Why We Do What We Do

I lay down these words
I assume
searching for significance
for consequence of actions past
what, then is life
except a series of trials and
failures
brought about in a sense
by blood kin
ancestors, if you will
supernatural and inspirational
guide our hand
our thoughts
some not so inspirational
as misguided
pumping up egos
making "I" supreme
perpetual DNA is bitter consolation
when we transmigrate into another's
dead soul

our memories are ours
if not
why take the trouble

©March 18, 2008 / Jerry Pat Bolton

I Have Given Birth

It took only five months to birth my child, Misdemeanors & Felonies: A Memoir, not the required nine months normally associated with childbirth . . . er . .. Unless we are talking about twenty-two months for elephants. I guess I'm attempting silliness here, but the fact remains I feel like a great burden has been lifted from my heart. The writing of Misdemeanors & Felonies: A Memoir has not lessened the pain I have felt for many years and still feel about what happened to those who were affected by my actions when I was half crazed by personal demons. Demons which made it impossible for me to function within a civilized world, expect on its periphery, in the shadows, lurking and hoping for love and happiness even as I ran like hell away from it. No, the pain is still there and the pain will remain, but hopefully my recounting of those days of dispair and wrongs committed will at least assuage feelings and answer questions about what happened to cause a man to walk away from love, honor, and family. That is my prayer. There are always consequences for your actions and it is not always you who have to pay them, those innocent ones you touch as you go through life self absorbed and demon-possessed, that is the tragic part of a story such as mine.

Well, anyway, the book is finished. The book is published. The book is available for purchase, and if anyone is interested, go here . . . Misdemeanors & Felonies: A Memoir . . . I thank you

First Deadly Sin . . .Pride

Original form of poetry I call "Septcouplet;" from Septette (A set of seven similar things considered as a unit) and couplet (Two successive lines of verse forming a unit marked usually by rhythmic correspondence, rhyme.) The Septcouplet consists of seven free-style verses, with six lines each, no syllable count. After each verse there are two lines which rhyme, with four syllables in each line. The style is lowercase, except for proper names, punctuation when needed inside the lines, but none at the end of lines.

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

deliriously gifted and self absorbed
sits like a pasha waiting for figs and tea to be served
born lacking the capability of care about others
a unimportant man serving noble causes
his
self-esteem infuriating as Chinese arithmetic

no man on earth
is worth his worth

hepatitis of the ego
inward turned eyes finds no soul
symphony in his head
beats out rhythm of his importance
most used word . . .
I

he thinks he's swell
self-esteem hell

grossly overweight in the id region of his brain
degree from college of me
mind altering course on conceit and/or smugness
illegal drugs not nearly as deadly
his flame burns with egotistical chutzpah, concealing
goodness like brontosaurus foreskin

we look at you
and we see through

you feel important
like leaders of tiny nations
bluster and rant
with rodent-like characteristics
smiling a smile that never reaches your eyes
you think you are larger than God

you touch yourself
your soul's bereft

you sport pawnshop brass balls
unflattering nymphomaniac of self-esteem
church of the condescending
your luminosity glows with superciliousness
shallow man, gloms onto whatever
makes him bigger than the rest

never content
image for rent

no one can see the true scope of this man
he belittles Donne's adage
no man is an island
the five senses not nearly enough
to appreciate the magnitude of this man
with the cutthroat glare

proud to a fault
himself exalt

vast mind of bravura desolation
he tends to his own chamber of commerce
his gaze locked inward
serial narcissistically predisposed
spent his whole life
compulsively seeking outward meaning

when, at the end
life was pretend

©February 11, 2006 / Jerry Pat Bolton

Update On The Book

I am waiting for another proof book to come through the mail. It will probably be next week by the time I get it. Then I shall go through it one . . . more . . . time for mistakes, realizing that I will catch some more, but will most likely miss some. An author attempting to edit their own work is not the best way to go, because subconsciously, the fact that we wrote the darn thing makes us immune to mistakes we might have made, at least all of them. We can read the same sentence over twenty times and overlook something that an uninterested party can spot on the first read. Still, it must be this way because I can't afford to hire an editor. Still, I feel that this book will be more error-free than any of the past ones, and I think that is because of the very personal nature of it.

Anyway, after I read the book again, looking for said mistakes, I will be ready to put it on the market. In the past I have given quite a few books away in the initial publishing, but I can't afford to do that anymore. I plan to give only five books away when I get it ready. Three of them will go to my children, one to my grandson to read whenever his mother decided he is ready for it, if ever, that is up to her, and the last one will be sent to Marionette, my first wife and mother of Candence. I only wish there was a way to send Patricia and Nick's mother a copy, but I am very saddened to say that she passed away a few years ago.

This has been a very difficult book to write. I am not seeking sympathy, which is merely a fact. I have had to confront – in print – my weaknesses as a human being and some of the things I did for a period of twenty to thirty years was not very nice. The book concentrates on my negative side, because for a huge chunk of my life I lived in a negative world. Yes, the reader might surmise, as they read this book, that I was down on myself as I wrote it, but the truth is truth and truth cannot be compromised if you are, in fact, seeking truth. Anything else would be insulting to the memory of those days.

To all of you who read my blog and commenting so wonderfully, I want to once again, thank you. For those of you who will buy this book I thank you again, and I hope, after reading it you can still have a measure of respect for me. Not respect for some of the things I have done in my life, but for the man who wrote the book, the man who absolutely would go back and change some things in my life if I could. Well, I can't change anything, I can only give Candence, Patricia and Nick my words . . . Such as they are.

Misdemeanors & Felonies

Misdemeanors & Felonies,
Memories I'm writing about me.
And those in my life I have met,
Some of who I owe a great debt.

A tell-all book I'm pleased to say,
I shoot from the hip anyway.
Not coloring myself to them,
And those I've loved I'll not condemn.

But if there's one or two or more,
Who needs rebuke, listen to me roar.
I'm taking the high road for some,
Others I don’t care; they are bums.

My life is hard to write about,
I've not always been a boy scout.
Those who have read my poems know me,
Better than most I will agree.

For years I've written of sorrow,
Knocking on doors I needed to know.
A life not perfect by no means,
The things I've done, some think obscene.

I grew and I hated my part,
For the anguish I did impart.
I dreamed of maybe making amends,
I would give my life for this end.

August 15th, this year, so dear,
What happened to me made me CHEER!
Patricia my daughter wrote to me,
From a poets site, Authors Den.

Thirty-eight years since I'd seen her,
A miracle that this did occur.
I'm not ashamed, I cried as I read,
Though cautiously, she did proceed.

For Paula, Patricia and Nick,
A dreadful father they did pick.
They have questions, they want to know,
Why I wasn't there as they did grow.

I can't change what I did in those days,
They are gone, but this I do pray,
I can give them my life in a book,
I'll tell it all, sinner to crook.

Misdemeanors & Felonies,
Memories, my life I decree.
A saint and sinner, warts and all,
Days on end my back to the wall.

The first draft is well on its way,
I'm saying things I need to say.
I hope they read it, it's my prayer,
In it my heart and soul I bare.

©November 18, 2007 / Jerry Pat Bolton

Rooming House on St. Charles

Just thinking back over some times in my life that weren't all that great.



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 hell
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 facsimile is 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

Cheyenne

rocky mountain beauty
green eyes
God made first
proportioned everything else
complementary
Xanadu, my girl of the mountains

she had her style
I was beguiled

mountain streams
touched by Paradise
so too, this
rocky mountain beauty
panache personified
elegance to my aw shucks Arkansas raw

she saw in me
chaste potpourri

eagles soar o'er imposing peaks and crags
I expel my breath
at such magnificence
lost in the still of the moment
rocky mountain beauty
takes my hand

together one
love has begun

breath catches in my throat
shortness, hard to breathe
not because of
thin mountain air
no
rocky mountain beauty

thudding of heart
clean off the chart

simple things
unhurried strolls . . . out-of-the-way places
rocky mountain beauty
made the dull out of the ordinary
soft voice
softer hands cupping roadside flowers

my love, my all
God, I stood tall

remembrance of our short romance, painful
rocky mountain beauty
touched my soul
while there, she aided and abetted my
maturity
manhood took center stage

she made me feel
I was a deal

time dulls so many things
I cannot recall
fuzzy thoughts of yesteryears
except one, stamped indelibly within my heart
rocky mountain beauty
Dee

maybe sometimes
I cross her mind