The Harrowing of Scooter Emerson

A Short Synopsis of "The Harrowing of Scooter Emerson"

2010-03-26T13:58:00.002-05:00

As I approach the hard beginnings of my new novel, The Harrowing of Scooter Emerson I am beset with apprehension. This will be unlike any book I have ever written. It is a scary scenario to say the least. The reason I am having so much trouble even beginning it is because of its capability of wrenching my heart aside and drop kicking it into the pain and anguish of self criticism. Why in the world would I say something as unorthodox as that is probably running through the thoughts of anyone reading this. I will attempt to explain.

The Harrowing of Scooter Emerson is about a man about to die. He isn't just going to die; Scooter will be executed by the state for his dreadful crimes against it. Scooter was a serial killer; rather Scooter is a serial killer, because he dreams of being free to continue with his chosen profession. As the minutes tick toward midnight on his last day on earth there come, for him, a miracle, for the citizens of the state is a catastrophic happening. Scooter's lawyers have, just minutes before execution made his a free man. Free, not just a reprieve, he will be set free because of the prosecutors' tampering with, and concealing evidence.

Scooter is ready. He has sat on death row for ten years dreaming of this day. He has plans to go on a killing spree this nation has never seen before. As he lay in the hotel room one of his lawyer has rented for him he things of her in the next room, for the lawyer is a woman, and a beautiful one. Just what he needs to kick off the plague he intends to impose on an unsuspecting nation. As he walks into her room, sent there by blood-lust, there comes a conversation with his intended victim that confuses Scooter and makes him pause just long enough for the lawyer, her name is Ellen Haak, to confound him to the point that it is she who takes over as the dominant one in that room, it is she who will take Scooter and guide him through a hell he has never realized was possible and still go on living. Ellen goads him, softly encourages him and outright dominates him fro time to time as she not so gently guides him to where she wants him; face to face with his own immortal soul.

After The Beginning

2010-03-16T09:39:00.003-05:00

whispered words send wordless,

insensitive revulsions throughout me

I sense a slight pressure inside my chest

lift a hand to touch, rather than look

listen with every ounce of intensity I can muster

I hear nothing

not even my feather-light breathing

or the breathing of others

it's dark here

one flickering candle

as though the wind makes it so

but there is no wind inside these four walls

only my breathing

which is so shallow

if I were to close my eyes

you might think me quite dead

I am not dead

not really

though I'm of the opinion

I've been dead and resurrected to this place

to fight forces unknown to mortal man

who knows for how long

days? weeks? maybe years?

It is the witching hour

I burn the candle in its unholy honor

I've discovered they prefer

candle softness

to what has resulted from that lightning rod

me too

I sleep during the day

arise to give the night its due

why was I chosen for this experiment

this diabolical, twisted experiment

driving me into madness

it has succeeded

I am mad

I surrender to its madness.

I burn the candle to write this down

maybe someone will read and understand

my mortal combat with immortal things

I've climbed the treacherous Mountain of Betrayal

holding on, trying not to slip

into the Faint Moans of Anguish ravine

though bloodied, more dead than alive

I held on to Shattered Hope

it would save me

but no

I was deceived by Wickedness

it laughed at my folly

I stomped on Broken Hearts

but there were more than I could possibly . . .

I've clawed and ripped

with my teeth

I've fought with bloody results

Drowning Libidos and Fearful Egos

accompanied with sorrow that I have come to this

dreadful hags harassed me

when I found moments, blessed quiet moment

diabolical howls from Hades' Hounds

prodded me onward

forever onward

toward the next struggle

Love Destroyed, a formidable foe

rescued by the Child of Innocence

then

Minds Unstable finally, completely destroyed me

oh, I know

I am not destroyed

I know I have other trials to face

I don't know if I am up to it

I am a beaten man

what justice is there

keeping this nightmare alive

©March 16, 2010 / Jerry Pat Bolton

FINALLY! Ram Slade, Shamus is Published

2010-03-08T19:37:00.003-06:00

This is the cover of my new book, Ram Slade, Shamus. The story is set in the year 1944 and centers around Ram's secretary, Luv (short for Loretta Ula Vargas), who quit working for him after five years, her faked suicide and eventual disappearance. As Ram begins his investigation into the strange happenings he becomes deeper and deeper involved in the case where nothing seems to be what it really was and no one is who then are supposed to be.

He teams up with Layne Fuentes, a reluctant homicide detective in pursuit for the apparent captive Luv. Everything that makes a hard-boiled detective story workable is in Ram Slade, Shamus including beautiful women, gun molls and, as Ram calls them, street weasels and hoods of all kind. Each layer of evidence he uncovers in his quest to find his ex-secretary only leads to more mystery and confusion. Bea, a new secretary causes to the turmoil within Ram's thoughts, plus Mandy, a gangster's wife who ask him to hide her from her husband. In desperation he turns to an influential ex-client of his who owes him a favor to find Luv.

A page turner is Ram Slade, Shamus . . . Ram Slade, Shamus

Talk Radio

2010-02-17T16:50:00.004-06:00

What can you say? Plenty, actually, if you are a political junkie, which I am not, although I keep up with the situation in Washington and around the world as best I can. I am not learned in the intricacies of political skulduggery, although I am better now that I used to be. Thanks in large part to the cablevision talking head shows. But the real masters of reliable information as far as I am concerned is talk radio. And when you say talk radio you are saying Rush Limbaugh. There are others, yes, and there are other good talk show hosts, Glen is one, Shawn another, are a couple who are good and can articulate what I want to hear, and there are others as well. But they are not Rush, Here is a man who has not wavered in his beliefs for the twenty plus years he has been on the radio. I have been listening to him almost as long as he has been on.

The conservative radio commentators have been ridiculed, misquoted, out and out lied about and have had awful things said about them, but they keep on gaining ground in the hearts and minds of the average guys and gals across America. The reason? They speak our language. They say on the air what we have been whispering about for years. Now we have a leader. We have many leaders, but Rush is in a class all by himself. He very seldom makes a mistake on air because his research team vets everything. Every so often something slips by and if it does Rush is there immediately to tell his listeners he made a boo-boo.

Rush has a lot of detractors. They say he is a clown. They say he is merely showbiz. They say he is irresponsible. They take his words and change them around to make it look and sound like he has said something wrong. The only thing is, for anyone who has listened to the man for any length of time with an open mind, knows that they lie about him. He has transcripts of everything he says and proves over and over again how the powers that be are trying to silence him. Unlike the left-leaning talk shows, of which there are a few, actually say anything and expect people to believe them.

I know without a doubt that America is in deep, deep trouble. We have a man in the White House who seems to want to destroy our monetary system, put as many people as possible on the dole, expecting the federal government to take care of them from "cradle to grave." It has been a long time in coming, and it began with Franklin D. Roosevelt, but since then the democrats and a few republicans have steadily enhanced the poverty level and with stupid rules which allow whole families to survive on welfare for many decades without once asking them to find work to try and support themselves. Why? Power. The more people with their hands out toward the federal government the more indebted they are and therefore will vote for whoever says they will give them the most.

Something has to happen to change this dependency on the federal government.

My Doppelganger and I

2010-02-12T21:04:00.002-06:00

I ponder the rain as I sit here, trying to get my mind in gear,

As I ponder I hear the drip, drop, of the rain on the rooftop,

The skies so gray you cannot tell, when day is gone and night has fell,

I await the stroke of midnight, when my doppelganger comes in sight,

The hours leading up to twelve, gives me time for my mind to dwell,

I wait for him to show me the rhyme, as I have done so many times,

Like a drunkard waits for his wine, I drink his words like they were mine,

Come, come, you ghostly midnight hour, I care not if you bring showers.

This is the price I have to pay, for finishing my book today,

I have used up all of my words, and sit here like some doofus nerd,

I should sit back on my laurels, not worry about words to borrow,

Within my mind whispers speak out, you must write that's what you're about,

The whispers disturb my solitude, besides that they're so very rude,

But yes, oh yes, I need to write, writing is my life, it's my plight,

In search of that one special tome, inside of my mind's catacombs,

To spend a day and not compose, is like a blind man without clothes.

So here I am awaiting fate, for at midnight I have a date,

My scattered alphabet to repair, reach up, pluck good words from the air,

Unscramble my confetti brain, oh please, oh please, don't be my bane,

Doppelganger bring word bouquets, accept my gratitude I pray,

Last time I said that was the last, I'd ask not again your words to pass,

It's different now, I'm truly stumped, just one more time give me a jump,

I am not like the poet Poe, I just can't get my words to flow,

The clock chimed twelve the time is here, what to do if you don't appear?

©February 12, 2010 / Jerry Pat Bolton

Life's Sonnet #2

2010-02-01T20:36:00.002-06:00

The fall season is sad to me,
No joy found in the cooling breeze,
Leaves fall to ground give me no glee.
I think of love's many degrees.

A young love that blooms in the spring,
Grows and thrives in summertime sun,
Everything perfect for queen and king,
But autumn find love almost done.

All that's left is winter's cold chill,
To shatter love's bough to the quick.
Leaving lovers to pay the bill,
And dismantle love brick by brick.

Spring awaits the fair maiden's thoughts,
Will love return or will it naught.

©September 26, 2009 / Jerry Pat Bolton

Life's Sonnet #1

2010-01-24T18:48:00.002-06:00

Life's Sonnet #1

My heart tells me no, look back to the past,
I calm my heart with tenderness and care,
And say there is a future unsurpassed,
If we but reach for it, it will be there.

My foresight and reality are one,
I cannot divide them in two, you see;
They help me as I look toward the sun,
Foresight, reality and me are three.

This inner struggle has cost us a lot,
The pursuit of the beyond scares us both,
Still, it's not too late a dream to be sought,
A paltry weed needs the sun for its growth.

We wake up and look for the morning light,
From it we ascend to infinite heights.

©September 25, 2009 / Jerry Pat Bolton

Know the TRUTH about the Government Health Care Bill H.R.320

2010-01-19T10:27:00.000-06:00

My Mother's Revenge

2010-01-17T11:11:00.000-06:00

Click HERE To Purchase

Kathy Albertini is a tortured soul. Only offspring of the notorious Dixie Mafia Don Angelo Albertini, she has spent years trying to distance herself from the "Family." She seems to have succeeded, at least outwardly. She has a job she likes at The Times-Picayune in New Orleans where she is accepted for who she is and not where she came from.
But Kathy has problems dealing with the past. The long, painful and torturous death of her mother dished out to her by her father for a sin he cannot forgive lays heavy on Kathy's mind. She feels some guilt because until her father sent her away to expensive private schools she completely eradicated her mother from her mind. But the memory of what she saw the day her father brought her home and what happened afterward lays heavy on her mind and she has gone out of her way to dress and act as different as possible as her mother, never wanting anyone to say, "Like mother like daughter."
This includes her sexual partners in what are basically weekend orgies. She takes multiple partners in a desperate and foolhardy attempt to still distance herself from her mother. Her life is split into. She has her job. She likes her job. She had her debauchery weekends. She does not like them, but does not know how to make them stop. In walks John, the paper's new cub reporter and sweeps her off her feet. Kathy is in love completely, something she just knew would never happen; now life is perfect. Her love for John begins to erase her other problems. She doesn't have the nightmares anymore. She doesn't have multiple partners. She is deliriously happy. Until the day she realizes she has a stalker. Not merely a stalker, but a man who is determined to destroy Angelo Albertini for crimes he believes he commented against his own mother. Soon Kathy finds herself on a houseboat in the middle of a swamp and at the mercy of this deranged,

Crow - Villanelle

2010-01-16T13:59:00.001-06:00

rainy dreary day
two crows sit on the mantle
rain drips, poet writes

Ruth

2010-01-12T12:10:00.001-06:00

Will she ever come back to me,

To whisper untruths in my ear?

My lovely woman from the sea.

No, she's gone forever I fear.

Her face was chiseled out of lust,

Her body had treasures untold.

Her aura of earthiness musk,

Around my maleness to unfold.

Young, she was much too young for me,

She gave me passion I had lost,

Whether making love or sipping tea,

But God in Heaven what a cost.

I walked around with a huge smirk,

Reveling in the charms of her youth.

She made me feel like a young Turk,

As I whispered her name, sweet Ruth.

A ballerina, style and grace,

She tiptoed o'er my weary heart.

Her voice was like poison and lace,

She measured me up, a la carte.

With arms that soothed my savage beast,

Her long legs wrapped around my waist,

Upon my body Ruth did feast,

Until my problems were erased.

I was malleable to her desires,

A wink and a nod was all it took.

Her voice like a Heavenly choir,

Stirred memories of ancient brooks.

Ruth's strength lay within her weakness,

A clinging, wanting kind of joy.

She supped from my soul with finesse,

In her hands I was beguiled, oy.

When two can become one with heat,

Ecstasy is ripe on the plum,

And she clung to my offered meat,

Only tempered with sips of rum.

Ruth's lips, aged in barrels of wine,

A last meal, how could I not know?

As we made love beneath the pines.

She took me to peaks, then to woe.

I see her now where 'er she be,

A new lover she's given the eye.

She takes him on with bogus glee,

But, oh, I wish I was that guy.

I sit staring out the window,

And rue the day she came my way.

I'll never be the same, I know,

My skies are cold and gray each day.

I look toward Heaven and I shriek,

Why did she forsake me, my God?

Like a fool I think He will speak,

Is Ruth nothing but a façade.

When I have moments of real truth,

I have a feeling so absurd.

Oh, but she made me feel my youth,

Was it real, did it in fact, occur?

Was she a dream or was it real,

Things get fuzzy when you are old

Did I make love to the real deal,

Or was it a dream that I did hold?

©January 11, 2010 / Jerry Pat Bolton

2010-01-09T19:28:00.001-06:00

Fellow Patriots the time has come,

Fellow Patriots there is work to be done,

Raise the invisible torch and pass it along,

Keep it burning,

Forward on that road that has no turn,

Die if you must,

For a cause that is just,

But shout to the end

No surrender!

--From the 1943 film, Hangman Also Die

Dottie's Love

2010-01-02T20:47:00.000-06:00

loving you was so exquisite

in those early days

it felt like dying from passion

to gaze upon your face

your lips which quivered when you smiled

those dark brown eyes

sometimes almost dark like chocolate

to look at you thusly

could send me into the stratosphere

and your simple touch

could bring me back to solid earth

you touched me where none had before

stood strong

when standing strong was needed

all for me

sacrificed your desire many times

for mine

when I found myself

walking through the minefield of

insecurity

you were my rock

always there

smiling, standing strong for me

you said much the same about me

we leaned on one another

all those years

if you were disappointed

with your life

and me

you never let it show

until the ravages of hell descended upon you

even then

when I looked into those eyes

I saw Dottie of old

not the ravaged one going through hell

the pain you suffered

was relatively short

I am grateful for that

I think of those last days daily

can't help it

couldn't help it then

but mostly

I think of those wonderful, wonderful

good times

great times

fantastic times we had

getting to where we were

next month will be a year

since you left

just want you to know

my love is still strong

©January 2, 2010 / Jerry Pat Bolton

Contumely

2009-12-28T09:11:00.000-06:00

the dawning of a new year

plods unwaveringly toward

the sheared sheep

while we

the sheep waiting to be sheared

shoot play rockets in the air

blow up balloons

to bring in this new decade

our leaders

from Hussein to the

Senate and the House of Representatives

on down to local elected officials

are spittin' in our faces

and calling it rain

nothing but abuse of power

they're stickin' it to us

because they can

they are not only discourteous

they are sneeringly disrespectful

used to be

once upon a time

there were two parties

in Washington

one balancing the other out

no more

Hussein's party is like pit bulls

always on the attack

never letting go of the prize

the other one

the limp-wristed one's

the Runpublicans

tuck their tails and slink away

while the majority of the American public

is being dealt

degrading and insulting defeat

as religious totalitarianism

can you say theocracy

is beginning to be smelled from afar

(where's the ACLU)

plants its foot

squarely on our backs

somewhere, somehow the idea of government

by and for the people

have been discarded like so many

table scraps

after an elite and smug banquet

while we

find ourselves clinging to beliefs of old

such as

pride in who we are

Americans

not championing diversity

Americans

not Mexican-Americans

Polish-Americans

Native-Americans

Whatever-and-Whoever-Americans

Americans

to stand up for diversity

is foolish and destructive

see what it has gotten us, huh?

the mere word

diverse means different

not the same

different

the crack in the Republic has been widened by that word

if you live in America

legally

you should call yourself an American

fuck the hyphen

standing strong and united

for the mother country

not

putting her down

we have lost our soul

suicide by apathy

a very slow bleed

©December 25, 2009 / Jerry Pat Bolton

Christmas Eve

2009-12-24T18:21:00.003-06:00

remembering this day from times past

giddy anticipation

in my thoughts

like an empty glass waiting to be filled

on the morrow when St. Nick

comes to town

would that red Schwinn bicycle

be under the Christmas tree?

Christmas Eve Night

tried to stay awake

gonna catch Santa in the act

always fell asleep

don't know to this day

how I managed

to do that

with all the excited anticipation

that, of course was then

this is yet

another Christmas Eve

I have lived to see

gone for many years

is the vibrant giddiness

that excited anticipation

will I be able to sleep tonight?

visions of sugar plums and Santa

will not keep me awake

still, I've no doubt

sleep will be hard to come by

Christ in the Manger

is on my thoughts

as never before in my many years

on earth

something else

bothers me

this Christmas Eve

a runaway train

not Santa

wondering if he will bring

that red Schwinn bicycle

on Christmas morn

no, a darkening cloud

hovers o'er our heads

picking up speed

like a runaway freight train

as it races

closer and closer

to totalitarianism

in the guise of "helping" us

where is

Christ-On-The-Cross

when we need Him?

when life as we know it is

over

as we follow

sheep-like

those who we trust with our lives

He is there

where he has always been

waiting for us to

come back to Him

and relinquish the unhealthy hold

of secularism

politically-correct-stupidity

and return to sanity

He is there

where He had always been

©December 24, 2009 / Jerry Pat Bolton

What The Hell Is The Matter With Our Leaders?

2009-12-22T13:21:00.000-06:00

The Republic developed a crack

When President Roosevelt imposed

His own government takeover bid

Yes

I am aware of the Great Depression

Aware something had to be done

Thing is

He went too far

Making a crack in the foundation

Of the Constitution

With the advent of The New Deal

Or was it A Raw Deal?

Since that creeping government takeover

We've been hell-bent

On surrendering our sovereignty

Each preceding president adding to the total

Except for one

President Ronald Reagan

Now we have a monster on our hands

Now we have a man

Ready and willing to destroy an America

He despises

And turn it into a glorified gulag

Armed with his "Private Citizen Army"

Funded more or greater than the regular army

Are they walking the streets already?

Say ACORN . . .

Nobody sees the evil in this?

In this voter intimidation?

The "high, lofty sentiments" which came into play

For the voters of America

Has foolishly turned over to a vowed anarchist

Has scornfully said

The Constitution needs working on

Refuses to pay respect to our flag

Why?

Because he doesn't think it is his flag?

Health care

Global warming

Obamacare

Don't get me started

Life's Sonnet #2

2009-12-18T20:31:00.002-06:00

The fall season is sad to me,

No joy found in the cooling breeze,

Leaves fall to ground give me no glee.

I think of love's many degrees.

A young love that blooms in the spring,

Grows and thrives in summertime sun,

Everything perfect for queen and king,

But autumn find love almost done.

All that's left is winter's cold chill,

To shatter love's bough to the quick.

Leaving lovers to pay the bill,

And dismantle love brick by brick.

Spring awaits the fair maiden's thoughts,

Will love return or will it naught.

Life's Sonnet #1

2009-12-16T17:20:00.003-06:00

My foresight and reality are one,

I cannot divide them in two, you see;

They help me as I look toward the sun,

Foresight, reality and me are three.

My heart tells me no, look back to the past,

I calm my heart with tenderness and care,

And say there is a future unsurpassed,

If we but reach for it, it will be there.

This inner struggle has cost us a lot,

The pursuit of the beyond scares us both,

Still, it's not too late a dream to be sought,

A paltry weed needs the sun for its growth.

We wake up and look for the morning light,

From it we ascend to infinite heights.

Freedom

2009-12-09T07:06:00.007-06:00

Muslim president
usurper of the throne
hemorrhaging across the land
freedom laid to waste
Flag thrown in the gutter
dispirited, without hope, bleeding within
stunned look on too many faces
bumper stickers saying
don’t blame me I didn’t vote for him
lame excuse
but they just have to say something
dark cloud hovers
smothers and settles down
freedom’s just another word
if spoken gets you sent to the “camps”
works its charm
keeps people quiet
keeps people informing on neighbors
on strangers, even family
citizen army strong, regular army decimated
a terrifying time for some
utopia for the rest
history déjà vu all over again
resistance stomped into the ground
only one voice
The Messiah
ineffectual person in charge
distorted and perverted use of the Constitution
their gods are power and silencing opposition
teaching school children his praises
allowing no descent
run, rabbit, run
hope and change, hope and change, hope and . . .
justice denied
the bully pulpit
the bully street thugs

a faint flame burns for freedom
kept alive by those who understand
by those who risk death
all this
written about
in my novel
Margaret and David: A Love Story

©December 6, 2009 / Jerry Pat Bolton

We Have Some Time

2009-12-02T19:32:00.006-06:00

Loveliness
caught me staring
vivid emerald eyes stared back
unblinking
asking the unasked
touching my soul
deeply
saying she understood
approved
of this visual tête-à-tête

Meandering stream
rippling surface current
beneath antediluvian oak
laden with vibrant green leaves
nature's awning
a blanket spread
impending lovers
cool gentle zephyr
unable
twin passion to impede

My trembling hand she took
to her breast
natural crimson lips touched
my bone dry mouth
lingered there
tasting of jasmine sachet
tentative tongue
scorched mine
set off
simultaneous sighs

We have some time
whispered mouth against my ear
hot against passion spent
tangled skirt
twisted pants strewn
hodgepodge
here and there
I knew not words
to answer

Old am I now
life lived did survive
never forgot
nameless girl
ancient oak
summer days of love
tender and good
jasmine smells
memory haunted by her words
We have some time

Book Review - "Level 26"

2009-11-27T13:29:00.005-06:00

There are evil people in this world as we all are aware of. They are called many names; monster, fiend, devil, immoral, wicked and so forth. Society likes to pinpoint the evil doers around us by giving then angry monikers, but sometimes nothing seems to fit a particular evil. When a person goes against every moral sense to this point we are at a loss to pigeonhole him or her, but we do keep trying.

In Level 26 such a man exists. This book is written by the creator of the television phenomenon, "CSI," Anthony Zuiker with Duane Swierczynski. It is, to use Zuiker's own words the worlds first "digi-novel." Level 26 is an interactive read, the first of its kind, where every twenty pages or so you are given an Internet address and code to unlock a video which will give you a visual of what you have just read. I, for one, love the concept and it brought the book into my intimate self as I read and then watched its progress.

In Level 26, law enforcement has a scale with which they categorize certain murderers, from one to twenty-five. In Level 26 they have had to notch the number upward to 26, hence the novel's name. The serial killer in this book has eluded capture for decades. He has plied his trade all over the world and there are no rhyme or reason to the people he selects. Steve Dark, the protagonist of the novel, has chased him for years, and in Rome almost captured or killed him, but he got away. After such a close call the murderer targeted Steve's adopted family and killed them all, driving Steve into exile and out of the FBI

Steve is working on happiness away from being exposed to the dregs of society. He is married and a soon-to-be-father. His demons have been chased, if not away, at least out of the forefront of his thoughts. But the FBI wants him back. The dark past beckons and Steve is forced to come back to the job and work with his ex-boss and a former worker with who he had a disastrous one-night affair.

Level 26 is an experience. The murderer seems to think he has God on his side, and in fact is a disciple of God. He also has a personal interest in taunting Steve Dark, giving him clues which turn out to be dead-ends, or at least a residence that he has just recently vacated. As Steve's wife is kidnapped right under the FBI's nose and secreted in a dungeon by the murderer, treachery, political correctness and hate come to a forefront and clash as Steve and his two allies fight to find, and rescue her before it is too late.

And when they do combine to trap the killer the story is over. It is done. Or is it?

I highly recommend this ground breaking novel for what books will evolve into in the years to come.

Book Review - A Mystic Garden

2009-11-24T08:51:00.004-06:00

Thanks to Dawn Wilson for giving me this little book so packed full of life and living, death and resurrection . . .

A Mystic Garden derived its name from author Gunilla Norris's hometown of Mystic, Connecticut. It is a fitting name, for because of the geographical location of her home and the inner spirit of which she wrote this one hundred and on page book. A tiny book it is in size and bulk, but the inside of it, the writing, is immense and will touch the heart and soul of anyone who picks it up and begins to read.

A Mystic Garden is many things according to the one who is reading it. Gunilla Norris speaks of gardening throughout this book and how the four seasons affect the seeding, the pampering and the growing of her garden up until harvest time, or if there are merely flowers she grows, the peak of their life span.

But A Mystic Garden goes a step further than most gardening books. The author relates gardening, its hardships, its promise, failures and success to the human essence and the ups and downs we enjoy and are saddened by. This book takes the reader from the starkness and apparent death of winter to our own lives and even souls. As the garden grows fallow during the dearth of warmth, so does our spirit as we hunker down in front of the fireplaces and keep artificially warm. We await spring and its sunshine and growing abilities. Like the garden we are dormant for the most part during the winter season.

A Mystic Garden takes the reader through all four seasons, complaining about this or that and joyful because of that or this. Through it all, Gunilla Norris gives example and example of the similarity of her garden to our souls. When the garden is in full bloom and the flowers and vegetables are at their peak to yet another winter where everything is bleak and frozen this book correlates it to our human inner self in such a beautiful and simple way that it will touch the reader in places where he or she hasn't been touched before.

I wholeheartedly recommend A Mystic Garden, this pint-sized book of death to its rejuvenation of seeding, followed by growth as it blooms for the harvest to come and back to winters cold fingers of death again. Gunilla Norris prefaces the book with a Spanish Proverb, In the garden more grows than the gardener sows. If you find yourself turning the pages of this book you will quite understand what this proverb means.

©November 23, 2009 / Jerry Pat Bolton

Being There

2009-11-21T07:56:00.006-06:00

I squirted red wine
From a goatskin flask
In a besotted Greek salute to
Bacchus, god of wine and revelry.
But I wasn’t there.

I wore fine linen garments, powder in my hair,
A manly rite of passage
In perverted old Europe
And stepped gracefully to the
Minuet with Lucrezia Borgia.
But I wasn’t there.

I jitterbugged in the Speakeasy
With the Flappers of Chicago,
Kicking high and lovin’ hard
On bathtub gin, free expression
And Marxists philosophy.
But I wasn’t there.

I dug the scene at The Duplex,
Kerouac’s favorite watering hole
With Ginzberg spewing righteous
Beatnik intellect there in
Greenwich Village.
But I wasn’t there.

I draped love beads
Round my neck,
Standing among the faithful
Digging Janis in San Francisco with
Big Brother and the Holding Company.
This time I was there.

And I’ll be there in the flesh,
Decked out in my costume of choice
At the World’s First United Mardi Gras
Celebration in the Mojave Desert,
Puking on Gila Monsters and
Chasing Roadrunners.

Sins Of The Past

2009-11-15T19:29:00.004-06:00

If I were someone,
Someone not me,
The sins of the past
Would let me be.

The sins of the past
Would another one hurt,
Deep inside where ugly
Resides like piled-up dirt.

Deep inside where ugly
Causes the mother to be mean,
Gives birth to the son
She thought was obscene.

Causes the mother to be mean
Since the father was a rolling stone.
A rolling stone became his son,
Searching the highways for his clone.

A rolling stone became his son
Going from town to town.
Leaving unloved children in his wake,
Searching for father to shoot him down.

Going from town to town
He finds his father hunkered down.
Old now unable to run,
He looks up at his son with the gun.

Old now unable to run
He laughs, coughs and laughs more.
Opening his arms saying "Do it now
And then go back and shoot the whore.

-©May 7, 2003 / Jerry Pat Bolton

Betty Boop Was A Slut

2009-11-12T20:41:00.002-06:00

This may come as a big surprise but
Betty Boop was an out-and-out slut.
How she fooled them all, it was a joke,
She would never turn down any bloke.

Her life of depravity you see
Started with Dick (whadda name) Tracy.
After scouring the city for crime,
Upon his nightstick Betty did climb.

Oh my, yes, Betty was such a mess
Just a smile and she would drop that dress.
Moon Mulligan had her to play with,
Or in a pinch she'd take Snuffy Smith.

The Boop had Flash Gordon, the spaceman,
Taught him more ways than a moonbeam can.
It was all to make Steve Canyon mad,
Oh, Betty was a mean one; so sad.

She didn't cull, she welcomed them all,
Even rumors about Olive Oyl.
A wild child, she lived life at full tilt,
She could, you know, look how she was built.

Joe Palooka found he could not fight
With Betty, she had an overbite.
That made it interesting and oral,
When all done the men had no quarrel.

She starred in Tijuana Bibles
And Mary Worth sued her for libel.
Grabbed Popeye for a sexual brawl,
Then told everybody he was small.

A gourmet lass, she worked like a chef
Even double-teamed old Mutt and Jeff.
Batman too, he wrote her a letter,
She snickered, said Robin was better.

Shared her slut title with Nancy Drew,
Between the two they had quite a queue.
Blondie gave her a run, did not shirk,
Hurrying Dagwood, quick off to work.

Loving the man of steel was her plight,
Why not, it was hard as Kryptonite?
What a pitiful shape she was in,
Superman was in love with her twin.

©February 14, 2005 / Jerry Pat Bolton

Rooming House on St. Charles

2009-11-10T20:32:00.005-06:00

1968 . . .
New Orleans
I'd been in worse
and better
places
just a room to sleep
sweaty nights
and sit
in the daytime, on the bed
being quiet
not to bother anyone
that is how I was then . . .
how I wanted it
to hide my future, my
secrets
secrets which drove me there
in the first place
damn it to hell and back
Downtown Jackson Brown
Minnie the Moocher
all those cats
doing Mardi Gras
outside my window
shuttered and closed tight, my window
because . . . I felt like shit
why not
who was I to think thoughts
grandeur ones
so I sit and sweat
and
horde my puny little secrets
secrets, like
I am no good
and
everybody knows it
something
made me write

Sitting all alone
In a smoky, crowded bar
Life passes him by

What happened to the
. . . . . . . .
hell, I can't even remember
what
is gone
sad
ain't it sad
how did it get this way
alone
when the whole world is partying
made me also write this

Carnival is here
Crowds jam the street with laughter
He plays solitaire

Last night I ventured into
society
sorta
kinda
well, I went here

High above the street
A lonely window shines bright
Love is bought and sold

Oh, yeah, I forgot
I have
secrets
to tell
if you wanna to hear
you do, huh
don't you
my, my
what good are secrets
if nobody wants to hear 'em
so I write 'em down
on paper, yeah

Crumpled note on floor
Tells the story of love gone.
A time for dying

Dedicated to the Victims of Ft. Hood Massacre

2009-11-06T20:09:00.010-06:00

Terrorist in store earlier in the day before he murdered thirteen people and wounded many more . . .

A cold and pitiless wind moves among us,
A current of current rising from epochs old.
Can we sleep serenely and without fear when
Amid stirrings of horse’s hoofs he smiles?
Beneath primordial moons deviously does plot,
Time is of no value, eternity has evolved.
Without the ticking sound of the life’s clock,
Snorting Arabian steed’s anxious for the fight.
Poised on every shore, peering into windows,
O, so stealthy, when at last the moon has hid.
And the tide washes up, deposits combatants,
They come, by air, luxury liner, banana boat.
By the soles of their feet, souls of their God,
Like residue from a growing, fanatical storm.
What blood moves through these warriors,
Which provokes bloodlust as easily as a smile?
He is there, over there, here too, right here,
Where the children are at play with yesterday’s
Values, yesterday’s view, yesterday’s excitement?
When the tongue and eyes of the ancient ones
Speak softly, gazing upon the long awaited prize.
The thundering of million’s of hoofs let loose,
Neighing a battle cry to the dead, silent old ones.
And we, well we go about our business of sanity,
Thinking we are good, we are clean, we laugh.
Calmly we do leave the doors and the windows
Ajar for our visitors who are now neighbors,
To finish the ancient martyr’s settling of scores.

Winter's Moon

2009-11-02T20:27:00.004-06:00

I stare out my window tonight,
The cold moon gives off a strange light.
Its so mournful I heard it sigh,
Setting up there so very high.

I know that sigh, I know it well,
Within my heart it mutely dwells.
A sigh can be a lovely thing,
Sometimes it makes you want to sing.

Somewhere, some place there is some one,
Looking at the moon just for fun.
Tonight we are together free,
That's a very good way to be.

Tomorrow's dawn will shine anew,
I wonder how life is with you.
The one who watched the moon with me,
With poet's thoughts we both agree.

Will we be poets come daybreak,
Or has it all been one more fake?
Will we pick up our guns and fire,
Your god and mine are just for hire.

©November 2, 2009 / Jerry Pat Bolton

I'll Be Doing It Until I Die

2009-10-30T19:52:00.005-05:00

Brad Gaines grabbed Clorox
A bottle of glass cleaner
Tossed them into the twenty-year-old Buick
Cranked 'er up and took off
Headed for a cemetery
Been making the same trip
For many years
Despite the pleas of his wife and kids to stop

I'll be doing it until I die, the young man said.

These trips started twenty years ago
He makes the 175-mile trip
To visit a friend he never really knew
But a single play on a football field
Fused them together
As though they were brothers
Gains, a tailback for Vanderbilt
Went after Chucky Mullins
A safety for Mississippi
Going high in the air for a pass
Grimes caught him in the back
And then rushed back to the Vanderbilt huddle
Chucky never got back up
Neck shattered
Died two years later
It's just football
Nobody's fault
Everybody agreed
Even Grimes
It's all part of the game,
but it doesn't change the facts, you know . . .

Three times a year
Gaines drives from Nashville
To Russelville, Alabama
And to Chucky's grave simply marked

Chucky, Man of Courage

What drives Grimes
To make this trip three times a year
He says
There have been times when I had to hitchhike
Because I ran out of gas
Had blown out tires
Car broke down
His wife and children
And total strangers have worried about him
Maybe the only one who can truly understand
Is Mullins lying 'neath the ground

Gaines, white kid from hoity-toity Vanderbilt
Mullins, skinny black kid from nowhere town
Gaines couldn't sleep after the accident
No longer cared about the sport
He grew upon
Didn't even play his senior season
He visited Mullins in the hospital
It wasn't your fault Mullins told him.
Mullins spirit was strong
Walter Payton, Janet Jackson
George Bush came to call
Still Mullins was called to his spiritual home
And Brad visits
Plucks weeds, clean grime from the headstone
Then sit down beside the grave
Converses and prays
Why?
Because I love him
To Grimes it is just that simple

What will Grimes headstone read one day
Man of Guilt
Man of Craziness
Man of Compassion
Whatever it will be, somehow you just know
Mullins will be glad to clean it

©October 30, 2009 / Jerry Pat Bolton

The Traveler

2009-10-26T06:50:00.003-05:00

The traveler meandered down the dusty road like an abandoned cur, stopping momentarily to gaze at a Broken Heart lying in the ditch. It was like something which had come straight out of nightmarish dreams. Shading his eyes from a tremendous August sun, he peered off to the right where a mortally wounded Psyche laid in the dust being baked into something calloused and hard and no longer part of the poor soul it had come from. To his left, where he didn't have to shade his eyes because the sun was hot on his back, rose a huge Mountain of Betrayal. Tears the size of his hand tumbled down its weathered slope to drop into a swirling vortex of optimism, which reprocessed it back to betrayal, forever recycling the sadness of man's Treachery. The traveler closed his eyes and sighed as old Sol began its final plunge behind the craggy mountains, where it would soon retire for the night.

"I can't do this."

No answer. The traveler had expected none. But it was not silence which greeted his declaration. Faint moans of Anguish could be heard over the tormented pleas of a small child. Male? Female? He did not know. It mattered not. The pain was real. Yes, it was, and he withstood the sound better by keeping his eyes closed.

The road was familiar. He had never been here, though. Not in this life. That was the thing, then. Since everything here seemed familiar, but twisted; out of kilter, the traveler had to ask the question.

"Am I dead?"

Far away he heard Shattered Hope screech.

"Am I dead, or is this the way to The All-American Dream?"

Raucous laughter issued from Wickedness which was hidden somewhere. The traveler had heard this laughter before, but Wickedness never showed its face. Coward. Instead it played evil games inside your mind. He vaguely realized that the reason you could never see it was because it is you.

This rather strange road he walked was familiar in an obscure, unfamiliar way. Since early this morning, or was it yesterday morning, oh, no matter. Since he had found himself here he recognized certain . . . things. Nothing he could put his finger on and say, "Look, I remember this from . . ." No. Nothing like that. There was a surreal quality about certain things which defied definition. There were things he saw he had never seen before, but why then, did he know what they were?

Like the Broken Heart baking in the August heat.

Was it his? Or some other unfortunate traveler who had passed this way before? The Broken Heart, of course, was not like the Valentine Day pretty heart all drawn so nice and neat. No. This was a real heart, lying alongside the road, dirty, with dried blood all around it. This heart was alive and making strong, thump, thump-thumping sounds which reverberated inside his head, nearly causing him to lose what sanity he was holding onto.
He had attempted to cover up the Broken Heart to mute the sound. But there was nothing he could use to place over it. If he had been wearing a shirt he would have used that but he was not wearing one. Actually he wasn't wearing clothes at all. He shivered. It was approaching nighttime and he recalled it had gotten cold last night.

The traveler began to trudge slowly down the road again, shelter on his mind. Soon he came upon a wooden bridge built over foaming, raging rapids. He stopped, fearful of crossing the bridge. He took a tentative step. The bridge creaked, gave somewhat with his weight. Another step. Groans from the timber. He froze. After a deep breath he took five very quick steps and was almost in the middle of the bridge when he heard . . . them.

He stood; naked, afraid, and alone, debating whether he should go back or go forward. Instead of doing either he placed his hand on the bridge's railing to keep his knees from giving way from a terrifying dread. He leaned forward trying to steady himself and the noise became ferocious. He knew he should not, but still he looked down into the rapids.

But the foaming water was not rapids at all. No, it was only a languid little stream, and the only reason it was foaming and churning was because of the drowning Libidos and accompanying Egos.

"Please, what do you want from me?"

He stared into the horrible scene as hundreds, no thousands of perishing Libidos screamed out for one more chance to go back to the very perversion which had sent them to their watery grave in the first place. Defiant and lustful to the absolute end is mankind's absorption with skin against skin. The traveler lingered his eyes on the water below because to not do so he would have had to look into himself.

Taking a few quick, very intense mouthfuls of air, he leaned further over the railing and stared into the turbulence below as if he were seeing the very last thing on earth. Rank odor emitted from the water, an odor which could mean only death and decay. Suddenly he saw something scurrying from the water. Then another. And more. Egos were making a mad dash for . . . where? Where could an Ego go if it had no body to prod and to push? Still. They were leaving the water by the hundreds and they looked so comical the traveler laughed aloud in spite of his own dire situation.

They bounced ahead without feet in a kaleidoscope of colors, mostly black, dark blues or heavy greens, no wimpy colors for the Egos of the world. And the noise! Deafening. How could they make sounds? But they did. Angry sounds, like jet planes screaming inside his head. Then suddenly, they stopped. The traveler watched in fascination and horror as the Egos became too big for themselves and burst into gore and globs of Ego matter. Then they were gone; seeping down the bank toward the stream.

What had been fetid odors wafting from below gave way to a different fragrance; the lingering smell of all the lovers he had known. The combined smell was at first pleasant and satisfying, taking the traveler back to better times and the sensuousness of a woman's caress. Faces flooded his thoughts. Headless, naked bodies fought for dominance inside his head until there was only one left. It had a grotesque body that looked not feminine or anything remotely close to it. It was a misshapen apparition, but it did have a head, and the face on the head was recognizable.

"See?" The face spoke. "I am your lover, can you not see that? I am the only thing you have ever loved, I am you."

The traveler screamed. Then he ran and ran and ran, and the road became as straight as it had been crooked before. But he could not escape from himself. He understood that. The woman thing was gone but it still lived as surely as he took the next gasping breath, and it did so because it was him with all the warts.

A forlorn, solitary howl interrupted the traveler's perverse musings. It was such a sad and lonesome wail it could only come from a hound. The traveler took it as a warning. A cautionary howl for the stranger who walks among the remnants and distasteful ingredients which make up mankind.

Plop. Plop. Plop. One foot in front of the other. It should be night. It is not. It is twilight. He needed to find . . . Shelter.

"Why?"

He startled himself with his question. Shelter because he was, or would be, cold. Shelter to hide his nakedness. He was ashamed of his slightly rounded stomach, his slightly sagging breasts; his rapidly receding penis. Shelter to hide his imperfections.
Oh, my. The howling hound was there with him, pressing his cold, wet nose against his bare leg. Oh, my. The hound walked ahead of him. He was, of course, not a hound. A beast though. He was that. A beast that spoke.

"I am here to take you." The traveler did not see the beast's mouth moving when it talked, but he knew that it did.

"Where?"

"Follow me." It began to lope. The traveler did not run after it. Soon the hound was out of sight.

The traveler continued walking. What else was he to do? There was no where else to go. Each step he took he was met with Ghostly images from his past. Only they were not Ghosts. Unless Ghosts could touch and feel and bleed and sob and scream into his face angry words and screeches and claw his backside and front side and attack his genitals, especially his genitals. He could not defend himself because somewhere without him being aware, his arms had fallen from his body. There was no blood. It had not hurt. He was at the mercy of his past sins as they went about absorbing them into the very pores of his being. Still, he walked, and as he did so he was determined to forgive his persecutors even though it seemed they had held onto their grudges.

He knew most of them. His Mother. She was the worst. Blaming him. For everything. She was the worst. Old Girlfriends. Old Wives. Vicious. Unrelenting in there desire to hurt. Payback is . . . Toughtittie . . . Reap what you sow . . . Yes . . . What goes around . . . All That Jazz! He was being hit and poked and jabbed with sharp fingernails and bit with filed-down teeth and kicked and he thought he would surely fall to the earth and be beaten until he died but . . . They stopped. His Mother's chest burst open and her heart fairly flew from her bosom onto the ground and split into. Broken Heart. The rest did the same. Everyone he had known, everyone he guessed he had hurt in ways he could not remember now, lost their hearts and minds and love and joy, all to be strewn alongside the dusty road the traveler walked.
Now he understood.

They were all gone and in their wake had left the parts of themselves they blamed the traveler for destroying. Hearts, broken Hearts were the most prominent but there were also Minds Unstable and Love Destroyed. Love Destroyed was the most awful of them. He had heard of Love his whole life and had never known exactly what it was. Now that he was looking at Love Destroyed it was all he could do to keep from regurgitating. Love Destroyed was a dreadful thing to behold. Love Destroyed was a small golden sphere approximately the size of a small green pea when it fell from those who had just left. When they touched the ground there was an audible gasp and then no more sounds were heard.

The golden sphere morphed into such a lovely child, a child of no particular sex, but a Child of Innocence, and a Child desirous of guidance and someone to attach to and grow into love personified. It was not to be, however, because the lovely Child's skin began to peel from its body and as it did its eyes stared straight into the travelers and the eyes said, "I never had a chance to grow into my potential, and it was because of you." Then it turned into a caricature of an old hag, the kind you see in fairy tales as witches and melted back down to the pea size it used to be, sprouted roots and bloomed into hate intensified. When that happened, the traveler had to turn away, the horrible stench and penetrating stare was too much for him.

He stumbled down the road, half running, half walking; stumbling. A huge, intense, bright light blinded him and caused him to lurch sideways and finally collapse onto the sandy road. Before he passed out the moans and shrieks and screams of all the Broken Hearts and Minds Unstable and Wounded Psyches and Mountains of Betrayal lanced his heart and brain so passionately and sadly that dying to escape would be a blessing.

His eyes opened to the loveliest woman he had ever seen. She had been swiping at his forehead with a cool, moist rag. She smiled and the world smiled and was happy. The traveler was in bed. Not his bed. She poured a sparkling glass of water and touched it to his feverish lips and before he supped from it he knew that it would be the best tasting water he had ever drunk. It was. She sat the glass on the small table and stood to leave.

"Oh, please," the traveler said, "don't go. Where am I? What is your name?"

She smiled. The world smiled again. "You are here. My name is Gentle." With that she turned and left him alone. But no. Someone else was here. The traveler sensed another presence.

"How do you feel?"

The voice, like the girl's, saturated him with breathtaking sensations. A rich baritone voice full of wonderful . . . ambiance. "Tell me what I am doing here, please."

"My name is Go," the voice answered. "You are being prepared."

"Why, am I--"

"Yes. You are dying, traveler. You are in the hospital room in the city where you reside. We have been preparing you for the transition."

"Oh."

"Fear not, we will treat you kindly."

"But the road, and oh, the people and all the--"

"That is part of the transition, an unkind part to be sure, traveler, but necessary."

"Why? To show me my past sins?"

"No. Everybody thinks that. It is a cleansing. It is not for everyone because everyone has not been such a man as yourself, genuine good person, but one who hurt many along the way.
"The attacks? The Broken Hearts, the--"

"It was done to make you understand, that although you were sinful in your life, you were not responsible for other people's heartaches in the end. You were not attacked on that road for that reason. You, traveler, although you made awful mistakes you weren't the only one who did. Those within your sphere must walk the same road you have just walked; we are, after all, accountable for what we do and what we allow others to do to us."

"Were?"

"Yes, you are dead now. My companion and I will assist you the rest of the way." The young woman appeared beside the bed.

"Take her hand, now mine."

The traveler saw the voice standing beside the woman and he was as beautiful as she and they both wore long, flowing white robes and when he took their hands he wasn't surprised that he had his arms back and he understood the significance of their names now.

Go Gentle.

Dinner Date

2009-10-24T13:10:00.007-05:00

Got a light

This dame wasn't bashful
I struck a match
She sucked on the Chesterfield
Inhaled once
She stuck it into the Molten Lava Cake desert
The butt wore a lipstick tiara
I sipped my rosé
Wishing it was a draft
It was her party, doubt she knew what a draft was
She was on in years
Still had that little girl face
Unbecoming on a matronly woman
Too much lipstick
Too much rouge
Laughed too raucous
Tried to set me at ease
With ribald jokes
Clichéd, well-worn ribald jokes
She gave me her best come-on look
It was frightening
I smiled
It was her party
It was her play
Society dame looking for rough trade
Could get nasty
Could be that is what the lady wants

Have you ever killed anyone

Her voice was whiskey gravely never mine the rosé
Eyes were glazed and her mouth trembled
In anticipation to my answer
"Probably no one you know," I gave her that
She suppressed a smile

Would you pour the wine

It was not a request
The creature needed bedtime stories
Her emancipated chest rose and fell rapidly
Anticipation will do that
I poured the wine
She placed a hand on my stubble
I hadn’t shaved on purpose

I think I would like the street life

she whispered conspiratorially
A look of fearful excitement passed over her face
High color rose into her cheeks
Studied me closely
So closely, so intimately
Goosebumps made like the Indy 500 up my spine
A shudder shook me
She mistook for animal magnetism
Made her day

Sometimes being a tough Private Eye
Means you have to go undercover
I was dreading this night

©October 18, 2009 Jerry Pat Bolton

God Is Not the Source of Evil

2009-10-23T08:57:00.005-05:00

I wish to thank all the ones who have tried to help me in this frustrating search for the answer to a simple question. While the question's answer has remained, until yesterday, elusive to me. I want especially thank Christine Alwin on Authors Den who delivered the mechanism that liberated me.

Thank you, Christine.

God Is Not the Source of Evil

For years I've posed the question to God
Why do children have to suffer so much
Cancer, abuse, and much more
I've wondered about this for most of my life
Goes back to when I was a small boy
A teenager who lived nearby
Backed over his baby brother in the yard
The teenager, in shock, ran off into the woods
Took two days before they found him

I guess I've been posing my question in many way
Orally or through poetry I've asked
Began a novel to uncover the answer
Hoped to settle the question once and for all
I still may write the book
The slant will just be different
I have friends who have tried to help
All in all they failed
I've been sent books
Video's of preacher's touching on the subject
None of it washed with me
None of it addressed the children problem
Just went on and on about "original sin"
Its blemish on humanity

My last poem I posted on AD
"Life's Sonnet #11"
Addressed my concerns again
Someone commented on the poem
Said she might be able to help with my quest.
Yesterday she sent a video
I put it on
Began to watch
After five minutes I decided
It was going to be like the rest I've seen
Was NOT going to concentrate on innocent children
Rather the suffering of mankind in general
Still, I left it running
As I did a few household chores
Half listening
It was as I was washing up a few dishes
That I heard a phrase
Which damned near floored me.

God is not the source of evil

I, we, and they, have been asking the wrong question
There is a war going on
Earth is its battleground
Satan has His own ways to fight
Deep down and dirty
That lesson I seem to have forgotten
So it seems have many others
Even those who are supposed to know
And understand the answer
I have asked so many people "the" question
Over the years
One clergyman hum-hawed
On the phone
Said he would get back to me
Probably the most asked question
Of God that there is
He had nothing to say to me about it
That was over two months ago
He has never "gotten back to me"
That one phrase

God is not the source of evil

Explained it better than thousands of
Theological summaries ever could
Everything became vividly clear
That one phrase begat another phrase

God gave us choices

Though that does not address the innocent
For they have no choice
Still, it took on a whole different meaning
Than it used to
After I finished with the dishes
That phrase running through my mind
I came back to the computer
Sat there staring at it
As though I expected God to speak to me through it
I finally realized He had already spoke to me
In as clear and understandable a voice as
He possibly could
It was to me what
The Burning Bush was to Moses

I went to bed last night
This on my mind
I awoke this morning
This on my mind
I have a feeling it will stay on my mind
Influencing my thinking
Until I am no longer able to think

October 21, 2009 / Jerry Pat Bolton

Taking a Break, Sorta

2009-09-28T06:21:00.002-05:00

I am taking a break from novel writing. It seems I am forever and always writing a novel. That is not a bad thing. However, eventually you become sorta burned out. I have never understood writers who say they have writer's block. I have more plots running through my head than I have time to work on the. True, there are times when the words for a particular project has difficulty flowing from my literary pen, but when that happens I go to another and usually that is the one I was meant to write in the first place. At this time in my "career" I have embarked on a different kind of pause, or retreat when it comes to writing. I have ten books published. Since I finally was beaten down and had enough rejection slips from the New York Publishers to paper a large room with, I opted for the self publishing bit. Lulu was where I went. All of my books are novels with the exception of Misdemeanors & Felonies: A Memoir. Since my financial situation is limited, receiving only a little social security check each month I was not in a position to pay $300-500 for a professional proofreader, the result being that my novels have typos, grammar and other assorted problems. So! I have embarked on a "cleansing" of the novels. I am sure there will still be a few errors here and there, because a person proofreading his own work is a no-no, except in the case of first, maybe second drafts. By the time you have it, in your opinion, as good as you can get it and are ready for publication, that is the time to find a good word doctor. In the meantime I write poems, book reviews, etc., whatever comes to me, but now novels. I honestly think I need to stay away from novels for a longer duration than I have in the past. Working on the published one's will give me something to do so I won't be tempted to start another book. That has been my problem in the past when I felt the need to take a vacation from the novels; boredom. That is because for a long time now, I have not had any other outside activities with which to occupy my mind. When Dottie was still with me it was a full-time job seeing after her and running the necessary errands I needed to take care of her, and of course, me. It has been six months since she has passed, and instead of trying to seek other venues to occupy me when I wasn't writing, or didn't want to write, I hunkered down and went at writing with a vengeance. Partly, I know, to keep my mind occupied with other things except her memory. It didn't work all that great, because a large percentage of that writing was Dottie-related. Even the novel Unholy Pursuit had many references of her in it. Anyway, here I am, plugging away on the corrections of the published novels and hoping I will stay healthy long enough to get the rest of the ideas of novels on paper and published. I guess I am pushing it, but I need another ten years. At least.

Red Light Book Review

2009-09-24T07:11:00.002-05:00

Merci Rayborn has a lot to live down. In T. Jefferson Parker's first-rate thriller, Red Light, Marci not only has to deal with the fact that, Tim Hess, her lover and father of her two-year-old child was murdered in the line of duty. Both Merci and Hess worked as detectives for the sheriff's department and Merci blames herself for Hess' death. This blame, like a dark, hovering cloud, has followed her around for two years.

In Red Light, when a nineteen-year-old prostitute is murdered Merci catches the case. As she begins to unravel the young woman's life she is dismayed that a woman so young should be, as she put it, "a real pro." The clues slowly, but surely began to point the finger toward a fellow officer Mike McNally, a member of the vice squad. To make matter worse Merci is having a confusing affair with him. To complicate matters even more, her supervisor drops a cold case on her desk that dates back to the sixties.

At first the cold case is not that much of a priority. That changes as the clues to the recent murder lead her to have serious doubts about Mike and his involvement with the young prostitute. She begins looking at the cold case as a way to clear her mind of her suspicions concerning her boyfriend. But being the detective that she is she wants the truth to come out no matter who it might touch. Balancing the two cases, one recent and one decade's old, Merci is saddled with the guilt feeling of her dead lover and a growing feeling of remorse because of the clues she is finding lead her toward the ever growing suspicion that Mike, her present lover, killed the young woman.

As she is beset with rage and remorse concerning her feelings about Mike and the murder, she finds that the cold case has similar features. In both cases a prostitute with ties to the sheriff's department has been murdered. The cold case becomes a political hot potato as Marci continues to pursue it as she does the recent case. Between the two cases her world is turned upside down and she is drowning in rage for believing Mike is guilty of the murder and shame that she is unable to give him the benefit of the doubt. It's the clues. They keep piling up and so do the ones concerning the cold case. Merci is emotionally vulnerable and that is not a good thing.

Red Light is a good book. T. Jefferson Parker, in this reviewer's opinion has never written anything but good books. I have read a number of books written by Parker and have never came away from any of them without a feeling of complete satisfaction

Unholy Pursuit Book Review

2009-09-21T12:28:00.005-05:00

This review of my book,Unholy Pursuit was written by N.L. Snowden, author of In and out of Madness . . .

UNHOLY PURSUIT
By
Jerry Pat Bolton

Jerry Pat Bolton has written a novel that is both entertaining and thought provoking. Written in first person in a memoir style, he takes you on a fantasy journey that is at first quite believable. The protagonist, Joe John Jefferies, a seventy-year-old man contemplating a memory of a girl with no name. Although his was a happy marriage, this girl's memory floated in and out of his conscious mind through the years. They met on a road in Georgia and spent the day in a sexual marathon. They went their separate ways without exchanging names.

After Joe loses his wife of many years and his grieving is done, he decides to set out and find this girl. His friends laugh at him. His mistress, Rita Beaverman, insists on going with him. He feels no love for this woman, only lust. He doesn't want her interfering with his quest. Against everyone's insistence, he heads for Georgia. The first night he stops to sleep in a motel, and who should show up but Rita. Although Rita possessed power over Joe with her undulating sexuality, he rejects her and sends her packing with what appears to be a broken heart.

Something in his subconscious plants the seeds of an Uncle Jack being connected to this nameless girl. In many surreal coincidences, Joe finds there is an Uncle Jack connected to the family that owns the diner he frequents in Georgia. After going on a treasure hunt of leads, he ends up in a nursing home with a very old relative of the family. She predicts her death and leaves Joe with her dying words and a puzzle to unravel.

Joe finds the spot on the road where he and the unnamed girl met and wishes with all his being that she'll miraculously show up. To his delight, she does, and he finds out that her name is Casondrah, and she has been controlling him all of his life since their encounter. At first, he doesn't care, as the sex is once again glorious.

While in his motel room, a man suddenly appears dressed as a Charles Dickens character and calls himself Carlester. He shares a secret with Joe that Bolton so elegantly allows the reader to believe in the fantasy that takes over Joe's life.

In the end, Joe discovers that Casondrah is his enemy, Carlester is his friend. He ends up in Wyoming with Casondrah and Alexandria, a vampire, saves his and a sad waif by the name of Constance's lives. Bolton knows his geography as he places the reader in many locales as Joe discovers he is the one and only one to destroy a world's evil. It's a game of cat and mouse with the loser going to hell. Joe and his comrades battle Casondrah and even Satan himself. The book twists and turns, and every time the reader thinks things are going to work out, he adds another adversary, another battle, another escape only to find Joe worse off than he was. Bolton sends the reader to the climax of the book taking short breaths and hearing their own hearts beating in their chest.

What makes this book even better is that Bolton throws in some philosophy that the reader will ponder and question the Status Quo.

I highly recommend this page tuner and book for people who love constant action.
This book is available at Amazon on the Kindle version: http://www.amazon.com/UnHoly-Pursuit-na/dp/B002KW4SOU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253555150&sr=1-1

If you would prefer it in book form, go here: http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/unholy-pursuit/7303385 which can be purchases here . . .

Vagabond Poet

2009-09-20T17:34:00.005-05:00

After all this time. After all these years. After people almost begging me to publish my poetry, at least some of it, I have finally did it. I will publish the 243-page book on Lulu, because quite frankly, the price is right. It's title is Vagabond Poet. As you probably know if you are into reading or writing books Lulu cost nothing to publish your book. Vagabond Poet is my tenth book I have published there. Am I a success? No. Have any of my books sold well? Not really, although I receive a royalty check from them every six months, some of them in the hundreds, but most of them well below that.

The fact is that when I started writing my novels (all the books except Vagabond Poet and Misdemeanors & Felonies: A Memoir are novels) I actually did envision becoming a success. I beat on every legitimate New York publisher there was for over twenty years as I continued to knock out novel after novel. Finally, when I decided if I was ever going to hold a published book I had written in my hands I would have to go the self-publishing route. And so I have. I write so much, have so many story ideas that I just want them to be in circulation even if it is merely the Print on Demand publishing industry that does it. My dreams of being at the top of the New York Times list of books has long since past, I'm satisfied to just write my stories and poems.

I have a difficult time promoting my books. I tried. I tried very hard when I published my first two books to promote them as best I could. It wasn't easy. It cost money and my meager social security check couldn't provide much more than daily living expenses. That, plus the fact that my wife (she died last February) was semi-invalid and I couldn't leave her alone for any length of time and there was no one to stay with her. That meant I was reduced to book signing close to home and they were scarce. As the years piled up I began to resign myself to the fact that what part of the dream I retained was almost all gone. I am not bitter about how things turned out. In fact I am very happy to say that I have written some damn good gritty, thriller without the car chases and explosions, but just good psychological thrillers. I am proud of that.

So! Vagabond Poet is my newest, and only book of poetry. I imagine it will go on the market in the middle of October. I'm pretty sure I will charge $12.99 for the 243-page book. Now, hopefully I can get back to writing God? I have been away from it about a week as I assembled my poems for the book.

God? . . . Update

2009-09-17T18:45:00.006-05:00

An update on the new novel, God?. I finished Chapter 12 yesterday and posted it on my Myspace site and the effect I was reaching for seems to have worked. After the high sheriff of Cotton Boll County basically ran Truman out of the county, telling him to never return he slept the first night in the woods which ran alongside the road. He did this because he was afraid the sheriff would send someone out there and arrest him on some trumped-up charge. Another charge other than the one he faced for the thrashing of Brother Tuttle.

A lot was going on in Truman's mind as he tried to sleep that night. That he is going on a "fact-finding" quest to find the answer to his God question is a given, but as yet he does not understand just how he is going to go about this quest. For one thing, he is young, sixteen-years-old, and that is going to be held against him. How will he find work, he has no social security number, no work history? But, as he lays on the ground thinking the optimism of youth is apparent and he just knows there will be a way.

The next day he starts his journey. The deputy sheriff who drove him to the county line the day before had pulled out forty dollars and gave it to him, Truman guessed he felt sorry for him. That was a miracle in itself, because he didn't have one cent to his name. He was picked up and driven close to Texarkana, Ark/Tx before his ride gave out. He let him out in front of an old country church and Truman though he would step inside, if it wasn't locked, and think about what to do next.

The church was open and when he stepped inside he saw the girl. After they introduced themselves to each other they began to talk. She was young, about his age, and said she was hitch-hiking to California to join the "revolution." When he asked what revolution she began to ramble about the revelation that the hippies in the sixties of the last century. Cut to the chase, the girl took his cherry inside that church. Well, almost, she did him orally.

Although he wanted to travel with the girl (who wouldn't?) she didn't want to be stuck with anyone, so after she left he caught a ride with a man who wound up offering to put him up for a day or so, he could see Truman was young and wanted to get him off the highway. Truman decided that was a good idea and when the man turned into the driveway of his house Truman saw a sign which said, HOUSE OF GOD. It turned out the man and his wife had a kind of Mother Earth Religion going on and they were going to have "services" that very night. As the people began to gather for the service the man sent Truman to the store to pick up some chips for the dip he had made.

Truman thought about running off with the man's car and the twenty dollars he gave him for the chips, but decided against it. When he got back and walked to the backyard where the service was being held was immediately stunned beyond belief. Of the twelve or so people who were at the service only one was still alive and begging for him momma. The rest were murdered in cold blood. Truman wanted to run, but he was in such a state of shock he could not run and he dropped to his knees awaiting the police whose sirens he could already hear.

My Book Review of "In and out of Madness"

2009-09-14T14:54:00.006-05:00

In N. L. Snowden's first book, In and out of Madness, published by Sneakaboard Press is a fictionalized account of a true story, Lee Thames has a problem, a great many problems not the least of which is her desire to kill her husband after many suicide attempts. She is being driven by devils within her. She has been in and out of mental hospitals She loses herself into the strange world of different individuals who crowd each other for space within Lee's thought process. She is also suffering from being bi-polar and develops multiple-personalities. Although In and out of Madness is a novel it is written in the first person in the memoir style.

Lee suffered abuse from her family. She had a mother who was quick with a switch and loved to embarrass her. Like far too many children, then and now, Lee was an afterthought to one or both parents. Growing up with two strikes against her, she developed into a woman who tried to please those within her sphere of life. A woman who, after accepting the proposal of her high school sweetheart, married him even though he came back from Vietnam paralyzed from the neck down.

Into this marriage she gave of herself completely, although it was often frustrating to her as a woman. Married to a husband who put his writing ahead of her was the catalyst which pushed her into taking other men to bed. Since he wasn't able to perform his husbandly duties he talked her into having other men provided she told him exactly what they did. Because of the bi-polar, which she was unaware of at the time, and her husband paying too much attention to a girl in her twenties, she said and did things she later understood was wrong and regretted.

Reading In and out of Madness brings into focus the lengths that humans will go to please their spouses and in the meantime lose part of their soul. After her first marriage dissolved and she found herself married to one of her lovers. During this marriage she was subjected to, willingly, because it seemed to be the only way to hold onto her husband, swinging with different couples. She was subjected to sexual debauchery, treachery and mind-bending control from her husband, a slick talker, especially when it came to Lee, who knew exactly what buttons to push, when to push them, and when to retreat. Through it all she held onto one thing which kept her going against all odds and that was her love for her daughter Jolly by her second husband.

The pressure of the constant turmoil and deceit from both husbands was too much for Lee and allowed her multiple personalities to assert themselves. That is when things really got interesting then. Plus she had her bi-polar problem which complicated everything. She was sent to a hospital which deals with such problems. Although, in her heart Lee tried her best to make both marriages work, she also comes to understand that her illness has made her do things which took her a long time to understand and come to grips with. Instead of portraying herself as a victim she is honest enough to admit her part of the problem.

Life often gives us double meanings and in the process we are subjected to the boomerang effect. In Lee Thames's life she realizes that what goes around does indeed come around. I highly recommend In and out of Madness to anyone who desires to read of a life almost ruined by mental illness, alcohol, drugs and sexual addiction of a spouse.

This book can be purchased at Amazon here . . .

http://www.amazon.com/Out-Madness-Ms-N-Snowden/dp/0977476774/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252936602&sr=1-1

Or Kindle here . . .

http://www.amazon.com/Out-Madness-ebook/dp/B001QCYHYG/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252936602&sr=1-2

God? . . . Next Novel Under Way

2009-09-13T16:17:00.007-05:00

I have been malingering for the last few days insofar as posting my thoughts here. I haven't been malingering on what I do best, however, and that is writing novels. Since my last posting I have written ten chapters of the novel I was talking about last time, God?. So, the book is beginning to take shape. Sixteen-year-old Truman Butler is my protagonist, and after backing his vintage '57 Chevy Classic over the head of his baby brother a lot has happened to him, and none of it has been good.

The main reason for most of his problems lies within himself. That black day of the horrible accident Truman ran screaming into the Panther Swamp which surrounds the Butler place. He wandered out there for two whole days replaying in his head over and over the accident and blaming himself for it. But as the rain began to come down so did his mind start to drop a different form of blame for the tragic incident into his thoughts. He began to blame God. In his delirium he began to contrast his baby brother's death to all of the children of the world who lose their lives horribly, some with great and lingering pain. So he begins to question God at every turn, especially when it comes to the suffering of little innocent children. The key word here is "innocent."

To add to his grief he finally puts two and two together and comes up with a thought so repulsive he almost cannot stand it. Dewey, his baby brother has the exact same facial features that Brother Tuttle, the pastor of the church the Butler family worships at. It is something Truman has thought about before, but the insanity of what has happened has sharpened his thinking and he begins to harbor revulsion and much anger toward both Brother Tuttle and Emma Butler, his mother. What makes it so much worse than merely an adultery which resulted in a pregnancy was that his father was laying on his deathbed while they were carrying on their affair. As the story progresses he beats Brother Tuttle senseless and in the process causes him to lose an eye. Later on in succeeding chapters he is in jail and they are going to try him as an adult and send him to the penitentiary. He tells the lawyers for the church that he will be happy to testify for them and let the whole world know what kind of a pastor Brother Tuttle was. They, of course do not want this, so they drop all charges.

In the meantime Truman has so much guilt associated with the tragedy he is looking for someway to atone for it. He allows another inmate to beat him in his quest for this atonement. He was beaten bad enough to be hospitalized. His mother comes to see him and she tries to make Truman understand why she lay with the preacher. That is not a good thing as far as Truman is concerned, and when the county sheriff comes to him and tells him he is going to give him a ride to the city limits and for him to never come back, Truman is ready. Although he is a juvenile and the sheriff is broking the law in doing what he did, Truman is ecstatic about it. Because he has decided to go on a fact-finding quest to find someone, anyone, who can explain to him why God allows little innocent children to suffer.

This, then, is the plot of the book, Truman's quest for biblical knowledge.

My New Project

2009-09-05T15:10:00.008-05:00

Another question mark, but this post calls for it also. I have been in kind of a funk lately. After my wife died February 9th of this year I jumped headfirst into writing to help me cope with the change in my life. I wrote a vampire novel, my very first, but maybe not my last. I had wanted to write one last year called Anne Rice's Vampire, and contacted her about it, because I heard that she would actually answer your email. I got an answer all right, but it was from her legal team telling me that I was not to use her name for a book or they would begin legal proceedings. I wrote them back that since Anne Rice did not speak one word in the book I believed I had the legal right to use her name, but if they were so narrow-minded about it I'd just pass. I'm still going to write the book, and rename it The Movie Star's Vampire.

So! I kinda got off track there I guess. I got into a funk and was unable to write much except a few poems here and there. I blame the fact that I turned seventy this last April for the reason I am having trouble with writing. I blamed that, but in my heart I knew that wasn't it. What had me wired up and unproductive was the fact that there was something on my mind that I wanted to write, something that I needed to write before I died. I feel okay. As of this writing I have nothing bothering me except for the normal things which I shan't bother you about. Still, I am seventy. I could go out before I finish this sentence.

It finally hit me yesterday in the late afternoon. The novel which I started not too long ago called God? is what I need to write. I didn't get much done when I started it, but have some notes taken and enough to get me started on this project. The plot is a simple one. A man who, because of a horrible accident where he killed his year-and-a-half-old brother. It destroyed him and he began to wonder why God would allow such a thing to happen and why would He allow innocent your children to suffer with terrible diseases when, as I said, they are innocent. That question, plus another religious situation involving his local pastor is enough to send him on a journey to find an answer to his question, and it will take him into strange situation.

I plan to attempt to get interviews from local pastors from each denomination in the Thibodaux area and put the question to them. I imagine I know what most of their answers will be, but I want to see how different denominations respond to the question. Anyway, God? is my next project and I am going to take my time and try to make it a good book, and I also hope very much that I will be able to come away from this quest of Truman's with a better understanding of his dilemma. So this will be a momentous and instructive catharsis if handled correctly.

My Dilemma

2009-09-03T10:15:00.003-05:00

I find myself at a dilemma. I turned seventy this last April 2, and I did not want that to happen. I mean I had rather have turned seventy rather than the alternative, but I have a problem with that number. Throughout my life I have, not one, been concerned with whatever birthday was coming up. The dreaded forty didn't faze me one damn bit. Neither did fifty or sixty. But seventy, ah, that is a different story. Even the sound of that word is different that all the others. Start counting in tens, you know, ten, twenty, thirty, etc. As you do call out the numbers count the syllables in each one. All of the numbers have two syllables except for the number seventy, which has three. That alone is cause for considerable concern. It is an odd number in a sequence of numbers from ten to a hundred. Nine numbers with two syllables, one with three. What do you suppose Dan Brown would do with that scenario? Why he'd make a blockbuster mega novel out of it, although the movie wouldn't do it justice. Do they ever?

Back to my dilemma. I have dreaded this number for some time. Why? Just another number, right? Wrong. I've already proven that it is not just another number. Seventy is different. I imagine between the numbers seventy and eighty I shall die. I hope painlessly, but I have that feeling. What should I do, just go with the flow and accept that I have lived much longer than I ever thought I would? In other words give up. Should I accept that my life is nearing its run and not worry myself all that much about it?

I don't believe I can just sit back and wait on death. There is something growing inside me that is telling me to go out with a bang, not a whimper. What can I do to facilitate that yearning? I can't climb Mt. Everest, or any physical things which would get me noticed and hailed as I spit in the face of death. No, I am physically not capable of such heroic feats

But I can write. And saying that brings me back to my dilemma. I've stopped writing novels within the last two weeks. That is saying something, because I am always writing novels. I have quite a few novels started and not finished. I don't want to finish them. Not now. I have the need for an explosive new novel. I want that because I still, at this late date, haven't completely given up on writing that novel that will take over the best seller spot in The New York Times, not that it is such a wonderful newspaper anymore, but because in the literary sense it is still considered at the top of the heap.

So! I sit here trying to think about that elusive novel I need to write. Why not take the number seventy and just go with it? I don't know. I will give it some thought

Tangiers, by William Bayer Book Review

2009-08-31T10:23:00.004-05:00

If you like a love story and mysterious cloak and dagger intrigue running side-by-side with each other, Tangier is the book for you. Tangier is an old city teeming with political unrest in the slums of Dradeb to the sodomite-influenced hi-jinks of the foreigners who lived in area of Tangier called the Mountain.

Hamid Ouazzant, who clawed his way out of Dradeb to become a police inspector in charge of foreigners is caught up in the lunacy of Tangier, and, in his own way aids and abets this lunacy and turmoil. He is determined to rid the city of the blatant homosexual play-for-pay industry. Hamid is so obsessively driven that there those who believe he is actually harming the city. Robin, his informant on homosexual activates is a flamboyant gossip column writer. The friendship between the two may be odd, but it is useful for them both. Then, of course there is Hamid's fascination with the beautiful Kalinka, who lives inside a cloud of opium, and is the oriental wife of a Russian shop owner. The husband is a suspected spy. His passion for Kalinka drives him as he tries to understand why this Russian is in Tangier.

Tangier is a book of excesses of power and moral decay. The contrast between the have's and the have not's are expertly drawn. It is during the hottest part of the summer when Ramadan begins and the city, with a little gentle persuasion from agitators puts their seething rage to practical use. Add to this furious anger, the custom of not drinking or eating during the daylight hours of Ramadan adds fuel to the hostility and tempers flare in the city. On the Mountain the foreigners outdo even themselves as they go about exploiting the city to their own perversion and taste. They throw extravagant parties even as the majority of the city, the Muslim population, swelters with no air conditioning and without food or even a drink of water during the daylight hours. There is, to quote a famous say, "A Gathering Storm."

The collective storm which is merging has many subtle and not so subtle warnings, which go unheeded as this brilliantly executed book come to its stirring conclusion. There are losers and winners in the aftermath of this storm, although the winners are not so clearly defined. That is because human nature, compassion, and respect must merge within each individual character's assessment of the powerful events which come to pass in the closing chapters. I have the highest regard for William Bayer as a writer which reaches from the pages and touches the readers in a way many cannot.

This book is out-of-print, but you can purchase it at the below link. Prices run from $0.63 to $153.92 . . .

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0525214100/williambayerakad

Write To Murder

2009-08-30T04:44:00.001-05:00

You remember those gripping tales mixing legal suspense and Southern charm that flowed from the pen of John Grisham during the last decade. Or the great Southern drawl of earthy tradition from William FauIkner in an earlier time? It seems we have among us a modern author of similar talents, a gentleman nurtured in the steamy culture of the moist land in that network of slow-moving southern Louisiana bayous a hundred miles southwest of New Orleans. This author is none other than Jerry Pat Bolton.
Many of us have enjoyed Jerry’s adroit skills at weaving poetic wonder and short stories that play to the often flawed characters that one just knows have been an intimate part of his life, in part or in whole. Jerry has a throng of memorable literary bits and pieces and other novels to his credit.
In Write To Murder, Jerry spins a great yarn mixing two common household ingredients that are, by themselves not too alarming, and can even be inert. But when poured together through Jerry Pat Bolton's pen, they combine with a dangerous explosive force, like rubbing alcohol and peroxide. Those of us who follow him are familiar with his great yearning to write prose and poetry that is “outside the box” in its ability to penetrate the consciousness of its audience — literary derring-do that puts our wares on a shelf above those of others.
The other common element is found in abundance in that too-long list of flawed character traits of the human race. Greed, lust, avarice, cupidity, rapacity and covetousness, among others, meld into the scabs on the festering rash that Jerry Pat Bolton meticulously picks at for fodder for this book. What results is a set of colorful portraitures that tangle in a race through a Shakespearean-plotted story-line to a climactic and dramatic finish.
What more could one want in a murder-mystery than Voodoo tainted Cajun swampland harboring such a volatile mixture? Not a lot, in my opinion. Jerry Pat Bolton's latest will keep you entertained at the beach this summer or curled up in your reading chair at home. You won’t even notice the blondes strutting by in the sand or the clock ticking toward midnight at home. This is a good book. Four stars! Congratulations, Jerry Pat Bolton!

Review by R. Leland Waldrip, author of Vigilante Virus and The Last Grizzly

<><><><><><>

The Bayou Bards, a fledgling writers’ group in the South Louisiana town of Sans Souci has a killer in its midst.
When Mary Lamb, writer of children’s books, is murdered, Detective Lee Fontaine is called from the graveyard of deskwork.
While happy to be back solving crimes, Lee finds that he has been saddled with a new partner, Farla Charlet. Lee believes that she has been assigned to him as a watchdog, ready and willing to report anything and everything he does or does not do.
The Bayou Bards consist of a colorful palette of people, including Numa Richards, who is filled with hate and rage over a literary incident during his youth, Jolene, a prostitute who takes pride in herself and her work, Vonzell St. Germaine, a rather radical writer and Hope Springs with her son Adam, who is supposed to be the greatest writer of the century in the near future, according to Hope Springs and her plans.
Write to Murder will open the world of each character to you. In a fresh and daring way Jerry Bolton brings each one of the characters into your life, lets you feel and understand their thoughts and emotions, their hopes and fears. He awakes your compassion for each and every single character coming into play during this mystery. With great skill and attention to detail the plot unfolds, while it draws you into the depth of murder, revenge and, maybe, insanity.
Occasionally you will hold your breath and then, suddenly, there will be a scene to make you smile, followed by another to bring tears close.
A true page-turner, leaving you anxious for the next Jerry Bolton novel once you’ve finished Write to Murder.
Personally we would just love to read more novels with the characters of Lee Fontaine and Farla Charlet. Maybe there could be a sequence…

Review by Roger and Birgit Pratcher, authors of The Conspiracy - The Black Sheep Squadron Strikes Back and June Bear Adventures - The Missing Pies

<><><><><><>

Write To Murder, is another thriller from Jerry Pat Bolton. The setting is a small Louisiana town by the name of Sans Souci. When Mary Lamb, member of the Bayou Bards receives her first children’s book contract, she is murdered. Detective Lee Fontaine, town drunk drying out from when his wife left him, is ordered to work the case. Fontaine has been saddled with a new partner, Farla Charlet, a budding lesbian uncomfortable in her own skin. The two don’t rub on well together.

When the second member of the group is murdered, the team of Fontaine and Charlet close ranks to solve the murders. Adding to the flawed characters Bolton is known for, Hope Springs and her son Adam round out this strange and somewhat unholy writer's group. Hope is determined to mold and shape Adam into America's next great novelist, and Adam is rebelling.

The members of the Bayou Bards are a strange group. Rivalries, jealousies, greed, lust, avarice, and covetousness…all undercurrents in Bolton’s novels, and he spares no expense in creating a slate of writer wannabes in ‘Write to Murder.’

All the Bards have secrets, but Numa Richards, ringmaster of the Bards has the most to hide. A true thriller ending will knock your socks off as only Bolton can do.

Review by Elizabeth Lucas-Taylor, author off Unfinished Business

Margaret and David: A Love Story

2009-08-28T15:38:00.002-05:00

A circumspect story which takes its presumption from history; a love story with political ramifications and social impact. After America's second civil war, fanatical Muslims have seized power. Margaret and David: A Love Story is the story of tragic interracial love which develops as a nation grows to understand that bigotry and suspicion are tools for oppression and hate no matter where it is found. This is a love story, a story of hope and devotion in the face of hopelessness and despair; a story which blur the lines of our multi-racial society. Margaret and David: A Love Story is about forbidden passion, political upheaval, treachery and hate

<><><><><><><><>

I am pleased to include herein the most appreciated and wonderful review of Margaret and David: A Love Story by Aberjhani, author of

Christmas When Music Almost Killed The World, The American Poet Who Went Home Again, The Bridge of Silver Wings, among others . . .

What makes Margaret and David: A Love Story by Louisiana author Jerry Bolton such an important book to read? Answer: because few American authors dare to employ serious literary fiction to address so bluntly the issues and implications of race, religion, gender, and politics as Bolton does in this very provocative speculative write. How does he do what he does? Please keep reading.

In Playing in the Dark, her masterful meditation on "whiteness and the literary imagination," Nobel laureate Toni Morrison takes a deep unwavering look at the absence and presence of Blacks in American literature written by Whites in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. That presence, she found, was one most often marginalized to a point of token representation, or, transformed into a metaphor signifying psychological and political states of unrest. Following his own literary instincts, Jerry Bolton, white twenty-first century author, completely reverses his literary forebears' inclinations and gives African Americans center stage.

Margaret and David: A Love Story fuses political intrigue, social theory, some rather spicy Louisiana erotic flavorings, and science fiction to construct what at its core is essentially a love story of exceptional caliber. The novel is set in the distant future after a second civil war has completely changed life in the United States as we know it in 2007. Yet this is not one more near-Armageddon vision of life in the potentially radioactive days of the future. Instead, the fall-out from the civil war in Margaret and David: A Love Story is a political one that reverses the power structure and social order both as it exists to some degree at present and as it has existed in the past. What that means in these 303 pages is that the one-time 50 United States has been changed into four major territorial zones and been renamed African-America.

As the new name of the country implies, African-Americans in Margaret and David: A Love Story managed to come out on top in the second civil war and, almost a century later, are the country's ruling first class citizens. On the other hand, Whites become second class citizens to the extreme and suffer the kind of degradations and genocidal attacks that Blacks experienced in the United States of the Reconstruction and Jim Crow years (1870s to 1960s) when murders by lynching were commonplace and Blacks were denied equal civil rights. Rather than being referred to as Caucasians or Whites, they are referred to by the derogatory Fairy, an acronym that stands for Fair-skinned and Immoral Rapscallion Yokels. There's humor in the phrase but a definite sting as well, a quality found throughout the novel.

Even more, Jews following the civil war in Margaret and David: A Love Story have suffered a second, seemingly fatal and final, holocaust. The established order is neither a utopia nor a dystopia but a warped attempt at a theocracy slowly crumbling due to its abuses and corruption. A radical Islamic faction controls the government even though the majority of Blacks illegally worship as Christian Baptists. Whites are not allowed to formally worship at all. As if to add killing insult to mortal injury, a reality TV program called "History Revisited" frequently broadcasts the degradation of Whites as entertainment, again, in this, one can find actual parallels in the history of African Americans.

Because we are talking here about the future, technology has also continued march forward and denizens now get around in flying cars called Bandoliers. Given the inevitable discontent of one group and the overdose on power by another, fancy cars (very much like now) do nothing to quell the tensions and conflicts that begin to materialize. Groups of white activists and Blacks secretly working alongside them struggle to achieve a concept considered abhorrent: equality.

The kind of racial transmogrification that Bolton applies in Margaret and David: A Love Story has been employed before (with differences of course) by writers such as James Sallis in his celebrated Lew Griffin Mystery

series, and the Pulitzer-Prize winner William Styron in The Confessions of Nat Turner.

French author Gene Genet accomplished a feat still somewhat astonishing in his play The Blacks, which also saw the rise of Blacks to power only to see them fall prey to human weakness before the same. Bolton takes his literary daring further than any of these.

In Margaret and David: A Love Story, when the radically-inclined Margaret Wheatly Garver, black, dares to help a witless youth named Zane, white, escape the group pursuing him, her life and the destiny of her country changes forever. Zane turns out to be the younger brother of David, a red-headed giant of a man who is revered by his people a the prophet and leader of their eventual deliverance. Margaret finds herself simultaneously attracted to and repulsed by David. He is intrigued by the courage she displays by returning his brother to Fairytown, and she is impressed by his physical stature as well as the place of honor he obviously holds among his people. Their story would have ended had Margaret simply left Zane with his brother, never to return to Fairytown, but return she does. On her second trip, she and David become lovers. However, on that same occasion, Fairytown suffers an historical massacre at the hands of the notorious Guard, one of the leaders of which is Margaret's overzealous more politically correct black boyfriend Hakeem.

The relationship between Margaret and David is as erotically charged as it is politically dynamic. So intense is the yin and yang of their connection that Bolton originally titled this novel "Margaret and David: A Love Story," which is a name it may bear again in a future edition. As dominant as Margaret and David are as the principle characters in Margaret and David: A Love Story they are surrounded by an exceptional supporting cast. The drama they bring to the novel conceivably could produce a sequel or two of its own. Margaret's parents, A'Lelia and Douglas, may be part of the ruling class' upper crust but they are far from happy people, tortured by individual secret and political demons. The irony is all bitter when Margaret discovers that she has much more in common with both her parents and yet is far different from either of them than she ever guessed.

Likewise, David is surrounded by a group of people who in another era might have been described as "poor dumb rednecks," but in Margaret and David: A Love Story take on the admirable identity of underground resistance fighters. Bolton has a gift for grounding his characters, whether black or white or male or female, in the heat of the psychological and historical moment. Some of those moments may prove too intense for some readers but getting through them to the next one is often what good literature, and life itself, is all about.

Margaret and David: A Love Story would not be a particularly remarkable book if all it did was present readers with a scenario of "What if Blacks were the dominant rulers of the United States"? It just so happens, however, that Bolton is a master of plot twists and turns that take readers imaginations on a thrilling flight of controlled shock and revelation that makes Margaret and David: A Love Story a very entertaining read. While David and Margaret's relationship develops, political intrigue and political disasters increase as supporters of David's movement and extremist Guard members head toward a fearful confrontation. Something unexpected occurs and, eventually, the Fairies achieve a level of victory that elevates Margaret and David to the status of celebrated revolutionaries. Their conquest, however, proves an ambiguous one that results in scenes that swing back and forth between the dramatic such as when Margaret suffers a nervous breakdown and the comic as when David finds himself trying to ward off the sexual advances of his hostess at a fundraiser. In a way, the book has two endings, which will not be revealed here. One of them might be described as brutally true to life where the destinies of committed political activists are often concerned. The other might be considered the humane and appropriate treatment of an exceptional literary heroine.

First written in 1990, and revised several times, Margaret and David: A Love Story, is one of six novels by Bolton. Incredibly, none thus far have been published by a traditional mainstream publisher and Bolton has done his reading audience the great service of making several of the novels available himself. Margaret and David: A Love Story

is not a tale that every reader will embrace. Some African American readers in particular are likely to take offense at some of Bolton's choice of similes, such as when he compares the dirt on one man's feet to the color of Margaret's face. It is, nonetheless, a book well worth reading in this 2007 day and age when so much of human life is defined by racial, religious, political, social, and economic divisions. As writer Mari (Bauer) D'India observed in her review of the Margaret and David: A Love Story, 'will most certainly make some readers angry, scare the hell out of others...' Author Sage Sweetwater, whose novels often examine society from the opposite end of the social history spectrum, hailed it as 'bold masterpiece'.

At the center of Bolton's powerful book is a message we have heard before but one that fear, greed, ignorance, and other less noble human traits keep convincing us to forget: that as human beings, love is our most unifying and empowering common spiritual denominator. The more we ignore its potential to bring greater harmony and deeper meaning to human existence, the more likely we are to continue to define history as one long inglorious record of man's inhumanity to man.

<><><><><><><><>

JOYCE FAULKNER, author of In The Shadow of Suribachi and weekly column, "The Weekly Shriek," in The Celebrity Cafe.com

If you are looking for something new and different, Jerry Pat Bolton's new novel Margaret and David: A Love Story fits the bill. Defying traditional definitions, Bolton combines fable with romance, science fiction with political and social commentary - Romeo and Juliet with The Manchurian Candidate to create a fast paced and eclectic read.
Bolton's book has it all - illicit love, sex, familial conflict, violence, political intrigue and religious allegory. It's a page turner that will keep you up way past your bedtime.

<><><><><><><><>

Pamela Kimmell, author of The Mystery of David's Bridge

Bolton has written an extremely creative story in Margaret and David: A Love Story, which could easily be based on headlines from our future. It holds the readers attention from the first lines through the last with enough action to keep even the most ardent of thrill-seekers interested. This book is so much more than a story of what "could" be.....it's also a story of what WILL be if the world continues down its' path of self-destruction; society certainly could easily take the road depicted in this very well done book. Highly recommended.

<><><><><><><><>

Mari D'India, poet

Set into the future, where flying Bandoliers take the place of Buicks, Mr. Bolton expertly guides us through the aftermath of a second civil war that totally eradicates the America we know today. In Margaret and David: A Love Story the fifty states disappear, even the name the United States of America and the National Anthem changes to accommodate the violent civil revolution. Yet intricately woven through out this forceful and controversial tale is a powerful love story that demonstrates how love knows no boundaries, has no limitations, is more powerful than time and can heal even the most festering wounds.
Mr. Bolton's writing style is vivid, bold and lyrical, very reminiscent of the revered Margaret Atwood. That he can accurately and expertly delve into the mind and emotions of a female of another race is a remarkable feat. His empathetic skill at wearing the skin of someone so different from himself reminds me of another fantastic writer who could do this so well: Wally Lamb in his She's Come Undone

To Purchase Margaret and David: A Love Story go here . . .

Lulu . . .

http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/margaret-and-david-a-love-story/1072842

Amazon . . .

http://www.amazon.com/Margaret-David-Jerry-Pat-Bolton/dp/B002AD7UVM/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251491385&sr=1-5

A Little Background

2009-08-27T11:53:00.016-05:00

I was born in southern Arkansas. At least that is what I have always been told. But since I grew up with a lie, how am I supposed to believe even that. I have had the spot, up around Burton's Mill (gone, gone, gone) pointed out to me that was where I was born. It is possible that is the spot, especially if the person who I believe is my real mother really is. Yep. I was adopted. The town I grew up in, Taylor, Arkansas, was small, very small. I think in those days when I was going to school (in the fifties) the population was around six hundred. You cannot keep a secret in a small town. Impossible. I take that back, you can keep secrets, but not all of them. The secret that small town couldn't keep was the fact that I was adopted. I heard whispers early on in my life, like around six or seven. I was bluntly asked one day when I was a teenager about being adopted. The secret that small town did keep was the identity of my mother. To the day I do not know. My adopted mother should never have been able to have children. And she couldn't, or my father couldn't, that's why I was adopted I guess. There would be three more boys adopted after I turned sixteen. I'm not going to go off on my mother (the adopted one) here because I wrote a book about her and a lot of other things called Misdemeanors & Felonies: A Memoir. I'm not going to go off on her, but out of the four boys she raised all four found themselves in prison at one time or another.

A lot of things happened to me after I finally confronted my adopted parents with what I had heard. I was around sixteen at the time and on the rebel-with-a-cause-road that I would travel for many, many years. I was drunk. They told me that my mother was killed in a car wreck on her way to California. Convenient, huh? Well, like I said earlier, I won't go into details about any of this, except to say from that night on I seemed bound and determined to subject myself to every hardship there was out there in that wild wilderness of America's cities and highways to subject myself to. I searched for decades for what I already had, but my mind was much to warped because of a lot of things that I wasn't able to see it.

Somehow during those crazy years I found myself in prison. I also picked up a pretty good trade as a Linotype operator, which was great for someone like me. It meant I could travel the highways and byways of this once great country and almost be assured of finding a job which paid pretty damn good. I never stayed long in any place, job or town, however. The wanderlust was dominating my psyche and I followed it willingly. Also during these days of complete abandonment of sense and morals (a lot of my wandering took place during the sixties and seventies) I managed to marry twice. I fathered two children, Paula, by my first wife and Patricia and Nick by my second one. I was no better at being a father than my mother was being a mother. Actually, my mother was a better mother than I was a father, because I left all three of my children twisting in the wind, fatherless. I am not proud of it, but now I have at least come to terms with it and I do not beat myself up quite as much as I used to. One thing. All three children "found" me. I talk to my two daughters, but Nick doesn't want anything to do with me and I can absolutely understand that. The reason I wrote Misdemeanors & Felonies: A Memoir was to answer all the questions my children might have of me. Although the book is written from my point of view, I did not make myself look like anything except what I was, a no-account wanderer, who did not have the decency to stick around and take care of the children he sired.

If anyone wants to check out the book about a boy who was raised with 1950's morals, but lost himself in the upheaval of a nation in the sex-and-rock-and-roll sixties and seventies, you can go here to purchase it. Soon to be on Kindle.

Lulu:

http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/misdemeanors-felonies-a-memoir/1760506

Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/Misdemeanors-Felonies-Jerry-Pat-Bolton/dp/0615195016/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251394371&sr=1-1

My Mother's Revenge

2009-08-26T11:47:00.008-05:00

My Mother's Revenge was the first novel I wrote. Although I had been "thinking" about writing a novel for many years before I actually sat down and started it, and I knew that I would someday "do it," I had no idea how it would affect me. It nearly caused a divorce. After finally "doing it" I realized that it was consuming me to the extent that nothing matter except the story. I was working offshore at the time as a cook, and I almost lost my job because of the time I was taking to "write"" when I should have been actually doing my job. But, as said, it consumed every waking hour and sometimes would wake me up at night to scribble down notes, which would turning into whole chapters, causing me to lose sleep and therefore not able to completely do my og of feeding the guys I was hired to feed. The thing was that I knew what was happening. I knew I was wrong in allowing the story to take possession of me. I knew it, but I didn't give a damn. This was the firstborn. The baby. Nothing else mattered. When I was home I spent most of my time sitting in front of the word processor (I didn't have a computer at that time) and would only come up for air to use the bathroom and eat. I only ate because I felt I had to because my wife, Dottie, cooked it for me and I felt I owned her that much. that was nice of me, huh? Even as I ate I was constantly writing myself notes and only answering her in unrecognizable grunts. I gulped the food down and rushed back to the word processor, shut the door (threatening bodily harm if it was opened for any reason except for fire) and wrote. I wrote the four hundred plus novel in three months. then took five more years or longer constantly tweaking it, even as I wrote my second novel, Margaret and David: A Love Story.

All the while I was writing cover letters and synopsis and whatever the publisher's and agent's wanted, plus the first five chapters of the manuscript or the complete manuscript. I spent much more money than I could afford to spend sending the damn manuscript here and there and . . . Wherever. Why? Because in my naivety I thought I had a book, a suspenseful thriller which would become a best seller on the New York Times Ton Ten List, plus invites to appear on Oprah and similar shows. I would be a novelist.

Of course, it did not happen. I blamed everybody but myself. "They just publish the same tired old authors, they won't take a chance on somebody new" was one of basic refrains about my failure to get a publisher to give me any encouragement. In later years, I realized that although there was some truth in that oft-repeated statement, a lot of the fault lay in the fact that I wasn't the writer I thought I was. Not that it discouraged me. No. I kept writing and kept tinkering with My Mother's Revenge until I believe I have it as good as I can write it. Then, many books, and many years later, I decided that if I was to ever hold a book I had written in my hands I would have to self publish. And so I did. And so I still do. My dream has partly come true. I am a published author. I have written nine books, working on two more simultaneously as we speak.

Enough. For now. Here is a brief synopsis and where you can find My Mother's Revenge.

Kathy Albertini has tried to distance herself from the "family" most of her life. It hasn't been easy to do because her father Angelo serves as the Godfather of the Dixie Mafia. Still, she has persevered and is working for The Times-Picayune in New Orleans. If belonging to the family merely by birth wasn't enough, Kathy is beset by memories from her childhood about her mother who sinned the unpardonable sin and was kept locked in a room as her punishment until the day she died. Kathy was a small girl, but still blames herself for not trying to help her mother.

As My Mother's Revenge begins Kathy is trying to put her life in order. Things are going good except for the nightmares; she can't seem to shake those dreams of her mother's ordeal. Into this already troubled life another set of problems arises. She is being stalked, and not only stalked, but whoever it is leaves cryptic notes in his wake. The one lone ray of sunshine is John Leveritt, the cub reporter at The Times Picayune. Finally she has met the man of her dreams. She tries to juggle John, the wonderful person she has just met and the maniac who is terrorizing her, but eventually it all gets to be much too much and she finds herself on a houseboat at the mercy of a demon from her father's past. She is merely a means to an end, and that end is the demise of her father, Angelo Albertini.

Lulu (Paperback) . . . $15.95

http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/my-mothers-revenge/1132742

Kindle . . . $10.00

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002LVUITY

Amazon.com . . . $15.92

http://www.amazon.com/Mothers-Revenge-Jerry-Pat-Bolton/dp/B002ACYSJU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251305443&sr=1-2

Global Warming

2009-08-25T10:11:00.009-05:00

I am loving what Global Warming has wrought in my neck of the woods. Usually in August down here in the south Louisiana swamps the morning lows hover around the low-eighties to the high-seventies. Ah, but thanks to the Global Warming (I capitalize it because I fear the wrath of AlGore if I don't) it has been very cool for the last few days when I take my instance mutt for her first walk of the day. This morning it was sixty-five degrees, attabody Al!

I write. That is my thing. I am retired. Retirement was forced on me early because of my health. I have emphysema, but thanks to what I call "miracle drugs" I am able to have an almost normal life. I have been walking four miles a day, but have cut that down to two miles because I just wanted to see if I could do four miles. Now that I can I don't need to. One mile in the morning and one mile in the evening do me quite well.

I am alone. Well, except for the mutt, more on her later. I lost my wife last February 9 and had to leave where we lived to Thibodaux, Louisiana, about ten miles from Houma, my former residence. Financial deprivation was the problem. But I guess I am never alone. I have my writing and therefore all the characters I conjure up in my stories. I know they are not real, except in my mind, and I am not able to correspond with them except in directing them to perform certain things in my stories or poems.

Oh yes, I write poetry also. I write all kinds of poetry. Bad poetry. Good poetry. Better poetry. In fact as of about two weeks ago I have begun a novel told in the poetry style. That's something new, never attempted that before. I'm up to thirteen chapters now and am enjoying it. On top of that I am writing a suspense novel I have named Shared Madness. So, you see, I am really not alone.

How we deceive ourselves. Of course I am alone. My characters are characters, not a person. I want that again. I desire to meet a woman who love to read or write novels and poetry. I would like to bounce ideas off her and just communicate with her about . . . Well, everything. I miss that. I miss that very much. I suppose I will eventually run across her. Hopefully. But I am a seventy-year-old man with a couple of chipped, bad teeth in front, which I suppose isn't too attractive. I'd get them fixed, but I can't. I don't have the money and I can't find a dentist who takes Medicare. Sex? Sure. That part of me hasn't left, although I am not as passionate about it as I once was, I still like to "do it."

Later I will get into more about me, my writing and whatever happened, happens and will happen in my life, but for now I'm outta here. Got to watch Grand Torino. Because I told someone I would. A man of my word.