Looking Back

They're all gone, or going"the Entertain Group, that is: with their movies, novels, boxing, poetry and songs: folks like Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, the Beatles and soon to be the Rolling Stones...Rick Nelson, Neil Diamond, the Fleetwood's, and Sonny James, Buddy Holly, and the Everly Brothers...

And the cowboys: like Johnny Cash, Tex Ritter, Red Foley, Johnny Horton, Conway Twitty, and Eddie Arnold with his, 'Cattle Call,' yes folks like that, and they're not all going to Heaven, just because people want to think the best; it's not the way it is...Merle Haggard, Marty Robbins; they all had more sins than I could count...our heroes...how and what do we teach our children, when this is all we got...

And the rhythm and blues boys, from way down south, like J.T. Hooker and Nat King Cole...cool, but that's about it; call it culture, but in a hundred years or so, when people look back, what then my friend? 'Crap.'

And the writers who had so much trouble with booze, like William Faulkner, Earnest Hemmingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald (and Mary Renault, a lesbian); they were all in my time...now looking back...; nothing like nowadays, with the crap they write...

And the poets, like: Robert W. Service, Robert Bly, Carl Sandburg (I remember him in grade school), and Frost, and Donald Hall, Cesar Vallejo, and Georg Trakl, Dylan Thomas, Clark Ashton Smith, George Sterling, and Dennis L. Siluk...Siluk, did I say Siluk...woops...what did they write, was it right?

The movie stars, like John Wayne, and Natalie Wood; Brando, and Randoff Scott; Rock Hudson, and James Dean, they all influenced the scene, not thinking of the harm they could do to the many; mostly money, money and more money...and there was plenty...the devil pays well...

The Boxers that kept us eye to eye on every punch, like, Joe Louis, Clay, and Norton, Frazer and Listen...Dempsey, all punks, from the block...wanta-to-bees, and became heroes to some of us... I remember them all...I was there...there when each and everyone fell, fell, and fell hard...

They all fought so hard to make it to the top, what was up there? Besides whores, booze, and drugs? Money, money"yes, but did they find God? Most lost their family and souls, somewhere along the way. Some ended up in Timbuktu, or in some off the wall small apartment, all alone. If they left any money, most of their children now are spending their fortunes and acting like fools. What a life.

And what is left, not much out there but a bunch of cream-puffs; what happened to the family?

And the wars and presidents: I was around for the Korean War, in Vietnam, and now three in the roll: the Prison Gulf I and II, and Afghanistan. There will be more of course, right around the corner; terrorism is not going away; not yet, not today. It will bring in the rest of the fools out there to have their say. Presidents and Kings, and folks from the United Nations, and France and England, Russia for sure and China the Bulldog from Asia, will all have their day, their say: we are just waiting for the countdown to Armageddon; it's not all that far off in the distance; not very far away.

As I look back, there really isn't much more to say, but we had a good ol' time, a hell of a day, in the USA; I wonder what God will say [?]

Dennis Siluk

Writing is more than a hobby for me. It's a passion, one of the ways I capture and celebrate life.