City of Legends

Just requested permission from my editor for "Apokalypsis" to use "The Sacraments" in "Amomancer:  selected poems".  Let’s see how territorial she is.  And when did I start asking permission from editors?  WTFFFF?

Right now have the headphones on as "Nowhere Fast" by Ellen Aim and the Attackers (actually, Fire, Inc.) plays from "Streets of Fire".  Perhaps my favourite cult movie of all time.  The cats have buried several low yield fission weapons in a trench full of strontium isotopes and are threatening to make the laundry room a kill zone if I keep dancing.  Cowards.

Reactivated my Skype account.  It had lay dormant since Aubergine.  If you need to touch base with me, drop me a note or look for me on the wire. 

Amomancer:  selected poems

At this time the White Sunday poems, both the titular ones and the dedicated ones, number nearly 200 works.  That’s a lot of poetry for less than a six month run.  I actually pity the poor editor who has made the decision to cull them down to a book sized manuscript.  I really do.

But that is what an editor is for.  Funny, I don’t much like editors, as a rule.  They get in the way of the pure creative drive, they alter what has been done and for good or for bad, that’s like some guy with a magic marker getting hands on the Mona Lisa.  To me, poetry is truth is god is love is art, and adulteration of that isn’t true.  But, I am learning.

The rest of the world looks alien to me, again.  I am lost in the poetry, lost in my affection and passion for my Sunday Girl, even though there are very real signs that her passion for me has run its course.  Maybe it is just the echoes of Aubergine and the Leopard that make me so dread the future, fearing that she, like they, was here for the anointing of immortality but doesn’t really want to hang on Olympus.  Dread, what an awkward word in my mouth.  I spend a portion of every day lost in it, the physiological symptoms growing stronger as the stress tears at me.

But many years ago, at the denouement of the Panther Debacle, I vowed I would not bend again, that before I would surrender to despair you would hear the bones crack and shattera s I stood my ground.  Such inflexibility does not always serve me well, and the frustrating complexity of my relationship with the Sunday Girl is an abattoir for my soul.  Every doubt, every apprehension, every misstep or miscue, I feel a thousand sharp and sinister electric shocks, scorching me.  But I have made my vow, and the vow was founded upon yes, nothing less than a love I would stand resolute in for the rest of my days…even when that epoch seems marked in seconds rather than decades.

I cannot write enough poetry to purge my soul of all these feelings.  There are not words in any language of man to express them.  I do what I can and try everything to control the pain.  It is, of course, in the end, a losing battle, but those are the only battles worth showing up for.  I hope this one rages for decades, that it is marked with some gains before the inevitable loss of death and separation, that there is truth in her.

In the meantime, enjoy the poetry.  You will not see anything else like it in your lifetime, that I can assure you.

"this diseased horizon" is out.  too dark.  I am going for the high ground.  wish me luck.

The most important first:  To my Sunday Girl, I said something the other day I shouldn’t have.  I know you are angry, and you have every right to be.  I would make amends, but what happens next will be a measure of your will and heart.  Be at peace with whatever you do.

Now to my readers.  I have been a sloppy writer of late.  Not from the writing, but from the organization and presentation, particularly here and at my other sites.  I am going to try and do better.  The whole decision to remake the City of Legends website nearly three years ago was a bad one, and I apologize for that.  I will try and clean things up around here and make things go a little better and with more frequent (and interesting) entries.

To a few people I pissed off via my single-minded focus on the Sunday Girl works.  I’m sorry, you know me, I write from the heart and I take full responsibility for my actions.  I am getting traction on my other writings and themes.  Hang on…acceleration being applied.

New book coming out in the new year "this diseased horizon".  "Apokalypsis" is still a live project, but some of the Faustian deals I have had to make for it to even be properly birthed could conceivably push it back for years.  Trust me, I am miserable, but I am bound by my word.

Okay, my self-pity generally lasts just a bit longer than my anger (I am notorious for split-second flashes of anger that implode almost instantly).

We all need to grieve when we screw up, it is essential to the healing process.  I screwed up, upset someone I truly care about and now, on top of my own self-flagellation (which is legendary) they are cheering me on.  Not that this makes me feel like a victim, indeed, I feel like I should make sure they have a comfortable seat and some nachos and a soft drink.

But the absurdity is not lost on me.  I’ll be fine, I am always a survivor, doesn’t mean I enjoy pulling my toenails out with needle-nose pliers, setting them on fire and stuffing them up my nose, however.  No one does, but it is how we develop our own behavioural feedback loops.

So, again, my Sunday Girl, I am aghast and truly, truly, truly sorry for what I said.  Now, hand me that cat-o-nine-tails, the rocksalt and the thumbscrews.  I’ll show you how a man takes it.

taking my own counsel, I have just determined that there is, at length, a vote to step out of the box I have sealed myself in over the last few months.  That doesn’t mean I am going to "break out", but it does mean my resolve has eroded.  Part of me is far more pragmatic than most of me would agree with, but I just have to deal with what I am given to work with.  Can’t build an airplane out of excrement, you know.

I can’t and won’t give details…that would hurt people whom I actually care about, but for me, I have to make survival-level decisions, and soon.  For now I have suspended poetry writing and gone internal.

I was challenged by my friend Thomas to compare and contrast what is happening right now in regards to my writing to other muses, from my past.  This reminds me of a challenge a friend of mine once issued when he complained that Larry Bird was getting too much attention in the NBA.  We did a statistical breakdown on his play and found out he was the dominant player, by a major margin, at the time.

But, to mollify Thomas and put my current state of being in perspective, let’s use, as a yardstick, the following muses:  the Panther, the Leopard and Brigit.  I am selecting those as they are the benchmarks of my muses, in terms of number and quality of works, each having been involved with me over a span.

Let’s make it easy. 

Brigit was a factor in my life for approximately the same period of time that the Sunday Girl has been, so far.  During that time I wrote approximate 110 poems about her.  In a recent breakdown of my ten best works, none marked the list (sorry, love). 

The Leopard was a factor in my life for about 6-1/2 years, nearly twenty times the period of time of the Sunday Girl.  During that time I wrote approximately 150 poems about her.  Of those, one makes the all-time poems list.

The Panther was a factor on my life for a year and a half, about four times the period that the Sunday Girl has been in my life, so far.  I wrote to her approximately 800 poems.  Staggering.  In the base period, that period equivalent to my run so far with the Sunday Girl, I wrote 34 poems to the Panther.  Of the full 800, a single poem stands out in my all-time list.

The Sunday Girl.  Four months, more or less.  215 poems, as of a half hour ago.  6 of my top ten all time works come from that collection.  If I continue to create at this rate, by the time we reach the involvement duration I was with the Panther, we are talking nearly 1,000 poems, and already of a measurably higher quality and durability.

We’re not talking a distraction.  We are talking about major, profound and welcome change to the regime of the muses in my work. 

So, Thomas, does that answer your question?

Because he doesn’t.

The cats are bricking themselves into the corner, I put on David Bowie’s live rendition of "Width of a Circle" from David Live.  I think the cats have converted to Christianity, there are no atheists in foxholes.

Feeling pretty good…have my pains and heart strains but all in all, this has been the year.  Figured out some very important stuff, like the emotional alchemy to falling out of love.  Never had that formula before.  It was obvious.  Say goodbye to a couple of jungle cats.  That was a relief.  Tired of the kicking, the sabotage, of my life I had committed by confusing passion for compassion. 

Writing like a madman.  No, actually, not metaphorical, I am writing like a madman.  Hanging by my heels and screaming in Serbian at the clay wizard.  He never really understood me anyway.

Actually, no, just amped up on good vibes.  Yes, the Sunday Girl still reigns supreme.  I’ve promised that won’t change, you don’t want to make me go back on my word, do you?  No?  Good.  This is love, not confusion.  It feels good.  It is good. 

Watch the blog for news…some major movement in my universe over the next month or so.

Hold it, have to go, the cats have put together a primitive flamethrower and are trying to drive me into a large cardboard box so they can ship me away.  If they let me choose the city, I’m ready.

I am alive.  As usual, stuck and struck between the stones of time and my own passions, but doing okay.  I found a work around for the crippling pain I had bought into and have it under control.  It comes at a price, but I am prepared to pay it.

Others, perhaps not as much so,  But, that’s the way it goes.

I have been writing.  Some pretty amazing stuff.  Not oddly, not to the Sunday Girl so much.  The relationship is curiously dysfunctional.  Tormenting me.  But I have weathered, if not worse, then comparable.  I just had to put back up some defenses.  Damn, I was so hoping I was through with those.

The new book, Apokalypsis, is entirely in her hands now as to what form it take and when.  I had to do that, just to survive.  It’s still all my work, but I needed her to take over what she had summoned.  I am not that self-flagellating of a fool.

I have made new friends.  I needed the support.  The adjustments I would have had to make in my worldview to survive on my own ego would have set off too many booby traps.  Not good stuff.  Not going there, don’t ever want to go there.  The last few days has seen a meltdown almost to the levels of last month when we were hours away from a Nosferatu’s Dream invocation.

No, I have miles to go and I’ll walk them alone or in tandem with my Sunday Girl.  Or, if she is really, really stupid and releases me from my vows, someone else.  let’s wait and see, shall we?

I am working on the magazine and the tour.  yes, the oft promised and forever aborted tour.  I had a shot to read in New Orleans the other day.  Good, major venue, but I got sidetracked on more important issues.

Next year, in Jerusalem.  Okay, Los Angeles, but that is my holy city.

Right now the cats are scared.  If you have ever seen me with my headphones on dancing to the Ike and Tina Turner Review’s "Nutbush City Limits" you understand.  I have heard they have applied for a UN peacekeeping force.

Long time readers know how surreal this week is.  Within a handful of days we have my Grandmother’s birthday (she just turned 99!), and the birthdays of both ex-wives (hello, Jan and Ann), as well as usually at least a few auspicious days under some semblance of control and scheduling. As well as the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.  Strange days, indeed.

I have completed my first draft-cut on Apokalypsis.  It is fantastic.  I am turning it over to the muse herself, White Sunday, for review and approval.  There are some issues and I give her full authority in those matters.

I chopped off my ponytail yesterday.  Okay, not me, a young Albanian hairstylist did the actual cutting, but I authorized it.  I feel good about it.  Many reasons (ever hear me doing something for a solo motive?  Nope!) for the action.

Well, just wanted to check in, my lovers and lovelies.  I feel good, I feel strong, and as "Station to Station" by David Bowie cycles up on my iTunes, I bid you a good day.