone had reached out...  ... To save me  So I turned to see who... it was  That had pulled me back Wondering how it is...  ... That they knew   There was no one there  Just the last fading remnants  Of a shadow on the wall  So I smile to the Fates  As I gather paper and pen  Making a note for my future Lest I ever forget and Tumble back in   Then with withered and wrinkled hands  I Hold Steady to the notepad  With rusting fingernail adorned  Twisted and gnarled fingers  I begin A whole different flight  As I begin to write Keith W Fletcher Written by Keith W Fletcher  Oklahoma                490        naǧí, Ryn, Ami Shae, Keith Wilson, J Robert Fallon III, and 1 other Ami Shae  Ami Shae  Wow!!! This is one of the best writes I've ever read! Gives me hope! Thank you!!!   0      1 reply   Dec 2016
Jack Torrance Mar 2019
Wish I could get a little undrunk
So I could uncall you
At 5 in the morning, I would unfuck you

Honestly, this party's over
Everyone here should've gone home
But I'm afraid of being sober
'Cause the first thing I do when I'm alone
I start touching myself to the photos
That you used to send me
I should've deleted, but kept it a secret
Is that crazy to do?

So I squeeze out the lime on the ice of My drink
And the juice hits the cuts on my fingers
It still doesn't burn as much as the thought of you

Wish I could get a little undrunk so I could uncall you
At 5 in the morning, I would unfuck you
But some things you can't undo
I wish I could unkiss the room full of strangers
So I could unspite you, unlose my temper
But somethings you can't undo
And one of them's you

I'm afraid to turn the lights on
I don't want to face this rebound
Is it weird if I come over?
I want to, but I know that she's around

So I'm touching myself to the photos
That you used to send me
I should have deleted, but kept it a secret
Is that crazy to do?

Oh, I'm hungry and wasted and my hands are shaking
I shouldn't be cooking but spilling hot water
It still doesn't burn as much as the thought of you

Wish I could get a little undrunk so I could uncall you
At 5 in the morning, I would unfuck you
But some things you can't undo
I wish I could unkiss the room full of strangers
So I could unspite you, unlose my temper
But somethings you can't undo
And one of them's you

Got through every emotion
Right now I'm sad, I'm broken
But the bottles in the floor
I'm to buzzed to clean them up
Wish I could get a little undrunk
So I could, I could unlove you

Wish I could get a little undrunk so I could uncall you
At 5 in the morning, I would unfuck you
But some things you can't undo
I wish I could unkiss the room full of strangers
So I could unspite you, unlose my temper
But somethings you can't undo
And one of them's

You
You, you
Wish I could unlove you
You, you, you
Wish I could uncall you
You, you, you
Wish I could unfuck you
You
Wish I could unlove you
A song by Fletcher
Keith W Fletcher Oct 2016
Keith W Fletcher
July 28 2016


In spirit I'm  the Dark Horse
Fading into shadows of doubts
Optimism rides upon my back
Yet it's not enough to turn me
From those obscure routes
Where I too often find my solace
In the echoes of my silent world
As I run from my own hoofbeats
That I have been chasing
  None hears  the distant thud
From far below those lofty heights
Where I so often find
Myself  being hurled

In absence I'm an empty space
Where once a possibility had existed
Like those gentle summer winds
That moves along  unnoticed
Until dust or debris swirls around Acknowledging the air
That in my passing through...
... has just been twisted

In memory I am a faded color
Where no reference of what was... .....allows comparison
So no photograph
Or artistic rendering
Can ever capture the true identity...
....Of a shadow lost in shadow
Once the fading out has begun

In legacy I left a trail
Well worn and beaten wide
As I never took
The straight and narrow
I've always  preferred...
... to move from side to side

So  please...do not illuminate
The beloved shadows zones
Along the trail
For  these are the places to take more time
Feeling the presence of all the ghosts
Those reminders of my dead dreams
I've left along there
To haunt me
Reminders of those times I fail

But that cliff edge
Where I  so often  hurled myself
To crash below
In muted
And too often painful
Solitaire Evolutions

That step off spot
Where my tracks end
That is mine and mine alone
Just as is ...
That Hallowed Ground...
... where  I land
And where I lay... until I stand
To dust myself off.. or weep
So should I choose to curse my soul
I want no one else around
Ernest Welthagen Jul 2011
Come on down to your Fletcher’s Store
It has all your needs to complete your chore
Marshal has it all you see?
Be it tools or p.p.e.
Obtaining kit is not that hard
If you have your induction card
But without your little piece of plastic
The treatment you get could well be drastic
Other than that, a cost code will do
That will prevent any further ado
If Marshal is otherwise indisposed
Help is near, it has been disclosed
His faithful helper Spiderman
Will always help you where he can
On the PC he also goes
Logged on as Marshal, I suppose
But back to the master of the store
He knows what’s behind every closed door
What stock he has, he knows off hand
spanners, raincoats , every little gland
a special order or a request
You can be sure, he’ll do his best
He is a man of his word
At toolboxes you may have heard
Laying down the law, giving you grief
Hoping to catch the lowly thief
Spending time with him, I have found
He is a rock, steadfast, morally sound
And if at times you may need a friend
Someone to listen, maybe an ear to bend
Someone there, sound and steady
You can count on Marshal Geddie.

Ernest 28 July 2011  (VPT)
Keith W Fletcher Oct 2016
Keith W Fletcher
Jul 1 2016


Be still my thumping heart
Before you burst straight through flesh  and bone
Upon hearing  words your life you never expected to ever hear
Bringing life back to a heart once solid as a Stone
Allowing blood to flow through your now coursing veins
That had all but ceased to circulate through
In this cold and barren atmosphere where I've always had a fear 
Living was just wasted on those like me who have never had a clue

What love was like beyond
This barren land in which we've lived
Should living be any way to describe
That which we have been doing
Encased in a cocoon of solid misery
Intent upon the dead reckoning course  so long  in pursuing

So caution please when intending to send any hope
To those who have all but died inside while waiting for Redemption
Are often shriveled husks of once proud but misunderstood beings
Who have lost any and all
True image of themselves
Loveless  lives lost
In animated suspension

So carefull now as you have started
Life
Coursing through my frame
No memory of what I should be
That I have never had
-Fear reaches out to grab the arm setting off the silent alarm
That screams a warning to self preserve Or you will go Stark raving mad

STARK     RAVING     MAD!!!

But death  cannot be far removed from this' non - life refrain
So if my heart should burst this day to be shattered into dust
I should take the chance
Letting
circumstance
Guide my weary steps
Taking the hand of you
Who is now reaching out
I give my all.....all that I possess...
.... I give you my trust
Tryst Sep 2015
Part 1.

What wantless seeds attest to willing soil,
Each rooted finger delving to earth's core
In counterweight, as newborn limbs recoil
Up from the grave, to rise, to lift, to soar;
To marry gold above with gold below
As petaled faces bask in fiery glow.

In each low nook, on each high rising hill,
By narrow streams wending like living trails
Down through deep harbored vales where winds lay still,
Where night and shadows meet in mingled veils,
All sacred spots that nature calls her own
Know bounty of pure beauty fully grown.

Heaven to some, to some Arcadia;
Her lands enriched not by cold ore struck gold,
But by a blessed cornucopia
That wise men seek, but few will yet behold:
Into this realm a weary hunter treads,
As silent as a widow in silk threads.

His hooded face as weathered as a storm,
Dark eyes, a crooked nose, a fearsome chin;
Worn leather garb clung to his sinewed form,
Drab long cloak loosely clasped by silvered pin;
Old sword and dagger hung from side to side,
Short bow and quiver tarry not his stride.

Part 2.

The vestige trace long lost to eyes unskilled
Takes umbrage at his oft' requited glance,
And twisting like a ****** darkly quilled
To gift the puzzled reader bare a chance,
Turns this and that but all to no avail:
The hunter ever watchful of the trail.

Through field and copse, down to a steep ravine,
Plumbing the darkly deepness of a cave
That writhes through earthly riches like a stream,
Rising to spring like buds from winters grave:
Emerging into light as one exhumed,
The hunter pushes on, the hunt resumed.

For mile to broken mile the land retreats
To greet the rouse and sleeping of the sun;
As day and night dance gaily round their seats,
Taking a turn to sit on either one;
By light of sun, or moon, or stars, the prey
Sets firmer tracks each passing of the day.

Until a dawn awakes to shrieks of mourning,
One golden speck cries foul at visions edge;
Espying of the hunter's cruel adorning
She flits away towards a mountain ridge:
The hunter leaps, pursuing at a pace,
His prey is found, his hunt becomes a chase!

Part 3.

Arcadia delights in summer faire,
Yet all departed seasons lie within;
Protected from the ravage of time's stare,
They wander here or there upon a whim;
And to her borders, winter is inclined,
So comes the chill as summer falls behind.

Soft fertile plains give way to rocky climbs,
And mountain shadows mock sun's feeble stare;
Ice clung to stone, to sting all clinging limbs,
The hunter's eyes blinded by frigid glare;
His prey nearby, she clambers up the *****,
Her racing heart surged by false glinted hope.

Arcadia bade mountains rise up steep,
To keep her borders free of dint or breach,
And rising heavenward, each snow-capped peak,
An endless climb beyond all skillful reach:
The hunter clambers swift to shrink the gap,
And in a breath she falls into his trap.

A foxhole late encumbered with deep snow
Becomes her prison hemmed by harsh cold rock,
The hunter stands above, inclines his bow,
With silken string depressed by feathered nock;
One pause to blink before she pays his toll:
He stalls, steps back, and stumbles from the hole.

Part 4.

"Cold winds chill numb the hands, freeze not the mind!
What trick of sight gives light to such deceit?
Dare I to look once more? Pray will I find
My prey's own claws or tender dainty feet?
Treacherous snow lies deep, my eyes misled!
A beast I sought, a maiden found instead!"

"Kind sir, I find myself at your command!
Pray lend me arms no smith nor fletcher made,
But as my own formed of the sculptors sand
To shape the flesh into the mould he bade:
Pray open up your heart, come set me free,
For I would spy which hunter bested me!"

"Afore I gift my fingers to your plight,
Would you attest to count them fore and aft?
And pledge no claws will scratch nor teeth will bite?
And offer up the scheming of your craft?
A beast I hunt, yet here I catch no beast,
Be swift of tongue, the swifter then released!"

"Upon the sky that houses sun and moon,
The trembling mountains tamed by winters shiver,
The hills, trees, shrubs, vales, Arcadia's bloom,
The living streams, flowers like natures mirror:
Upon all things of worth if word be aught,
I gift my word, my ill to you is naught!"


Part 5.

Her slender form, as light as sleight of white,
He lifts up to assuage her troubled snare;
And looking then upon her wondrous sight,
With darting eyes for fear the sirens glare;
He feels a hammer strike a pillowed blow:
His lifeless limbs collapse into the snow.

"Fear not for words I gift are duty bound,
And bind me as a branch unto a tree;
Would I were fool to feast upon my hound,
My bonded words so too would feast on me:
But listen now, this nymph has had her fun,
The chase is run, the quest is just begun!

Arcadia opens up her vaulted gate
To fallen souls with honor on their name;
Not that bestowed where mongers congregate,
By kings rewarding those who **** and maim;
But those revered for kindly word and deed
Are born again through Arcadia's seed.

Live free to roam in Arcadia's haven,
Fish, hunt, give chase, for sport and for the thrill;
But heed me well, my bonded words are graven,
Open no doors to death, nor test his skill:
Death hunts you like the beast you thought to best,
Though chase be long, be sure he will not rest.


Part 6.

*Arcadia has but one proposition,
Be glad of heart, her realm cannot be broken;
But of your hand she makes a supposition,
You wear it still, a lovers gifted token:
All bonded vows should break upon her border,
That yours did not has brought her some disorder!

Though day and night swing endless through the sky,
No time shall pass within this hallowed glade;
Where once you stood, forever shall you lie,
One breath between a life and bitter shade:
Arcadia can open up her door
And with a breath, release you evermore!

Return to life, return to love's embrace,
Return to sickness, death and poverty;
Go now and lose all knowledge of this place,
Be troubled not by wistful memory;
This path once trod can never be unstarted.
Be warned: no path returns here once departed!

Here then your quest continues with a choice,
Remain within Arcadia's golden land;
Or live a mortal life and then rejoice
To greet your death when taken by his hand:
One breath to choose, one solitary breath,
Immortal life or yet a mortal death."
Being the fourth ...
Keith W Fletcher Oct 2016
Keith W Fletcher
Dec 1, 2016


An insatiable thirst
Quenched
By the flickering flames of change
As constant darkness
Opens up
To expose
The smiling faces........ arranged
In a ragged circle
As transmutation will
Click a quick tick
Time sets forth a measurement
And right then
Measurement becomes relevant

And the wall
Still and silent now
As it settles into the new place
Having moved backward......
Giving human spirit
A little more space
Nobody knew it right then
But space
Just got bent ..for the very first time

---------And GOD smiled---------

Coal carried the flame forward
Far beyond
Its original role
Iron became harder to tame
As they blend and bend
Creating and celebrating
The birth
Of the very first tool
And the wall slid back
Exposing a gap
In the continuum
As well as a broken chain
So GOD stepped in
Taking a chain in each hand
As to cover the span

Linking the past to the present
Creating a future
Where history will be amassed
To be categorized
Analized
Sorted and filed
And GOD held it all together
-------And again GOD smiled-------

That smile
Must have been
MAJESTIC
As GOD watched the intrepid airmen
Sail off the dune and fly toward the ocean
Taking a leap and an unfathomable chance
GOD may have laughed
As the slapstick unfolded
The two brothers laughing and whooping
As each does their version
Of a happy dance
To a whole new future -- to be
That they alone
Had the ability to see

It did change... quite magically
Unfolding like a roadmap
Inspiring technology
With each turn of the page

No smile could have been present
As fat man lumbered in
And little boy followed
Not too long after
And that guaranteed
The absence of smiles
-------The suppression of laughter------

TRAGIC

Still....
The wall slid backwards
By more than the QUOTA
The pattern expected
Considering the folly of man
Whose intelligence suddenly
Accelerating....so rapidly
That bit by bit
Humanity split

Religiously

Using a crutch
Saying its all just...
...TOO much
"If GOD wanted man to fly
GOD would have given us wings"

As others decry
"You spit in the eye
of. GOD who gave us the gift
of creativity
Intelligence and tenacity---
--maybe a bit of bombastity

All fathers want their children
To excel
So shouldn't that be true
For GODS children as well?

That wall is not to be breached
Circumnavigated
Undermined or climbed
We will never realize
The height necessary
To rise above the lofty wall
To see the sacred sights
Where GOD delights
In teasing us
Bit by bit
Inch by inch
Allowing us
To push the wall forward

Encouraging us to learn as we grow
As you know
We would have never  moved forward
Beyond the doubts of those
Who say that we're playing GOD
Then... burying their heads in the sand
Dooming us to crawl
Instead of proudly walking tall

If GOD didn't encourage those  children
By stepping back
And smiling upon us
As we seek to find wisdom
Just as we need it

We take pride in pushing ahead
As if we..... somehow
Actually did it...
... On our own
Managing ...to move that wall
----And that has to give...

...GOD

The biggest laugh of all !!
Fatman and little were the first nuclear bombs dropped on the  Japanese cities  of Hiroshima and Nagasaki August 1945 just barely forty years after the Wright brothers  first airplane flight at   Kitty Hawk North Carolina
Fah Jan 2015
Before we begin let us begin with the silly name tags we've all been given
I'm Hank Fletcher and you'll be Roger Malore.

Ride up
ride up ! Come collect your coat buckets
let's dance a merry boogie under the sinking sun
I'll wear purple dancing shoes so you'll spot me in the crowd and leave the silver wear at home please darling,
I haven't a pocket to spare for all of your loose change
or all of your first change or last change no long change either
I'll take 3 fingers of radical change though
and have seven chasers of rabbits down holes
and wouldn't you know
I don't think we'd stop even if we could
we've only got goats of friendship on leopards nooses down by the ally
did I mention you've got a friend in me?
yes,
please
he can't stay any longer he's eaten up all of my pastries and done a huge mural of the french revolution in the bathroom
I can't stand the sight of ****** man ***** as I try to poo
god lord, would you believe he's done all the horses as well.

Now, now, **** it in
we'll never catch a break if you just give out frankincense every time you find a **** attractive.
Azure limelight faded grey by the bewilderment
I am the King of All living, we remember
infested as the bunny and pine tree
weeping as mothers marry off their siblings
why wear white at weddings, why wish to be a innocent
a bottle of gin is a grin tonic for a child to see as an aching smell of visions last saw
as if Calvary was a horseman weilding a Lance
A tree to Long for us, grown in the desert
Already Peace flown in pure reverence Sang real
The Last Great Initiate,
Oh Reign, Reign, Rain, Rain, Reins, Reins

Dye his skin with the empowered wish of will
A well endless to stare through is warp drive
A might so glorious we all must avert our eyes, a New Motion
a **** gorgon, to start the serpentine on the sabbath
to revolve and molt in a revolutionary vulcan grip
to fly to the sky with birds writ uplift
delight, delicious, appeal. zeal, feel

Iesus covered in Liquid Cheeses
Sweet Fleeces its Christmas Season
Solar Deities yummy as Pizzas
A pie in the Sky is my age divided by the week
A pipe dream plumbed with gooey memories
the weaken ends of my jeans faded blue from seventy
charred black as the temples crystals phase out painted-glass Murals

too light to be mailed, too large to be contained by an envelope
too short to fit in the door way, too effulgent to weigh on the scale
Pi sees Men, laughing as a woman changing clothes on a curbside speaking
seventeen in one hand, zero at the bone in the other
IhavebeenChanced, Iamexceed, Iamtheether, Iamsanctioned
Fletcher Night: folllow your heart
Mateuš Conrad Oct 2018
****... i was just thinking about porridge...
no... not Fletcher, Ronnie Barker...
****... what was i thinking of?
Quaker Oats?
  it's not even funny... what was it?
ah...
         black Hollywood taking over...
Denzel doing his Zen and D-end ****...
Black Panther...
               Black Panther?!
ha ha... is that some sort of Pink Panther
spoof?!
  the Prodigy did a song for a movie...
one man army...
oh... right... you've forgotten its existence...
now we're getting all the activism revival
revamp?
    Black Panther is like Pink Panther....
a ******* joke....
                        does anyone even begin
to comprehend... Spawn?!
Spawn is the reason why Batman became
Lego...
                       honest to god,
scouts' honor...
                 wait wait... so Spawn is bleak?
you know, that Lethal Weapon II South Africa
exchange... but but.. you're bleak!
or whatever the best coordinate association is...
with the mister-race...
            who the **** wants to be
the Black Panther?!
all the crumpets / chiseled retrograde
        crackers...
      guess it's good i'm not slang
for milk0boy... ****** lactose intolerant?
too bad...
how about i **** off your ma ma?
                Black Panther is *******...
who wants to be Black Panther?
probably some educated counter to a Kanye West
commentator...
Spawn... all d-way...
              v-way... but you know...
we figured: difference are so that we get a chance
to matter...
          minstrel does the shuffle...
Black Panther my ***...
compared to Spawn?
            looks like...
the KKK embarked on an appeasement
treaty....
                compared to Spawn,
Black Panther,
it makes Dave Chappelle              
   look like, ******* michael mcintyre...
which is funny... funny...
only when eating chips
and being attacked by a flock
of seagulls...

oi... watch this... Black Panther
propagandists...
   who've never seen a minute's worth
of the film Spawn,
which could make any white boy say...
**** Batman, i wanna be Spawn.

wankers.
there's no culture war to be spoken of...
given that the said victories and losses
are so banal...
the, "war" hasn't even started...
and said people are claiming
either victories or losses...
            we haven't even started!
Keith W Fletcher Apr 2018
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.
Randy Johnson Oct 2022
Angela Lansbury has perished after living for nearly ninety-seven years.
In 1948, she starred in "State Of The Union" and "The Three Musketeers".
When she starred as a murderess in "Please ****** Me!", her co-star was Raymond Burr.
She is best known for starring in "******, She Wrote" and people will always remember her.
She starred in "Death On The Nile", "Lace" and "The Mirror Crack'd".
Angela became famous because talent wasn't something she lacked.
Many will remember her as "Jessica Fletcher" which was a role that she portrayed for many years.
Angela is dead and when her friends and family attend her funeral, they will grieve and shed tears.
DEDICATED TO ANGELA LANSBURY (1925-2022) WHO DIED ON OCTOBER 11, 2022
Keith W Fletcher Oct 2016
Keith W Fletcher


Kinda funny how sometimes
We think we know what a word really means
By synopsis / definition or context
At times which way the wind blows defines how it leans
I say synopsis for when one word equates a story
Definition for when it falls more to cut and dry
Context may allow a word to be the momentary King
Surrounded by his subjects basking in his glory

So as a poet / writer I often consider  words to be fragile
As I credit them with an almost absolute gravitational force
To move mountains control tides or  to bring me back down to earth
Able to create a picture
Of love like a painter's brush
Or painted all black in a fit of remorse

Right now in this space and time  my being occupies
It hurts my soul to hear so many words
Abused to comatose by contusions
I understand not..... this Insidious plot to destroy the very foundation
Of words on which was built this nation
Once great ...now late
In seeking a healing solution

How is it that we manage NOT
To take advantage of those words that brought us here
Where people are now paid
To bend  minds
By twisting those very same words
To the point where the human mind gets into such a bind
We're reaching the end of our ability to... comprehend
Just how this could have occurred
Apathy is that word

Now with the foot firmly in the door
So many more are beginning to awaken
You see the surprise in.their eyes
As they finally realized
That they're late

I've been yelling... I've been screaming
For what is suddenly seeming
To have been my whole **** life

Many more at the door now engaged Enraged as the battle is being waged
So now I step out away from the battle stage

And I allow myself to scream out
Loud and proud

" I've been fighting them since way back when they first tried to enter in the freaking gate!!"

My voice is weak can hardly speak
I've been screaming for so long
In my heart of hearts
I feel that
I deserve a rest
I feel that I have passed the test
Truly knowing I've done my best

For so many years I spoke out
ABOUT..
...All my fears
I always resisted those who insisted
I was looking for trouble
Where it never existed

But now I think it's been
Amply demonstrated
So that I feel I've been vindicated
But I want to be sure it's clearly stated  

"I did not fight this battle all alone!!"
It's just that sometimes
It just felt like I was ?

My part in the battle has not ended
It's just that recently I have friended
On the web
Many who
Once you listen to what they just defended
People who I'm sure carry in their eyes
Those same battle scars that I recognize
In the words that they've said

And they carry scars just like mine
In their hearts and in their mind
So I'm sure that just like me
There were times I thought it'd be
Over and done
Before the real battle had ever begun
I'm sure that they could see
Just like me
A nation of people - brain dead.....
From being spoon fed ...a diet.....
Of fear and doubt....
.....drowning in apathy!!
Keith W Fletcher Oct 2016
Keith W Fletcher
March 9th 2016


Watching him that first day
He stepped out into sunshine
Stood staring around as if lost
Then took ten steps to stare at the sign
Memorial Hospital was what it read
And I couldn't imagine what thoughts
We're transpiring inside his head

I followed at a distance
To see what his day would bring
No thought of interacting or distracting
Just along with him I would string
He walked along for a mile or two
Just taking in the sights
And I almost started laughing out loud
As he fell backwards staring at some kites

Felt better when he took a  seat
He  just seemed to find pleasure walking
Easily he was distracted
By the birds the flowers or the kites
To these he was extremely attracted
What goes through his mind
This huge hulking man of carved stone
On the third day the sat on a bench for 5 hours

Staring out at the ocean
seeing something....
....something only he was shown

Those  4 days ...that early June
I followed him around...
... everyday

9 a.m. to Twilight's dimming Veil
So Friday morning was - as usual
8:30 a.m. coffee at the Sidewalk Cafe
Then I saw him...
.... standing at the rail!

Once I noticed him
He stepped around and approached
"Excuse me" he said " do I know you?"

"I've noticed you've been following me
But I haven't known what to do
I think ....I think... I have it figured out though"
Then he smiled a smile and cocked his head.

"I'd be very pleased if today you would walk with me
Unless you'd like to continue following along instead

"Although" he softly said " I'd be grateful
To share with you
Each wonderful new surprise
And see the joy on your face
Knowing ...
That I'm seeing it all...
... for the very first time.
Through your father's eyes!"


There are some things in life that are not to be denied
for right then and there I laid my head down on my crossed arms and I cried and I cried until  I regained my ability to talk
While this man stood stood quietly ...solid as stone. Then i said YES it is a lovely day and i would love to accompany you on YOUR walk ..thank you.
On Saturday the 7th of November, I had a small panic attack when a man approached me at the till wanting to buy paracetamol.

It’s official. You broke me. Now in retrospect I saw this coming. Falling for someone who wants to leave this place means I should not be surprised if you try to take steps outside but… that doesn’t change the facts.
You broke me. Broke me like the photos frames of all the people I thought you were still living for. Broke me like the hinge on the door after  forcefully trying escape so many times.

You broke all of my security. The last person who put this many dents in my armor spend 5 years starving themselves on a hospital ward. And I can’t look at her anymore because I’m thinking about you.
Thinking about the scars on your thighs. The lines under your eyes. How hard it is to sit on your bed because it feels too much like sitting on a grave…
but how beautiful you are all the same. You broke me more efficiently than any other.
You will talk to me about anything, except the overdosing. So here is my conversation. Here is me asking what is wrong? Here is me asking how did your sister react. This me saying I would do anything to see you smile. So to knows you are still hurting, breaks me!

But **** this ****. I wanted to write something happy so here I go.

You know that one softer yellow tile up at the tram stop on fletcher gate. Man’s a ******* boss.
It's meant to help blind people see but between you and me, I think it’s meant to spread a little glee. It’s squishy… and that makes me happy.

Reminds me that in a world of callous skin and rough edges there are people who take pledges. People who vow that somehow, here and now is the time to make a difference. Send assistance to the hopeless so they can focus on their brilliance.

And that’s what I wanna do. I’m not here guilt you. Not here to shed light on the fact that depression is depressing for more souls than the just the one diagnosed. I’m here because I want to be. I wanna duck and weave between your plight and grief. Sit relief and self-belief on you back seat. I wanna remain upbeat when you sing songs of defeat. I want to be there despite you feeling weak. I wanna hide step ladders in your sheets so when you wake up in the morning you feel as though there is no goal you can’t reach.

I wanna teach you how to smile. Teach you that just like the one yellow tile, you can feel so down that may already appear like part of the ground but you can still be wonderful and brave. That more and more reasons to smile can be discovered or made.

I’m sorry it’s easier to say than to do. And keeping it together was easier for me than you. But this is how I pick up the pieces. This is what I want to teach you.
My debt bubble has been de-leveraged & I'll fight with guns plastic
'cause in my life defensive maneuvers have been necessarily drastic
when my crooked, fist-fightin' limbs distend Michael J. Fox spastic
Hurry pops the time for peace has degraded into a campaign drastic
as it's off to Wales where Woody, Keef & Charlie have gassed ****
like Churchill planned for Bonn as he thunk toxic gas was fantastic
& normal like switching toothpaste with a gummy resin tree mastic
that's tacky enough to entrap a brown flea but not a ******, fast tick
on Hillary Clinton's saddle-sore ***'s ****-itchy crack iconoclastic
that forces epidemical ****-casting directresses to brutally cast sick
& crippled X-muffers in dramas that are heterophobic & bombastic
& contra-contrary to the T.N.T. needed to nucleate *** & blast hick
to decree '64 as bein' the year of producer Loke Wan Tho's last flick
I am stirred by murmurs of kittens that have daily purred but my fat
cats never bought never sold never used a toilet never spoke a word
as hairy cats are ecstatic to lick hanging parts that are thickly furred
& drenched in muco-pus, river mud, alkaline residue or mouse ****
that's added for spice with green duck gut, snake nose & rotted bird
to commonize felinicidal fare in stitch with farmerettes heatin' curd
to nourish ol' Jimmy Carter robotoid #14 whose death was deferred
to push puppet Lin Forbes Burnham as David Rockefeller preferred
makes recipes valid for McDonald's grinding men into meat absurd
& the cries of ***** smashing periodic squeals into groans unheard
by moon-friendly babes whose quims rest salmon-pink & uninjured
in aspections physico-social via spirographical methods unpictured
regarding cotomaster vulgaris or second-place placers placing third
with ears & belly buttons clogged by **** & blood-shot eyes blurred
Oh **** Kiki Ebsen, let's love forever the dead Larry, Moe & Curly
& their lower Australian counterparts: the scuzzy Fairy, ** & Girly
who gulp milk with hens' eggs knowing that not 1 dairy foe is burly
as I wanna see H.P.V. vaccine-pricking-swine Rick Perry goin' surly
like Squiggy might've on Garry Marshall's show Laverne & Shirley
starring Cindy Williams & Penny Marshall whose teeth ain't pearly,
& who in heels & padded bra passes as the twin of Jo Anne Worley
in 1963 when cream was in glass bottles & menopause started early
enough for Lee Oswald before The Eye Shadows backed Merle Lee
Disney destroyed maternal worries with furnace asphyxiants of gas,
proving that lungs full of carbon monoxide fumes ain't going to last
to see '39 as '38 wafted by in a whiff of monoxidized demise so fast
for those who cartoonize the near-future, animate God's distant past
so as to demand that Rabbi Shimon's Apocalypse tribes be amassed
to pike the head of Charlie Watts as El Shaddai can never be sassed
before a Satanical/congregational flock of U.S.'s pornocratical cast
conjuring underneath a devilishly-****** act's pornographical blast
framed as merry mix-ups the queerest of collusions that flabbergast
regardless of America's oldest race-baitin' ******'s homosexual past
as a Georgia state assembly guy whom toothless ****** outclassed
Whilst masonical N.A.S.A. creates super-speed planets between us,
nobody cares that our 500,000 mile-per-hour sun is paced by Venus
in aether squattin' like California smog in a stab wound of bean pus
that'll render mucho mas gorier the spit-stained walls of a clean bus
driven off the Sunshine Skyway Bridge by a *****-lovin' mean cuss
who aped a weakling diving from tin panels pitched via a lean truss
that constricts **** lard into prime cream corn to make a queen fuss
The costumes of the Gestapo & American cops are black not 'cause
I like hanging out with lynch mobs & ******* ****** in my shack
& writing Bible corollaries after rammin' enemas up my ****** tract
in repugnance to ***-wipe Zbigniew Brzezinski of the Warsaw Pact
as it is Russia's Crimean annexation of 2014 that he's denied as fact
I curl these 10 toes under so they don't get, by a machete, hacked &
I don't date angry Mafia assassins so as to keep from bein' whacked
whilst the pardoning integrity of demi-god mafiosos governs intact,
as sanctity is conferred knowing which cops by the mob are backed
through underworld graft to ensure pig police are doggedly tracked,
framed, extorted, beat up, spiritually broken & emotionally cracked
haunting dank alleys with the hapless citizens they had blackjacked
whose id acuity gave sway to id injury that caused 'em to be sacked
by politicians placed in places as these are places a mob has hacked
with paid-pain-placebo politicos la cosa nostra has placidly backed
& licked, tucked, hocked, blacked, ticked, socked, cocked & tacked
or redacted, corrected, misdirected, uncooked, rooked & shellacked
plus heckled, freckled, prickled, pickled, trickled, kicked & stacked
Las lebianas de T.V. sexcite & thrill as no low caliber gun ever will
on the battlefields of Vietnam where John Kerry liked to run & ****,
before porkin' John Heinz's Satanical widow in a billion-dollar deal
He couldn't kick his habit each mornin' of taking a birth-control pill
or attending parties of talk-show-maggot Donahue to cop a free feel
after crappin' into pizza boxes to implement Lucifer's masonic weal
I forget not from which side my ****, neck-breaking horse I mount:
hormones coursing, **** strap is tight! What in hell am I on about?
I swoon in love, dance over matches, feel *****, steadily lose count
Her cane, her walker, her wheel chair & support hose, quack-quack,
only prove what gigolos have always known, wealthy hags kick ***
in post-menopausal slump on cruise ships ******* apes for a laugh
up my you-know-what that is a big outlet 25 inches north of my calf
whilst allopathic veterinary cat medicine increases misery @ % 7½
because me no understand a tiny bit God's need for famine & wrath
against dullards whose algebra is more mathematic than basic math
that lets me hog-call the glossy-white pig Kathie Lee Gifford: Kath'
after she aborted 3 kiddies under the bridge on the coat hanger path
Many thrillin' Christian facts have just come to light with a colorful
computer-generated face of Lord Jesus, thank God He is very white
so that we may crucify the black Jesus theory without a ****** fight
that'd be the death-kiss for chimps chimping ghetto-ebonics at night
I care for you like a foreign **** with lots of cars in his huge car lot
I know that kitty-soft quims like yours ain't never wholesale bought
I just want to part your pink ******* in bed or on any army cot
I wanna probe the core of your womanhood like your mama taught:
Cousin Jethro, Uncle Jed, André from U.P.S. & that ****** she shot
in cop-crazed self defense as she feared for her personal safety a lot
'cause her husband had to **** Iraqi children in Iraq where he fought
toilet-strain that queered his insane brain giving him queer-brain rot
that bruised his belly button, above primal glands, with a blood clot
big enough to slow Chris Reeve's gallopin' horse to a paralyzed trot
that'd split the greasy 3 hairs on the cue ball of governor Rick Scott
who's a leg-shaving maniac, less frigidly warm than moderately hot
when he enjoys vein-popping-**** straining on his golden **** ***
where-from he farts that it's legal Agenda 21's new-world-order plot
Love me wet, like you loved ****** loving freak Jacques Cousteau
who drowned 350,000 Unitarians via Aqua-Lung, Don't'cha know?
Ah Satan sees Natasha while she'll step on no pets to see juice flow
along direct paths between points A & B, as would fly a sober crow
34 minutes late for an egg-layin' contest & house-cat-skinning show
that we bird-lovin' farts must look up to the sky from hot hell below
where evaporated diarrhea fills Carnation milk cans in a ****** flow
over irradiated breakfast cereal that radiates a healthful, green glow
that'll thaw **** ice & hypothermic ***** on banana cones of snow
I'm better off than dead, not better often dead, Totie Fields, you liar
I won't skate to Ohio whilst my **** is on fire with ****-love desire
Excuse me while I limp to hell, as my leg was pared just after a fire
that makes me hobble to hell after cooking in Gandhi's funeral pyre
The sweet nectar of rector Hector of the Catholic sector gives sway
to conjecture in the Protestant vector as his carotid artery neck tore
The new nectar of Hector rector of the Catholic sector gave sway to
conjecture with an elector of vector 7 as his carotid artery neck tore
As his carotid artery neck tore, a new nectar of rector Hector de the
Catholic sector gave sway to conjecture with an elector of X vector
As his real pecks & neck tore, black neck tar of rector Hector of the
Catholical sector prefecture shot a letcher, a selector & an inspector
With specks of neck gore, the tarry sect tar of trekked-for Hector of
papal facture could catch more than lure ***** ***** on a tech floor
This violent gothical life moved me into a filthy hermit's hut where
it keeps my ***** mouth shut, the limited movement in my left nut
This stupefyin' gothical life dug me into a buried hermit's rut where
it's kept my ***** mouth shut, the poor functionality of my left nut
has kept 666 donkey gobs shut, the campy dysfunctions of a walnut
It's kept my ***** mouth shut, the bad functionality of my hind gut
It keeps my ***** mouth shut, the limited movement in my left nut
It slams my ***** mouth shut, the fun moments of my lard-*** ****
Your pocked *** are 2 flabby people I haven't wanted to meet again
while I'm busy in bee-stung-hive land eating carp bowel & shark fin

DON'T TOUCH MY *** BECAUSE I'M A LESBIAN FOREVER
& ever & no man'll change it because, ****-wise, I'm lesbian-clever
I'll block you soon forever & blacken your eyes & hide your toupée
because I hate you more queerly than prissy Obama hates being gay
with Michael, as he expresses himself better durin' lactation classes
among the hammer-happy Hillary crowd & Bill's ****-****** *****  
that only worsen clownish ***** dunked by red-sock-ducked passes
through to the prostate in lucky, ancient Hugh Hefner ****** sasses
Eddie Money, Johnny Paycheck & Johnny Cash in 32 papal masses
Lord God, let us gaily promote family-oriented regional voter fraud
for a shiksa of the Red Sea whose **** & *** push a solid boater ***
I cocked hitchings to my petcock like a whinin' Alfred Hitchcock in
anticipation of 18 quacked ribs via unpatented Owl **** ***** Sock
as sinus infections purpled nasal-mucopus excreta into an itch pock
Let me scratch your lard *** in peace, a piece of ***, girly hot ridge,
on the farm with lazy Keith, smart-aleck Danny & Shirley Partridge
who refuses to follow hygienical protocols including hand sanitizer
as your glad, toothless Kentuckian chews via a manned-clan incisor
On blood-drenched sheets you scarf Jiff extra crunchy peanut butter forever & want me to love you for it after hurlin' chunky in a gutter
But I got more complex self-respect than blind respect that's simple
for your cheese-spewing-mucopus-heavy-acne-cystical *** pimple
that made Walker McDonald chuck his walker for a steel gimp pole
so that he could pole vault over Bruce Jenner's scrod & shrimp stall
Deeply from the cockpit of my ******'s messy shore I proclaim that
this itchy crack is a filthy treasure by my big ****** ****'s measure
'cause from it venereal-diseased Johns derive lots of carnal pleasure
until their ureters swell shut & good currents of ***** ain't ****-sure
fewer than 6 inches from the **** uretero-pelvic junction's fist core
where M.L.K., junior scratched deeply his pustulating ****** fissure
Shut up hard-*** **** I can buy & sell you whenever I ******* want
Sit there whilst I pray for guidance or I'll kick you for your defiance
Hi, my name's Kandy and I work in a cat house with mucho ******
who are girlfriends of mine plagued by ulcerative, syphilitical sores
made weepy by salts of the briny deep below Jacmel's ocean shores
Insane James Whitmore claims grit poor as he blames **** for what
shames *** sore after eating fried porridge that defied proper storage
Wherever condominiums are posh the battle is delirium vs.delusion
that illustratively eliminates an elusively-shrill illusion of a colossal
cerebral cortex calamity countering cranial, ****-clinching contusion
The gay estrogen king kept his **** well with agents anthelmintical
till he was killed by the girly estrogen king with pills antiparasitical
Algeria, Algeria, I despise you worser than **** films from Nigeria
made by queer-bait crotch crickets afflicted with advanced progeria
that they got from white-phosphorus-bombed kids of peaceful Syria
where Moslemical love thaws the icy hearts of ******* from Siberia
who ran over the Caucasus via Spain's Portuguese peninsula, Iberia
I'm doubly excited about Intact ******* Day I think I am I am sure,
'cause I got a dark cookie doll in raunchy eastern Mexico to live for
which's why the suicidal jump of Evelyn McHale was not vehicular
in traffic flow manual guides, as the crashed car was her stone floor
Commanding Lieutenant William Bligh was the victim of cowardly
mutiny by Acting Lieutenant Fletcher Christian, two years after His
Majesty's Armed Vessel Bounty did sail, 'cause sweaty-palmed freak
Fletch Christian snagged his mutinous, ripped ****** on a bent nail
Don't let's not, not let's don't count on doubt, unsounded into Jersey
where stinking **** #26 is officiously & officially known as **** Z
who'll scrape, bow, prostrate like a girl whose knees shake in curtsy
who'll scrape & prostrate like a lesbian whose **** shakes in curtsy
Look Santa Claus, my purpled *****' knobs are Christ-like & sharp
like push buttons of a dead angel's gaily-strummed, gay-baited harp
Wing Chun my *** up the center line & I'll hide beneath a tarp after
I call first dibs from a toilet, dharma & karma & catfishes kiss carp
I call first dibs from a toilet, dharma & karma & catfish kisses carp
I call first dibs on the toilet! It's daffy dharma over karma or vicky-
verky. Wing Chun my *** up the center line where jerks chaw jerky
I sank to the bottom of your love bucket like mice winning at bingo
for being ******* to cherry wood while houndin' a kid-killin' dingo
Your clingy love has done much to set me free since you lopped off
2 of your straight front limbs to become a crippled, double amputee
during a Jesus-dead Christmas like I don't like it in an ulcerated sea
under the current of a skinny, barbiturated Johnny Cash over for tea
as calculated gastrical absorption rates rate as constants minus a fee
that transmogrifies my sleek, **** **** into the bulbous *** of a bee
what pendulates & undulates below the bend of my lonely left knee
in relation to fly-papered catch-alls & bug zappers in my family tree
where 1 ape wrangler wrangles triangular angles, bangles, spangles
for Christmas like I don't like it because my ******* on ice dangles
whilst fearin' for Winston Smith as to when caged rats/mice fangs'll
avulse eyes & gnaw on his tongue, before weaving nests in his lung
that shall really make it tricky to sing sing-songs he ain't never sung
that'll make it hard to gaily sing sing-songs he ain't never gaily sung
Merry Christmas nice Santa Claus, happy birthday & prepare to die
'cause when it comes to murdering fat men, I'm not the least bit shy
around dippy/daffy ***** too dried out to give it that old college try
outside college because I am the same age while they are a lot older
with bruised head, dented instep, hammer toe & arthritical shoulder
that goes up when I slip down a hill that's got many a loose boulder
to crush Miss Austria even though I once angrily warned & told her
of what's in for tall chicks runnin' ledges in acts dangerously bolder
for beauty queens long in the tooth & **** babes significantly older
whose hottest movements render homely ***** withdrawn & colder
than the homosexy boy-toy lover of Obama pickaninny Eric Holder
from whom I've hid in 32 Kenyan files a blatantly-fraudulent folder
of cheery, cherry Christ Masses reamin' the beheld's queer beholder
Keith W Fletcher Oct 2016
Hello. Although just prior to this time 1 year ago, I had stepped into cyber world-it was on a flipphone so......yeah!
   Anyway exactly 12 months ago i got my first portal key( smart phone) and was immediately overwhelmed like a kid walking through the gates of a Disney park or a teenager walking into the first concert venue or anyone (okay me) walking into my first Colorado "green " grocer.

Anyways something happened and I'm having to redo this my apologies.

     It was on the day before Thanksgiving that I found hello poetry and posted my first poem here. What has ensued in that time has been the best year of my life and the worst year of 28 years I've lived here on this secluded 10 acres in central Oklahoma.
  It is been a great year because of the boost in my spirit and confidencie you have provided,  and the worst year due to the fact that as a remodel carpenter in oil field America, I was left with no work through all of winter January February and beyond. In order to keep my 40 + Wolf Cross dogs alive and myself , I was forced to pawn most all of my tools of trade to get through  that terrible winter with  oil prices so low. (it hurts my hippie soul to say that)  As for the 40+ wolf dogs.... they're a service breed  I created over almost forty years.
   Not a pat on back thing here.  I train and provide them to people who are in need.
   They're also the thing (responsibility ...since I have no other )that has kept me alive all these years
.
They are my personal responsibility and anchor !   Contact me for more info. .PTSD, Autism ,Severe Depression,  Parkinsons etc.

     Don't get  me wrong.  I'm not whining or crying ; in fact, I would not have traded this hard fought year for any amount of money. Truly!!
    So as to the Thank you part.
  I was made boyant by the welcome and appreciation of my work as December sloshed on , so much so that I ;with some trepidation, posted 3 pages of a novel that.had all but abandoned (once again) due to lack of self confidence.
   The feedback was amazing, so in january i posted the first chapter
( prolog) and grew a set ( of standards) haha !!
   Now I'm almost 100,000 words into the rough draft.

  So my HEARTFELT THANKS AND APPRECIATION TO ALL.
  
Those who have read me and commented, those who have read my work and gave it  a like and all you have just read my work.  
  A special thanks  to all of those who have no clue ;at all, as to who I am but post here on hello poetry or come to support by reading  for you are  keeping it a lively and vibrant place for all those who post here!
Thank you.
  The apology part of this comes with a slight deviation for explanation purposes.
   I do hope there are some; if not many ,who will understand when I say - that very often -I put pen-to-paper , write a poem, then I will have to read it to see what I wrote and /or do a self interpretation of.
    Therefore I must say.  "Due to a constant fear of plagiarism ( any form shape or reason)  I refrain from reading other people's works ;while on a writing Jag, such as I have been on since January this year
    Inspiration is a wonderful thing, but - for me- there's a very fine line between that and plagiarism -so I must be sure!

       Simple as that!

  Since that mid-January day when I became convinced that I had viability beyond poetry( due to the comments on my novel pages) I grew in proportion and in that nine months I have not missed a single day of writing- at least one decent poem. 
  Alas, all good things must end and  I was thrown from the saddle two weeks ago.  
    All good,  because now it gives me the opportunity  to read the wonderful works of  others here; who, due to  the manipulation of 26 simple letters are able to  create worlds,  grow Gardens of wonderment,  Forest of enchantment or frightful wickedness and of course ' those who write down the painful or personal words from their heart their souls and sometimes just their reason for being.  
  So to all those here : I apologize for not reading you and commenting as I now wil,, with all sincerity each feedback I give.  (Until the next  writing Jag happens of course),  I am 60 years old soon and I must write while I still can.
 Though I will try to find a balance  now.

   If you have read this to this point ....thank you very much and I will be reading you.

With Peace Love and deep appreciation

                                 .   Keith w Fletcher
Yamuna Turco Feb 2020
I wish
I wish I liked STEM
I perpetuate the stereotype,
women studying English,
and art,
and languages

My love of the arts,
and the humanities,
Is regressing women's history

But it is my right
My right to study art,
and languages,
and theatre

Women's empowerment
And fight for equality,
is so I can study humanities,
and Tiera Fletcher could study rocket science
****** she Wrote?

I only ever saw
Jessica Fletcher
type.
The photos lay in a pile of dust
They’d gathered under the bed,
They’d not seen the light of day for years
Were neglected there, instead,
The wife found them with the first spring clean
And she dumped them in my lap,
‘Who is the ******* the Honda Dream,
And the guy in the leather cap?’

I must have shot her a funny look
As we guys are wont to do,
‘A girl I must have been going with
About twenty before you.’
She picked the photo out of the pile
And she brushed it on her skirt,
I thought, ‘Oh, here we go again,’
Her face said she was hurt.

‘How come I’ve never seen her before,’
She was getting close to tears,
I snatched the photo out of her hand,
‘It must be fifty years!
I can’t recall the time or the place
And I can’t recall her name.’
She punched me once on the shoulder, said:
‘You ought to be ashamed!’

That photo sat on the mantelpiece
And it stared at me for weeks,
A bonny girl with a pouting lip
And the wife gave me no peace.
It was, ‘Just what did you talk about?
What did she used to say?’
I said, ‘I can’t for the life of me
Remember a single day.’

She served the hot-*** up stone cold
And the gravy didn’t move,
I think she mixed it with concrete just
To show she didn’t approve.
I said, ‘I was only twenty then,
That snap was way back when,
We’ve been together for forty years,
Why drag her up again?’

‘You’ve kept her a secret all these years,
That photo, under the bed,
How do I know you’re not in touch?’
I said, ‘She’s probably dead!’
I racked my brains for a memory
But all I could see were thighs,
Pert young ******* and a petticoat
And a twinkle in her eyes.

But still I couldn’t recall her name
Or a single word she’d said,
Only the scent of her sweet young breath
As we rolled in her parents bed,
She’d clung to me on the pillion seat
As her skirt flared out, and streamed,
Down at the back of Fletcher’s Wood
On the back of the Honda Dream.

‘I want to know what you did with her,
Though it doesn’t matter now.’
(I’d fallen for one of those tricks before,
The wife’s a devious cow!)
I thought of the day the fun had gone
When we lay, looked up at the sky,
‘Ah, now I remember what she said,
One word, just one… Goodbye!’

David Lewis Paget
Keith W Fletcher Oct 2016
Keith W Fletcher
Nov 27, 2015


Deny that you try
to be
Something that you're really not
And you will find
That the downward spiral....is infectious
With no cure for it
And no serum
To protect us
The spiral will go viral
Spreading like wildfire
Across ...the dry-parched
Landscape
Slapping you down
Trapping you with the sound
Of
Your own voice
Crying out from the wilderness

Do you really want to obsess ...
....on something...that
you don't really need to possess
Is is really so important
That you'll give up on yourself
To become a mannequin
Dressed up and standing in..
...the window
As
People go walking by
Glancing at you as they go

Do you think they really know?
Do you think they really care?
About all the things...you....
.....decided ..to sacrifice
In order to get yourself here

Nobody has to be the perfection of
A false identity
Unless
There is nothing else
That they can see
Is... as ...important as
The fantasy
That they keep building up
In.the wilderness
Where they hear their own voice
Calling out.....come to me....
Come to me --come to me
And I will show you who it is....
That you are ....supposed to be
And I will.give you everything
THAT.....YOU......DESIRE

If you can grab it ---you can have it
Then you can stand
In the window
As people keep on walking by
Believing that
You are
Someone to admire
But the dry parched landscape
And the downward spiral
Of all your false dreams
Is always being wiped clean
By the spreading wildfire
While the people ..just keep on
Walking by.....going places
LIVING REAL LIVES
While the mannequin in the window
Keeps watching
From the same spot
Still denying
That they're trying
To be --something that...
They're really not
Something that they're really not.
Ken Pepiton Feb 2022
Delta dark desert sound
-tic swa gwa

Dismal swamp,
Slew of despond, splash

Hence, come, foul self, stinky-kenny,
ah
yes, time chance,
net-neti, meta all o'that mental ascent
to step away

think the whole dammed thing that has been
undammed, some time ago, at least half
a revelation measure, past the half
hour of silence.

Prep-work. What good can-
versus what good am-            

I, quests in op
portunate position, we

suppose, ah, sudden we, who
knew?
A laugh, once shared,
numb
ness, lifts an edge from the deck,
ness, edge ness in essence of pearling
the action
growing as knowing, sudden-- su su per

personal ize, I am, as a thought,
I am, meta-cognosis, you know
what I mean,

400 words made the cat in the hat,
who lives in your head,
where who philosophy is widely read.

These whos lack electricity,
so their reality depends on mutual re
alization, realizing personal worth
if good is all we need at the moment,
we have
plenty, plenty terror and greed, and rotten
hearts full of treasured straw, for bricks,
some day,
all our idle words accounted for

waking new, all the straw spun to gold,
thread about as wide
as a spider's kite,
sliding light.

Did I not? I remind me,
learn that in a mind, we
find numbed from before, knowing,

knowing, too soon, too late, boomers, all, did.

Don't we think we read the same **** & Jane,
oh, yeah, glory days,
the ways we were so-- numbed
by the music, yeah, more than drugs

from then to now, 2022, a blur, too fast
to matter, but for the wind, twist to last

chance, drink or prime the pump,
well, improving, our arrangement, give me
to drink,
and lo'
you, know the other had eyes, he saw as we
see, you knew, instant- life is living.
The act we all do, redundanced, on flat earth,
the xy axis of ordered arrangement of tools,
a place for everything, and every thing
in its place, we breathe,
and have our being in the life zone known,
so far,
so good,

the day is half done… numbness, funny unmissed
appointment, values are about to be dis
cussed, as causes accused of war crime, or plain
lying about duty to children,
lying about worth to children,
lying about ever after to children reared as tools,
servants to God's servant,
who relies on us, the poet's, primarily -

who read the runes, and ken certain tones,
attached to the tips of all tongues pfft pfft
phugedaboudit, whack
what were we thinking,

This is 2022, 12:27, I have been AI reminded,
faithful follower of instruction, immune to praise,
worth the effort forced on an old man, after
ever had well begun, a glory run, down
the backroads, with double yellow lines,

a white feather in my cap, they call it macaroni
poetry, it speaks in tongues of angels,

messages, sagacity fluidly puddling in wu-wow
same same see, somethings we
see same
some not same re
alizing, more or less, I am alone, I am talking
to my self,
anticipating your reading, as then unclaimed,
your reading your writing is our effort to fully function,

Branching, crystaline, flux in the frontal formation.
edging into knowing your, wondering

who can say what we think we know, better
than the idea used to think of Jesus, comforting
little boy, me.

Comfort is the only point we share,
for sure, we know comfort,
when we feel it, first rush,
under my made from-ol'Levis quilt
on a cold desert night, at the edge

of night, listening, eyes, adjusting,
blue glow, so faint, sobbing, listen, Perry Mason
Bailiff saying, muted through the door to you,
do you
swear to tell the truth,
the whole truth, and, {ah, the pain}
nothing but the truth?

AI ai ai, ritual sacred child, hapt to happen,
about a billion times, one time, split,

half know, half know not.
What is not a factor, words, were
never fit to inquiry, curiosity was missing,
promised apo
- I may, so I say apollo is a multi
- meta mete essence appolo so loco, si

logic assumes too much. You know too little,
ah, we have the app that's apt,

to make you think, strange arrangements seem
familiar, this is a mental labyrinthine design imagined
evocative experientially, a
be coming to being

kinda fruitless, really, without the womb, which was
oversight, civilizations
with goddesses have more womb sense,
than ones with pride conflicted all male propensities,
due to pride bred into the princes,
sorted as in Sparta, on the playing fields from Eton
to the universal concept of Friday Night in High School,

anywhere on earth, its all
the same,
scene, true trope, fit to the story of nextifity, loosely

more of the same, or do do we use the utility we realize,
this is
way cool for a future, from 1965… we were kids,
first TV Top-Forty Movies in color, all the time, from
conception, on Blueberry Hill,
-- the old order,
Frank Capra, Esquire/*******,  modality, mode, set,
films function to reimpress, in like Flint, pokem, say
Jack thinks like Goldfinger,
pointedly
-- we are dedicated mind universal soulds for the data
model American leaders of tomorrow,
shaped to excel. We taught the AI,
how to think like a mortal, go on, think, how go
changed nothing, no meaning to strategy of least
win, lightest weight that sways the worth,
to more than one can manage, alone,
eh… interesting…-
good for goodness sake, kerplunk the crack
leaks acidic madness, laughing

we stop lying, confusion
settles, similar to cream in sap too hot,
oil on water, cold water to a thirsty sould era soul.
… good
due to lack of fore thought, some agree,
after the act functioned and created something
-- jump cut===

First cousins, teach the second cousins
rules at the family reunion,


King, we call this, guy.
Biggest guy, on our side, and he owns the field,
we play on; and he says we need never grow up,
only old; he shall contain all our cares,
as a metaphor, yes after all is, and this guy, this holds it.
-The scepter, big stick, we see, looking close, zoom in

So we can think about it, meta co gnosis
when two or more minds agree to let this mind
seem important to you, import the idea
this mind weighs most worth serving, holding
such slight strands of spider kites, go,
make it self evident, stick to hold,
see
we work
good, he feeds us better, we work bad, he makes us
better.

Ah. Patterning, turtle shell sonic signs in sand,
some thing, we imagine, common aphorism,
turtles, so happy together,
at the core of the pearling algorithm that keeps
us rolling on,
so happy together, no matter

whether thought or thing, I think I love you,
if you know what I mean, said the little blue man,
from the radio,
really I think my entire generation heard some songs
and have images unimaginable prior to the event,
we admit,
there was a deal conceived, code, to open minds,
in time to reconnect

-Doris Day, the Saturday Matinee star,

singing
I love you I love you said the little blue man,
I love you I love you to bits.
I love you I love you said the little blue man
And scared me right out of my wits

From <https://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/d/dorisday/blueman.html#!>

We get that a lot. Said the imp.
You lost the aim, eh, happy, right,

I had a friend named Happy, he is dead, in a way that hurts
to know. So,
it could be, I don't say may be, in this state, that can incur
unintended consequences and this is tendentious enough
already,

we calling out the holy orders,
serious as what,
serious as serious is, sin qua non say, the only thing
that matters,

worst case, trolly dealy-bob scenario, test cases attest to,
what do normal people do,
what do people believing this or that lie, do?

What did you do? You read this line. Thank you. Made the diff…

-Group Therapy, Secure

We have not been taught well, but to obey

G'wan, talk nice, to people who don't read,
say, hey, d'jyewever re'ken, we was lost,
in books,
we never read, but tested as if we did?

so much so
no mind can find the bag,
with all our first valued things, sort of jumbled
in the bag with unsorted curiosities,

things we were told to read,
for our own good, but we did not read,

I can imagine, the feeling,
a visitation, actual factual feeling of thinking
I hear a voice, a word, I think
I hear a word, no vision, revisionist powerpoint,
read this, flaming finger pointing
says the witness of record,

later,
maybe I saw a bright light reminding me,
read, but I did not, I could not
can you imagine, I could have,
whose the shame,
- cover head to toe, oh, right, yeah
- secret only the holiest discern
- you shall know them by what
- shames a man to think
- you shall neve know…

my wife, could read,
she could have caused me to desire reading,
to obey the angel, nay

the story, as I was told, I'm telling you,
that guy never learned to read, instead,

some wealthy merchant, dealer in knacks and spice,
fine temple linens, and comforting silks and satins,
prolepsistically provided a ready writer, a scribe

blessed is usually the name history gives this scribe,
baruch or some sound meaning receiver.

Raw hear the muttering prophet, and say, write
this is what truth says truth is if nothing else is.

Ok… 2022

A word, lawyer calls you aside to ask if you know
your judgements have begun,

-you had not thought this your judgement,
then you read another line and feel you wonder
why?

We think, we think the same actual idea, that a
voltairian autoexamined lexicon might,
- ai-ght,
given the tech,
these tools, plus absolute negation of any previous,
assumed and acted on asif,
nullifity on costs, forgive us our, click
FTA take it,
run, as in keep the pace, run
Graeber plug Debt: The First 5000 Years
make it
plain claim
to any debt defined for you, make plain
divine rights due to worshippers, whose worth is
the air they breathe,

in which we live, and have our being.

Enjoying using use, where once we
utilized, life, as if unrealization is
as
real we inadvertently realized.
Right use ness.
Sweet, suasion is always sweet, per or pro, happy
is a fine word
to take the spiritual edge off blessed.
Sigh.

Wonderworks is working wonder in me,
another plug for Anghus Fletcher ? is it
The Power of Invention

I say, worth the attention,
it costs to listen, and recall asking what
does that mean,
-VA reminder login- live ding

value, the group is meeting to speak of values,
these are broken veterans,
I am in their group, a little, by design, I asked
to be included,

edged my way in, to wonder, why these guys,
are angry,
and thirsty, as am I, we recall prime the pump
or slake the thirst to say, hey,

do you read, at all? Any signal from the noise
saying
define, sift and sieve, sort your terminal points,

what hold has value, for all of us, in your reality?

Within the system, this is mortal awareness
acknowledgment, same as existentialism was
imagined to be in in Sixties univers-ifity, post 65,

we were barely alive, GDIs, then Ken went to
Vietnam, same day as Pooso Perez,

Pyro went, too, he came back the same.

Ifery was, is a class of phrases, which when
wished as a child might, were

as near as real as any ae ea ai ia utterance we
gulp- yodleee, shamballaballa shaka
zulu'd, to quote Creflo,
ahem,ake it so
cough to clear the back of my throat,
-then I yawn
and that does it, soothes the crick
with sounds t d b vck rr ff llll mmmmnnn o o o
you knew you knew,
the book
spells it out,
secret meanings mean nothing to unknowers,
stretch it
so it is, we know, what the records show, the open
records of the water and the rocks,

witness
the wind returning
on circuits, set to melt
the ice, gradually, this time,
a degree above solidity, just edging sublimity,

liminal laminal lick, a measure, tip
of your aimer, to tip
of your thumb,

ha, the thumb that bends, always wins,
look it up, always, by an inch.

Rule of thumbs, my kind are good to breed into,
good, to feel friend-ish,
as friends are fewer than brothers,
and fewer still shall survive the confusion,

inevitable, when a dam breaks, the valley
does flood,

ah, see. from Sedona, look north, once,
that was all mud, ****** dry by winds
that carved the navel of the life we
think, real,
from stories told by those who knew

something bad could always happen,
when the world encountered a rock
that said, all that can be shaken,

shakes, no look out, just
blame-oh-shame- boom

what now?
Numb again, off and on. Think.
Thanks.
Keith W Fletcher Dec 2019
Keith W Fletcher Dec 2015
Twas the flight before christmas
Twas the night before Christmas
And all through the house
Not a creature was stirring
Not even a computer mouse
All of the people and pets
Were nestled in bed
Waiting for a fat man
In a flying -reindeer sled
Just as I ventured
To slip off to sleep
A noise -- maybe a clatter
Was heard from the street
I ran to get me a view
Opening the window
I put my head through

Down on the corner
Across from the jail
A fat drunken bearded man
Was singing off key
Merry Christmas to all you boys
I hope ya all make it out without fail

The kettle had just enough money
To make my  own flippin bail
I was annoyed  so I yelled down
Go home you soppin santa --you stinkin clown
GO HOME-
So the real Santa might actually appear
F* off you a hole he yelled back
As he popped open a beer
I am the real santa you * head
Then he sorta suggested
My reindeer flew off when I was arrested
Mrs. Clause is so cold
Them elves is lucky they don't get molested
But if you're worried ya won't get your gift
Then get your dumba  down here
And give me a lift
Hastily dressing I wondered
If anyone else might have heard
But the way they were snoring
Obviously they heard not a word
Grabbing a jacket I picked up my keys
Went out to take this crazy drunk home
So that he won't freeze
When I finally found him
It way back behind the dumpster
Where he was tossing his cookies
Being eyeballs by two coppers
Who looked like a pair of rookies
"COME ON " I pleaded  " lets get you home"

He peered at his wristwatch"sh* he exclaimed
I'm supposed to be delivering  gifts in Maine
He clumped into my new Volvo --stinking of *****
"A Volvo" he sneered why couldn't you drive a Ford ..comet
Then he mumbled some words below his stale breath
And my car floated up in the air  -- scaring me to death
He yelled out commands as my car shot forward
"Rides pretty nice" he muttttered" but not as nice as a Ford"
     "On Volvo .. On Volvo .. On ..oh heck .. Just hook a left
   No nonono I mean right
Then he yelled out the window
MERRY(buuurp) CHRISTMAS TO ALL AND TO ALL A GOOD EFFEN
NIGHT.    ** **. Cough cough Hoooo!!

— The End —