A Southern Missive

As I was diligently paying bills for the month, I grabbed a writing pad randomly from a stack near my computer. I found this poem I wrote last April. As I read it, I remembered the poem, know the poem’s persona, but I don’t remember the actual writing of it, though I know I was hurting badly during that time.  I thought the poem was worth posting and that it reveals something significant regarding our human existence.

Friends are betrayed

Because of duty, politics, jealousy,

For 30 pieces of silver,

For a bit of life-drama perhaps,

Sometimes, they’re betrayed for no reason at all.

Betrayal slashes through to the heart,

To the core of your being,

Severing the arteries of the soul,

Causing you to bleed to death in sadness.

Betrayal is a lead-filled blackjack

Pummeling, hammering, pounding,

Until you hemorrhage  inside,

Until kidney, liver and heart have burst.

It’s like a rape . . .

An act of violence,

A breach of trust,

And the betrayed ones,

Are never, never the same again.

Today has been a made scramble with banking, work on my Website, calls for my signings, and I put up our Christmas tree today. It’s one of the fake ones with like a million branches you plug into the trunk in alphabetical order. It actually looks real nice when decorated. I wasn’t in town the day after Thanksgiving, the traditional day of setting up Christmas trees in my family, and yesterday I was at ULM all day, so today was the first chance I had to get that chore done.

I’ve got appointments in Texas all day Thursday, so I’m leaving tomorrow afternoon and will return to Monroe sometime Friday. I’ve a signing at Cherry Books in Thibodaux, Louisiana,  Saturday morning. I’ll be signing both books of mine, Jim Limber Davis: A Black Orphan in the Confederate White House and Stories of the Confederate South.  Here is their contact information: 985-446-0182  1050 Canal Blvd, Thibodaux, LA 70301

There’s a really good article and some photos about the new bookstore, its owner and Terry Fruchey, the manager. Here’s the link for that article: http://www.houmatoday.com/article/20070826/BUSINESS03/708260310/1001

At my book signings, I’ve met many people who are interested in writing about the Civil War—also known as the War Between the States, The Recent Unpleasantness, The War of Northern Aggression, and other titles. You may have your own reasons for your desire to center your writing on this conflict, but here is a list of reasons more writers should address the Civil War:

1. This war forever and permanently changed America. This conflict is a reference point, a turning point in our culture, in politics, and in our history.

2. Many of the issues of the war are still relevant and interesting to thinking people. Remember that most of this generation have been fed misinformation and stereotypes and don’t know that the generic, oversimplified and dumbed down historical facts in the textbooks doesn’t tell the real story of the Civil War. So, as a diligent writer of the Civil War, you will become an instructor.

3. You will have a specifically targeted and huge audience. Avid Civil War readers have several things in common. They tend to be literate, well-read, they enjoy learning new facts, they love hearing facts and stories they already know if they are told from an interesting and unique perspective, and most important of all for a writer—they buy tons of books.

4. You will grow from your writing.

5. Your reading audience will grow as a result of your research, insights, and prose.
Writers do shape society. Think of how Stephen King and other writers have influenced our ideas of horrors. Strong writers today are shaping the consciousness of the Civil War too.

6. This is an opportune time. Never, at least since the generation of actual combatants, have we had such rich and thorough resources.