City of Legends

Let me see…my Dad’s 88th brthday, my 56th.

Dropping Elric off at University of Hawaii at Hilo.

Dante starting to Old Dominion University (ODU).

Earthquake.  Hurricane.

Yep, that was August.

I miss my boys.

A great ennui

descends on me

and I am gone

til it moves on.

The world, this world, our world, is not anywhere near what it should be.  But there is always hope.

Maybe we can get our acts together…maybe…I promise I won’t stop.  If a perfect God can find it in their heart to sacrifice for and excuse us for our screw ups, who are we to be anymore arrogant?

Happy Easter, to all my friends and readers.

Dutch tech-musical-wizard Ophidian has permitted me to not only feature his great piece "Pegasus", which features my reading of "the philosophy of dreams" but also includes his newest work "the violence of indifference", which includes my reading of my poem "from out of the city" in my latest "from out of the city" (coincidentally) podcast.

You can subscribe to the podcast at Apple’s iTunes Music Store or through the Feedburner feed (click here, dummy).  Give a listen and let me know what’s your take.

Thanks again to the great Ophidian!

Note to Avid Fan:  The book progresses.  My editor assures me it is proceeding well and will be amazing.  I trust her.

2010 is almost over.  An curious year.  I couldn’t have predicted it, couldn’t have planned it, couldn’t have anticipated it, except in my most lucidly random notions.

I fell in love.  Hard.  Nothing new about that.  The relationship is complicated, convoluted and seems determined to rip me to shreds.  Nothing new there.  I am, as usual, the fulcrum around which my life turns.  The fact that a portion of this entry is written in coded phrases targeted to a handful of friends, lovers and fellow poets who will individually take different things away from it, well, that speaks to me and my universe.

I am openly a secret.  I realized that this year.

Four books in the coming year, if the fates and my editor cooperates.  Unlikely.  I have my moments of absolute tottering on the edge of the abyss, but on the one in one billion chance it isn’t a bad thing, I stand there and smile.  Frank Wallenda was right, you know.

I am at an age where certainty, the illusion of security, is like crack cocaine.  I don’t have any of that in my life.  A few vague promises and my own talents sustain me.  There are moments I am hollow, hearing the very echo of myself, and other times I am full to bursting, feeling the magma straining every pore.  If I can navigate the next few months…

What an curious year.  And 2011 promises to be more insane.  I would trade an eye for the ability to know what is true around me.  Who means it when they say "I love you" and who say it out of desperation or negotiation or ignorance.  That would be nice to know.

You asked for it, you got it.

The "From Out of the City" podcast will be returning at the stroke of midnight, December 31st, 2010…

featuring our most explosive set yet as the original Gods of Love reunite to back my madness on "White Sunday:  The Sacraments".

Anyone left alive in the studio after that recording, please turn the lights off as you leave…more info coming in the next two weeks.  And if your WikiLeaks, please clean up and spray some Febreze on the spot.

A few months back the manuscript for my "next" book, Apokalypsis took a 176.25 degree turn when I decided to turn it into a full on love letter to the extraordinary woman I call "White Sunday".  No problem.

But then I kept writing more "White Sunday" poems and the book kept growing.  I asked a good friend, fellow poet Mary Katherine Brake, if she would be so kind as to take over the editing duties.  She agreed, but she also said that there was no logical end point for the book until either I stopped writing "White Sunday" poems (at this moment around two hundred and growing daily) or the relationship took such a dramatic turn that I had to change the muse’s "totem".

I agreed and handed off the project, realizing it could be months, even years, complicated by a complicated relationship the likes of which would make the most love-starved fan go "Phew!  I’m glad he’s not involved with me!"

So I decided I needed to do a different book in time for my Spring Tour.  Something different, something stunning.  Something so overladen with images and poetry that it would explode in your mind and eyes like artillery shells full of ecstasy and pain.  This was the book currently called "orphans", but it will undoubtably change names as now, thanks to the editorial tutelage of Ms. Brake, I have ample reason to postpone that book until mid-Summer 2011.  No problem.

I’ll do a third book, something powerful and romantic and poll my readers and find out…they want what?  Erotic?  Sheesh.  And at the very moment I am trying to demonstrate to that small piece of the universe that matters to me that I am not some overly-intense screaming Byronist.  Okay, I am, but I have other sides to me as well, really. 

Thus was born the need for a fourth book.  Something patoral, gentle, true but in the subtle whisper not the cataclysmic bombast.  I am right now working on the concept, but I think you will find it oddly refreshing.

So, here we go.  I was going to do a book in 2010.  Instead, no book in 2010.  Four books (maybe) in 2011.  Blame my editor.  I knew there was a reason I hated editors.

The good news?  I already have the covers to the first three designed. Really.  No, you can’t see them…yet.

 #1:  If you haven’t been over to my pure poetry blog, Amomancer, http://amomancer.blogspot.com , you are missing the show.

#2:  I am going nuts trying to figure out who my most loyal visitor is, all I know is they come on from a Mac with a Katy, Texas node point.  They’re the reason City of Legends beat out williamfdevault.com  last month by THREE visits!  Drop me a note, leave a comment, you deserve recognition or at least a tip of the hat.

#3:  The book situation gets wilder.  Recognizing that Apokalypsis might be a while, I conceive the new project, my editor, God love her, comes up with a brilliant idea that would make that book even more amazing, but it would mean postponing its release until next summer.  Meanwhile, I was planning to use it as my tourbook, which means either a) postponing the tour or b) coming up with a third book idea…I love my editor.  I love my editor.  I love my editor. (I figure if I keep saying that I will unclench my jaw)

One of my favourite actresses of all time is Teri Garr, and one of my favourite lines in a movie, all time, was spoken by her in "Tootsie".  Feeling neglected, lied to and used by Dustin Hoffman’s Michael, he asks if they can still be friends. Her response?

"I don’t take this shit from friends.  Only lovers."

I realize how valid her attitude is, and pervasive.  We let, or at least I let, lovers walk all over us, because we have a totally different set of behavioural constraint for a lover than a friend.  We accept emotional abuse, neglect, deceit and just batshit craziness from someone we are in love with, but for friends we hold them to a higher standard, as these are the people we need to have our backs when things go bad.

I have been fortunate enough in my life to have a good friend as a lover.  But more often than not, that has not been the case, which is unfortunate.  Curious creatures, we humans, no?

I have much to be thankful for.  The awareness of all that I have is something I try not to take for granted.  Too many people see only that the glass is half-empty, dirty or not exactly what they ordered.  Me, I drink the water and get on with it after thanking the server.

My friends and family are mostly in good health.  I love.  Not just the universal love for all things and people, but specific love.  The measure of a heart, no matter how many times you quote "The Wizard of Oz" is how much it loves.  Never, ever be so arrogant as to assume all love will be reciprocated.  Unconditional love is the purest degree, and that means forswearing the juvenile concept that love is always a two-way street.  It is beautiful when it is, but even in those cases, unbalanced relationships are problematic if not allowed for in your world view.

I have written some good stuff over the last several months, although at this point it risks becoming pantheric (my long-time readers will understand that newly-coined word, but is the delusional side of "nemicorn").  But again, it is the poet and the audience, not the muse, who defines the value of the work. 

Much has been made by friends and family about my decision to be alone this Thanksgiving.  I have options, I choose not, most likely, to accept them. To me, being thankful is more than just gluttony.  I am most likely going to get some rest, do some editing, writing and, yes, recording, and cast my net upon the world to talk to my many friends around the world, most of whom do not celebrate the American Thanksgiving (we sometimes lose vision that we are NOT the center of the universe).

I am well.  Strong.  Inspired.  Ready for the next wall, barrier, mountain or ocean.  I am grateful and thankful to my readers, my friends, my lovers and critics.  Sometimes I lose sight of how special I am and how special the world around me is, I am so busy subsuming myself under other people’s wills, trying to please only to be ultimately disappointed in the narrowness of vision brought on by their lives and experiences.  I must, in the coming months and years, learn to be a bit more my own man, my own muse, if you will.

Be well, all of you.  This coming year will be extraordinary.  I am stepping up, moving forward and invoking my old poem "TRANSCENDENCE".

Peace and poetry to you all.

still alive and well.

I am making plans to revive my podcasts in the new year, and to kick off my Spring reading tour in Florida around Valentine’s Day. 

The new book:  "Amomancer:  selected poems" will be coming out in January, most likely.

"Apokalypsis"?  Hm.  May be a dead project, may be transitioning.  I will see in the next few weeks where the fates take me.  I may end up cannibalizing the resources I set aside for the promotion of that book to support "Amomancer".  Too early to tell.  A shame, actually, but I merely pass through this world and life, I do not control it, nor would I want to.

I am strong, and well.  I surprise myself sometimes.