While sitting as one
in my grandfather’s chair
Gunsmoke on screen
a Dodge City affaire
Saturday night
as two spirits entwine
Matt Dillon to marshal
— our hopes redefined
(The New Room: December, 2025)
Marshall Dillon in Gunsmoke
Clint Eastwood as Rowdy Yates in Rawhide
Paladin Have Gun will Travel
John Wayne in bunches of westerns
the pattern was easy....
The cowboys always win
Hero wears a light hat
Villain is stuck with black hat
Indians never win
TV in the 60’s gave me new terms
Dance hall girl, sage brush, wagon train
I reminisce about the wild west I know
Jessy James the scourge
Of the west
Not many out laws
would pass this test
A name like Dillon and Billy the Kid
Became legends for what they did
Nero an emperor the scourge of Rome
Though cries of history
The fire his own
He then built a palace
and Coliseum well known
The place of malice
And a martyrdom throne
Adolf Hittler was a scourge
A scourge of the Jews
No biblical knowledge
By usurpers he was used
An exterminate no less
But I digress
A tool of the Sovereigns
mysterious test
Another scourge
for the methods he used
Joseph Stallin was verily accused
Another of the signs
Where God would use
To stiffen and to chase
a remnant of the Jews race
The Bible a scourge and nothing less
It’s Revelation of the world
Despised as progress
The end of time and Gods success
We must confess
The end of this mess
Proceed to glory
While other digress
Putting faith they claim to the test
Saving soul of the faithful
Leaving others bereft.
Too Much TV
David J Walker
I imagined
a grand theme song
And the applause
of a capitative audience
A clever line or two and then
The laugh track
Of an amused
though admittedly
phantom audience
I was as quick as
Dick VanDyke
And as light
on my feet
as Danny Kaye
as heroic
and stoic
as Matt Dillon in
Dodge City
And as good looking as
Ricky Ricardo
I knew every answer
Before it was asked
On What’s My Line
And fooled every panel on
To tell the truth
Every time
And it would not be long
Before my made-up song
Would debut on
The Ed Sullivan Show
TURN OFF THE TV
AND FINISH YOUR HOMEWORK
Hollard Mom a thousand times
And she would holler it
a thousand more
before
I was out the door
And on my way to
A career
In TV
news
No laugh track
No applause
Just the blues
Of another day
On your 10 O’clock news
So, yes
I grew up watching
Too much TV
Didn’t you?
Before they used computer chips
and printed circuits too,
TVs worked with different parts
like capacitors and tubes.
Our neighbor was a repairman
and he was quite adept,
he'd given me an old TV
to satisfy a debt.
I wrestled it to the basement,
put some rabbit ears on top,
plugged it in an outlet,
and on the floor I plopped.
Our Philco was a color set
but here I'd rather be,
watching shows all day long,
just me and my TV.
Twilight Zone, my favorite show,
could always make me shiver.
How about the lone masked man
and his trusty steed named Silver!
And don't forget the Cisco Kid,
Matt Dillon, Doc, or Kitty,
Perry Mason was the best,
and wasn't Della pretty.
I laughed at guys named Gleason,
Kovacks, Berle and Benny.
And one guy who was really cool
I think his name was Lenny.
Good things, they say, always end,
and I say this with a sigh,
in the middle of my best year yet
the TV up and died.
That summer stays inside my head,
now you know the reason.
I won't forget the thrills I had
in my first TV season.
An old black and white movie
took me back to my childhood
when cowboys rode the range
Major Adams and Flint McCullough leading the Wagon Train,
and Hopalong's ten-gallon white hat
rode the brim of John Wayne's stagecoach in back;
with Roy and Dale saving every day
as Tonto and the Lone Ranger hi-ho silvered away;
Gil Favor and Rowdy Yates blazed the Rawhide trails
as Ben, Adam, Hoss, and Joe laid the Ponderosa tails;
The Mavericks never bet against The Rifleman and Gunsmoke truths
while Wyatt Earp, Matt Dillon, and Bat Masterson made the law fool-proof,
the Rebel and The Restless Gun kept horses ever on the run
and Cheyenne, Davy Crocket, and Daniel Boone
fought both Indians and Trappers without showdowns at noon
those western stars of early radio and television shows after school.
These were the stories of so many heroes, villains and more jewels
the cowboys and cowgirls, and their horses too
revived the west for the fifties youth,
a blast from the past
of the fading western stars.
Here lies the outlaw James Dillon
Most of all he needed killin'
The posse made of twenty souls
Buried him here shot full of holes
4-11-19
Contest: Epitaph to Make Us Laugh 2
Sponsor: Jesse Rowe
BEAUTY
~~~~~~~~~~~
Your feelings, like silence disguised by sound.
Climb your mental mountain there beauty will be found.
It is in the mirror every time you view,
what you see is beauty, what you see is you!
Now your up there you have to shout it to the world
You always have been, now let your beauty be unfurled.
He was a straight-laced lawman,
who went strictly by the book
Before he took any criminal gunsmoke down,
he would give them
his best Marshall Dillon righteous look
Said he would always give them a fair trial
Just one of the rules his daddy lawman taught him
He could still hear the words
echoing from yesteryear ...
no matter how many bullets he took:
A good cop is always obligated
to try to save a crook
His granddaddy said it was the humane thing to do
He was a fourth generation tin star,
a badge of honor held in high esteem
by his family
Many a county folk said,
he was the best lawman to come down the line
Had the fastest gun
this side of great grand’s lightning moonshine
And with the coming sunset legacy,
he heard all the retirement tales —
Even the fastest draw
has to slow down at some point,
and rest a spell
So he patted his son on the back,
and passed the Colt 45 revolver baton
The fifth finger on the hand,
raised rightly
to be the next family lawman
By Jenny Dillon
As I reach my arms out to you
As trees sway in the summer breeze
As our love begins to brew
As treasured memories come to me with ease.
If only you were real
And not a person in my dreams
If only you could feel
Were nothing is as it seems.
If someone mildly represented thee
If you were as true as the buttercups
If you were not a fantasy
We’d walk together with our heads up.
If I could take you on a date,
We’d take our chance at luck and fate.
02/08/17
first came Matt Dillon
later on came Joe Friday
they're two true lawmen
You Only Live Once is apparently my generations motto,
Its why she feels so hollow.
God damn girl, i used to be your man girl!
now i can pick up a magazine anywhere around the world, and see a full spread picture of the girl that used to be my world.
You only live once don't you get it!
So do all of these drugs! yeah! I know you won't regret it!
Now my friend is dead, and i bet you wish you hadn't said it.
You only live once and then your dead!
Of course you should let that random girl give you head!
Now my friend has herpes and he wishes he was dead,
because his girlfriend let him when he ****ed that girl instead.
You only live once Ben come on don't you remember?
Isn't that what you told Dillon that November?
Isn't that what you told Brittney to convince her to take those pictures?
Is that what you told Ryan when he told you that his dick hurt?
You only live once, so don't try and live all at once.
There was a day on TV
Where westerns were all the rage
You could take your pick
From your TV paper page
Together our masked hero the Lone Ranger
With Tonto kept outlaws in a spin
Have Gun Will Travel was the card
For black dressed professional gunfighter Paladin
Wagon Train kept rolling along
Seth Adams the leader
Flint McCullough chief scout
Old Charlie Wooster was the feeder
Rawhide kept the cattle moving
Gil and Randy kept control
In Dodge City it was Gunsmoke
Marshall Matt Dillon was key role
On the ponderosa it was Bonanza
Where Ben Cartwright was the boss
With his family of three boys
Adam, little Joe and Hoss
Wells Fargo was the stagecoach
Where Jim Hardie was the star
Now these are only some
For they were many more by far
They were the Virginian and the Rifleman
Laramie, Maverick and Cheyenne
The High Chaparral not to mention alias Smith and Jones
These made us all a fan
Cowboys where are you?
Memories of you is our lot
On TV we can’t see
Is this our last shot?
poetgord@2013
Dillon
I wish that I had only
got a chance to say good-bye
i wish I could of taught you
my favorite lullaby
I wish I could of been there
cause maybe you'd be here
to save me from the sorrows
that burn away the tear
you are my greatest treasure
and I know somewhere in the sky
you are looking down upon me
waiting for the day when I
will look toward the heavens
knowing we must be apart
yet smile up toward you
cause your still here in my heart
By: Jeremy Siedlecki
the horse hunkering
rain drenched muddy
up on the hill ears down.
Theme: HORSE
Bob Renard
Constance’s Contest entitled:
Horses or Snowflakes or Horses and Snowflakes Poetry Contest
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