Keeping Read in Prison

(A Poem out-of Huamancaca Prison, Huancayo, Peru)

By Poet Laureate, Dr. Dennis L. Siluk

 

Dr. Siluk standing inside the gates of the prison grounds, and at one of the seven libraries inside the prison!

I don’t know how to say it.

You think of inmates in prison

As bumblers, what else?

Why, who’s to say—?

Why didn’t the car start!

We got on the wrong train?

Went to the wrong meetings?

Perhaps I’m speaking lowlife,

But the ‘why’s’ are a deep open

Window: —but satisfying.

I visited the Huamancaca prison

Went to its seven small libraries,

It’s time now to pull up the rug.

Drag out the books, pile them high!

(see what’s really happening…)

You’ll see how hungry they are for

Learning; these inmates they don’t

Want to hang apples, paint sheds,

They want to read, much is lost in

Explaining this; but when I was

There, I gave out 100-books…

They were all ready—the inmates

That is—were all ready to read them—

Johnny on the spot…!

Books to them were like, lifeboats, —

Their bookcases will explain this!

Perhaps you could send them one!

      No: 4837/9-21-2015

Written six and a half hours after visiting the prison

Special thanks to the following people: Lic. Jose Herrera, Director of the INPE, Mr. Andres Rojas, Warden of the Prison, Miss Liss, Secretary, and the staff there.                 

A View on Today’s Abortion

Women, who have had an abortion, are now protesting that our Federal Government not provide funding for it, it’s about time.  When I worked with women in prison, as a counselor, back in the ‘90s, every woman who had an abortion regretted it. One of the questions they’d ask, and per near all asked it, ‘Where did my baby end up, in heaven or hell!’ it sounds strange to get such a question like that, I explained the biblical essence of the question to them concerning the child, being an Ordained Minister along with a licensed counselor, I had the credentials to do so; even if the BOP didn’t like it. And that gave them some comfort. Melissa Ohden, I give her credit for standing up to this horrific practice.  When my oldest child went for an abortion, I heard about it within hours of her having it.  I called up the abortion clinic, asking to talk to her,  you can guess which one I was at, the most renowned, we’re talking over 30-years ago; anyhow they said they’d not let me in to talk to her because I’d talk her out of it, she was 16-years old.  I was paying child support at the time, and demanded to be allowed this right, and I even went to the Minnesota Governor’s office, to no avail.  And went to the clinic, and they said, she was now in the process of the abortion, so it was of no use for me to disturb the process. I have long believed these clinics are on a one-way street, a profit making business to say the least.  When another of my daughters was with child—in the 90s, a social worker ask me to allow an abortionist-nurse to talk to her on such a procedure, she was also quite young and under my care, and I said not before I do.  And now that child is 22-years old, and loves his mother dearly. This Planned Parenthood is right out of Hell’s deep abyss. Obama is for it, the Pope is against it, most everyone I know who had one, regrets it, why do we fund it?  Over a half million abortions a year, God forbid, will America ever be purged from its reckless behavior! And what will be her consequences?

Dr. Dennis L. Siluk

9-10-2015

Torpid Old Men

    

 

For  the old man, the old man it is not good

To be with other old men, more than he should!

He is a beautiful object, or thing,

And his place is in the circle of young folks—

Counted down in decades and generations.

And all looking up to the patriarch

With filial reverence, keeping him warm by

Their own youthful baring youth. Thus:

Giving him freshness of thought and feeling!

All at ease, as if the essence was naturally

Born to his heart. His wisdom mellow,

More gentle and generous.

But if left to himself, expect the opposite, he

Grows old, selfish, not beautiful, ugly,

Mean and torpid; and once he becomes

All this, he becomes a stranger in the world

He lives, he becomes unamiable…

#4826/9-5-2015

By Dennis L. Siluk, Dr. H.c. ©copyright, 9/05 

Tribute to Kathleen Kirlin

To the passing of a (a tribute):

Dear High School Alumni friend of mine, Kathleen Kirlin

(Died, age 68, 2015): from the Yearbooks, 1964 & 1965, she writes:

“Chick, congratulations on getting that award

…you really deserved it. It sure has been nice seeing you in the halls always getting that smile & ‘Hi’. Luck to you always & the best to you as you deserve it.    

Luck, Kathy Kirlin, 1965

“Chick, to a swell guy. The best of luck to you in everything you do.

Have fun this summer & always keep smiling (sure looks good).

God bless you. Love & luck. Kathy Kirlin,’ 1964

…

From the Heart, know this: Like a great flood, death carries away a sleeping or awaken village Like to like: hence, seized by the End-Maker, there is no protection. Thus, knowing this fact should make clear right quickly, the path leading to peace with God. And so I had always felt with Ms. Kathleen Kirlin, during those far-off days of my High School years, she always knew this Long before I discovered it. My prayers are with her.  … 

Dennis L. Siluk, Dr. h.c.

PS.- In part inspired by writings within the Dhammapada.