City of Legends

Being the "Romantic Poet of the Internet" and all, people often pay a lot of attention to whom my poems are written, sometimes misleadingly (i.e., "Arachne and Red Lace" is not about drug addiction, it is to a former lover who told me she was buying that red lingerie for my delight, not that of some other lover I did not yet know about) but with some passion.

I started charting the 87 poems in that book, gridding them out to whom I know the poems were written. I have to admit, I’m a fraud.

Of those 87 poems in the book, published in 2002, only four. Yes, four. Only four were written to my wife at the time (the cover model). That’s just under five percent. Pretty lame.

At this point you are scrambling for your copy to try and figure out who the other 82 were about. Relax, it gets complicated and you are going to need your wits about you.

Fourteen were earlier pieces, written to my first great love. Five. Yes, five. Five were written to my first wife, whom I have had a less than amicable relationship over the intervening years (she once said, publicly, that she would never have me killed because it would ruin her chance to make my life a living hell.)

Thirteen were of an aspect that they were not of or about any woman or relationsip.

But twenty five. Yes, twenty five. Twenty five of the poems in "Love Gods of a Forgotten Religion" were written to an abstract romantic figure I will now give the name "Abstra". She seems to be my most common muse.

Indeed, a painstaking review of my catalog of about 9,000 poems shows that, even if you credit all of the "Panther Cycles" to "the Panther" (many are patently not about her, as they describe aspects of her that I already knew were absent) she comes in at 7.1% of my total recorded output.

Abstra has around 11.4%. Sounds like a can of whup-muse if ever I heard one.

Who is this Abstra? That makes it interesting, even further. Certainly my view of her has evolved over the years.

In her earliest days she was an amalgam of the women I desired, Psyche and Alabaster and others. But as time went on, she began to take on those characteristics I was not finding in my lovers.

Most of my relationships have been terribly one-sided affairs, with me doing the heavy lifting, emotionally and financially.

Abstra is an equal partner who takes care of me when I am sick and calls me sometimes just to check on me, not just when she wants a favour or to borrow some money (the stories I could tell…)

Abstra is passionate, publicly affectionate, and isn’t afraid to tell me when I am screwing up. But before I actually make the mistake, rather than waiting until the dust clears then telling me a resounding "I knew that would fail."

She has her own space, her own identity, her own goals and dreams and achievements, which I celebrate with her. And she is proud of me when I succeed, not envious.

She has my back. She likes to snuggle. And doesn’t mind being with a man who, while extremely monogamistic, has the appetites of a teenager.

She has a spiritual side, but knows we live in the real world and that needs taken care of, too.

She likes animals, but doesn’t consider them more important than people.

Big one here. She’s not a liar. She doesn’t lie to me. She doesn’t expect me to lie for her, or to take the blame for her mistakes. She doesn’t lie about me when it suits her manuevering.

Gee. Now that I think of it, I have known a few women like her, but so long ago they have passed from my sphere. Known in times before I knew what was of value, what was of need.

I don’t think it is time to raise my standards, but to hold to my standards. To embrace and accept them for an integral part of me, and my artistic vision.

But enough about me. I salute you, Abstra. Through many years you have kept this heart beating, as did Glatisant with King Pellinore, as I keep my lonely quest for you.