City of Legends

I have sat on this story for some time, but I’m letting it out now, just because I feel like it.  I am sorting through bits and pieces for a new hack at my memoir.

A while back…no "circa" to this story, as it might reveal too much, I was head over heals in love with a woman who was the same with me (well she said she was, and I rarely argue with that compliment).  I sent her a present, a signed copy of one of my books (actually, I had sent her some earlier, this was one I just did not have in stock at that time and was looking to complete her set) and knowing she was in tough times, but too proud to ask for help, I sandwiched a substantial amount of money between the pages of the book.  Substantial.  Buy a used car, pay rent for several months or take a long trip to visit someone special kind of money.

Well, sometime between the time I mailed it and the time it reached her, the relationship went south.  I’m no scoundrel to be asking a gift back (I have lost a substantial portion of my worldly goods over the years to gifts), so I just wrote off the money as something she needed and something that, when she got it, at least she would not think badly of me.

Months passed, and I never heard even a peep about the gift.  I do admit a certain personality quirk where I am predisposed to be cross over people who do not at least say "thank you" when you, oh, save their life, or nurse them through a major illness or give them all the money you have in the world, so I did feel a little perturbed at her (I actually imagined that she had thrown it out without opening it…meaning the money was lost to both of us, forever).

Five months to the day I mailed it, it appeared in my home mailbox, having been "refused" and somehow knocking about FOR FIVE MONTHS through the postal system.  The packaging was intact, the book was in fine shape (I have it here, beside me, complete with my autograph to her) and the money?  The money was safely tucked inside.

That weekend, my car decided to have a major breakdown and the money more than covered the repairs.  I guess the gods of love do work in strange and mysterious ways.

Gnight kids.

You own’t see it on here.  Nope.  Too many "Aha!" moments would be born in that.  Too many rumours laid to rest or confirmed.

But I started today on a project to build my new screen saver/background.  A collage, if you will, of every person I have a photo of who has had an impact in my life.  My mother, my father.  My sibs.  My nephews and nieces.  My kids.  My ex-wives.  And muses,  I have photos of nearly all of them.  Old friends.  Current friends.  Hundreds of people.

Smiles, frowns and angry scowls.  Lips I have kissed.  Eyes I have stared at in rapture as their possessor slept beside me.  Lovers, liars, dreamers and the lost. 

Some I regret to say will not be there.  Efficient censoring of elements of my past by those who came later, some by direct action, some by the hand of nature.  That pains me, but it also reminds me that my past, my life, belongs but to me.  I am enjoying this, immensely.

Oh, yeah, by the way, Happy Valentine’s Day.  I’ve already said it to the four who wished it to me with intent, and those who either did it out of habit or courtesy or friendship, or I don;t yet know what their wicked, wicked schemes for me are in the coming months.

I can hardly wait.

Seven years ago, today, I was in bed, asleep, in Salinas, California, when the phone rang about 6 in the morning.

My wife (at the time), Ann, sat bolt upright and shouted "Unacceptable!" as she hated it when people called too early or late, she being someone who needed her sleep.  I leapt from the bed and grabbed the phone.

It was my mother, calling from West Virginia, telling me to turn on CNN, that a plane had flown into the Twin Towers in New York.

I got CNN on just in time to hear of the second plane hitting, then of word that another plane had hit the Pentagon (I used to work there, and I knew my ex-wife worked not far from there).

Needless to say, the morning was a bit chaotic as word from various sources filtered in, contradicted a story from ten minutes before, etc.  Calls were made, friends confirmed safe (my ex, Jan, took forever to get home, but was safe).

I have made much over the past seven years about that day, comparing the number of lives lost to the troops we have lost invading a country that didn’t even have anything to do with the attack, to the number of innocent dead in the Sudan, but nonetheless, lives were lost in an arrogant and angry attack upon what were mostly non-military targets (if you want play by the rules, you take turns attacking each others’ military targets, not their civilians).

To the dead, to those who lost wife and husband, father, mother, son, daughter, lovers and friends, this is an anniversary of sorrow.  May you find peace, may there be resolution within you.

Aeons ago, during the 1st exile (right after my first divorce, when I was in Los Angeles), I was fixed up with a former opera singer on a date. It was just lunch. We had met socially at an event featuring my good friend David Demeter, who is a very successful drummer in the LA music scene, and a friend of a friend passed word that she wanted to see me socially.

We had a pleasant enough lunch, no major awkwardness, and even agreed to see each other the next weekend. Knowing she had a 10 year old child from a previous marriage, I even did the gallant thing to reassure her that I was not kid-phobic and told her that after the recital we were going to attend, we could all three go out to lunch. She seemed pleased.

A few days before the date I got word from one of the mutual friends that she (the opera singer) did have a criticism of me from our first date. She felt my "dating skills" were "primitive".

I was taken aback, having usually been accused of being too charming in conversation, and having been raised appropriately by my mother to be a gentleman. I asked for further clarification and was told they’d try and find out in what area I was failing the civilization test.

Word came back the next day that the issue was that I did not talk about myself enough on the first date. That I asked a lot of questions about her, but did not follow them up by offering up information about myself. I always had thought that people liked it when you didn’t start every sentence with "I" (of course, this being LA, that might be a little alien). I was truly flabbergasted and, although I went through with the date and even took her and her daughter to lunch afterwards, I let the potential relationship drop there.

The truth is, I am not aversive to telling people about myself, it just usually doesn’t occur to me unless asked (yes, just wait until Barb Holmes and I do the interview thing, you’ll get plenty). Maintaining a blog is a bit of a stretch for me, as most of what I am expected to write about is me; my day, my feelings, my poetry, my books and CDs and appearances. I find me…boring.

So, here’s a break. For you and me. I’m going to drop the topic of me for a bit and write about politics, religion, society, television, film, how to make grilled cheese sandwiches that don’t stick to the griddle, the theology of love, and all those other ten gazillion things that are not about me, per se.

We’ll see how long this lasts…and if you get bored and want to find out what I am up to, go over to Amomancer and read the poetry for the bread crumb clues to my heart and soul.

I had to tell this anecdote before it grew cold in memory.

Or so I thought.

I shared it with the person it most involved and they had concerns about how they came off in it.  So I rewrote it.  Still not perfect…and I hate the notion that anything I might say could be construed as intentionally cruel or harmful to another person’s reputation.  If you have to be cruel to others to have your own way, you need to re-evaluate your life and your goals, as you are still a failed experiment.

So…no anecdote, at least not now.  I thought back to my memoir that I recently blasted to atoms.  A lot of stories in there that make me, and others, look like themselves, but not in the best lights.  The lesson isn’t supposed to be about people feeling bad about who they are or what they have done or been perceived as being, saying or doing, but rather that we are all human and everyone falls down…or is thrown down.

Maybe one day I will again write that memoir.  When I have something interesting to say about love and life and poetry.  When I know the answers to a few of my more nagging questions about who or why or when.  Too many of those right now.

I left the tags on this one after pulling out the anecdote, to drive everyone crazy.

Thirteen years ago, today, I put pen to paper and wrote a small set of poems I dubbed The Panther Cycle, owing to a pre-discussed "totem" to be used for the young woman whose picture had caught my fancy.

That spawned 92 other cycles of work to and about that same woman and relationship that flourished and fell in full public view as my mailing list of people who wanted to be informed whenever a new cycle was written grew to hundreds of people. And not just random people, most of my subscribers were fellow writers, some even well-known and respected authors of modern fiction, genre fiction and poetry, even a biographer or two. It was an heady time.

In time came the book PanthEon, and finally The Compleat Panther Cycles, all full of the stuff that filled those eighteen months with wonder, passion, pain, regret and poetry. I divorced, gave over practically all my worldly possessions, only to have her retreat in guilt, marry another and have a child, before moving to my beloved Los Angeles, which I had eventually deserted (at least temporarily). I moved on and married (and divorced) a Leopard.

The works themselves have kept and expanded their audience, despite the fact that I rarely give them a nod in public or read them at appearances. They make up, numbers told, about 3% of my total poetic catalog, but have an outsized reputation thanks to the feeding frenzy back in the mid-nineties, during an early part of the digital renaissance, before the web was flooded with poetry sites.

So, for 13 years of making life…interesting…I’d like to just now tip my hat to the works, their legacy, and the woman who inspired them. For good or for bad, they are and she is a part of my legacy, and while since then I have lost my heart more than once, written other poems and published other books, they will be part of what is remembered when I am gone.

Happy Anniversary, Lauri.

My good friend Nordette Adams has broken up my weekend by giving me a writing assignment, to write about my mother’s influnce on me, politically, particularly as it pertains to voting.

I have known my mother all my life as a woman of fierce principles, particularly her more Conservative bent, especially in relation to the abortion issue (I avoid the topic around her anymore, we have a very divergent view on this issue). But I recall her always trying to sort her busy schedule as a working mother to make sure she had opportunity to vote, to make sure her voice was heard and that she could feel good about the process including her.

My father has always been very liberal, working-class Democrat, much the dove on international affairs, my mom the opposite. I always felt they sort of cancelled each other out, so it was my job as a liberal Democrat to make sure the balance was tilted. I note that West Virginia went for Bush only after I had moved.

I think the impact our parents have on us is more than the lectures and the obvious hand-holding, but the examples they set. I never recall my parents trying to dodge civic responsibility, whether it was to vote or serve on jury duty. These things are inconveniences in a free society, they are the paltry pence we pay for such an environment.

There, Nordette, now I can post the link to http://acorn. org/moms and report I am done!

Those of you who have read the pages about me in the Appalachian Educational Initiative’s "Art and Soul" volume know that I included a tribute (an essay, not a poem) to the only Creative Writing teacher I ever had, Mary Tomasky. She was the CW and Art teacher at Morgantown Junior High School when I attended there, and our relationship was stormy, mostly because she didn;t let me get lazy,

She never really understood the level of impact she had on me as a writer until years later, when I was selected into that volume and wrote of her influence. I am at my best when challenged. I am smart enough and talented enough that I can "get by", and being human, sometimes that’s exactly what I try to do. She recognized this and kicked my butt around the table when I gave her less than everything in my poetry or fiction.

She has had more than her fair share of personal tragedy in her life, and I won’t go into that here, but when I think of my most crashingly bad day and how hard it was to rise again, I recognize in her someone who exemplifies the human spirit.

This is for her.

to my teacher

lessons learned, burned into my soul
kind intentions, a steady hand to guide
and the ability to take great pride in what comes from the effort

I am, in part, made of your will
in forcing me, in time, to face
that which in me gives grace to the random gifts I sport

you did your Maker justice
who did give you the will to reach,
to teach me and countless others, lessons of life’s report

William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.

Originally posted at Author’s Den, this examination of my greatest muse is as relevant today as ever.  Originally written in 2005, I haven’t changed a word.  I guess I’ve pretty much been on this wavelength for some time.

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I was down at my favourite hang out, the "Black Bear Burrito," working on a summary of my book "Love Gods of a Forgotten Religion" when a whim struck me.

And I shall, as is my duty to you, and to love.

I remember my 4th birthday party.

Neighbors who I barely knew showed up and my favourite gift was a friction-powered toy car that, when you revved it up and turned it loose, went slowly down the sidewalk, with the little man inside looking back and forth.  I thought it was very interesting. 

Because my brother, Robert, and I were so close in age (two years) someone even brought a present for him, so he wouldn’t feel left out.  A ring toss game, as I recall, with the "Three Stooges" label across it, as if a generic toy had been made all the more precious because we might think Mo, Larry and Curly would approve of it (or play with it…I can imagine the havoc they could cause).

We lived in Washington State, off-base, my Dad was in the Air Force at the time.  We had a chicken coop out back, thanks to a shipment of baby chicks my Grandmother had sent us.  It meant we had fresh eggs and the occasional fresh chicken (ghastly memories of helping Dad with the executions).

I recall little moments of that tapestry and time:  The girl from down the street who was learning to play the clarinet to be in the school band, the divorced woman who everyone said had committed suicide on the day we saw al the police cars and ambulances at her house, the time I went to get a drink from the backyard faucet and ended up with a large, perturbed beetle in my mouth.

Life. 

(I wrote this hours ago and saved it, by accident, as a draft…won’t Candy be surprised! Now I feel I have to write yet another post…and add some new poetry over on Amomancer…)

Okay…let me clarify.

I have known the most elegant lady for several years, as a nodding and casual acquaintance.

I will be the first to admit that within moments of first encountering her and her work on Authors Den I was somewhat smitten, a state that did not ease with my continued reading of her works (I subscribed to her updates at AD and was always informed when she posted something new). She is brilliant and mercurial, intense and dark and sweet and exotic. A wonderful blend of spices too numerous and rare to appreciate with just words.

But, at the time she was married and even though my own pseudo-marriage was grinding to a bizarre death, I had made an oath to never again, for myself or another, violate the bonds of marriage (ahem…shhhh!).

I hung back, and she drifted away and soon after her divorce (okay, not overnight but I was busy licking my own wounds, thank you very much) she found another and I would not have imposed upon that for anything, I faded into the background, merely occasionally taking note of a new work or a surname change on her part.

Fast forward to this past summer when I find out her latest marriage was dead and having earth dumped over it. I did my best to position myself near the graveyard, trying not to look too opportunistic, and she made note of me. She acknowledged me. Me. (Double-take worthy of a Warner Brothers’ cartoon)

What passed over the next couple of months was a bizarre ballet of free spirits trying to define their role in the world and each others’ spheres. At times she encouraged me to seek other company. At times I would creep back into the shadows to nurse a bruised ego (and when an ego my size gets bruised, according to legend, we’re talking bruises the size of the "Cloverfield" monster’s right testicle). But I was resolute that I should, at least, linger at the periphery, hoping against hope that she might have the grace to bestow her favour upon me. Hell, a smile would be nice.

When we write our biography, it will be a strange and amusing series of chapters as to how we danced around it all. I am amazed we figured it all out, worked it all out, in the face of our own doubts, our wounds, our own human natures and those who would have warned us off or blatantly sabotaged us and our own hypergolic natures. By the way: You wasted your energy.

::fwooooosh::

But the fire burns and I, everyday, find her more charming, brilliant, magical, beautiful, desirable and miraculous than the day before. I want nothing less than to spend the rest of my life trying to make her as happy as she can be without keeling over from a massive attack of joy.

This love is what I have been waiting for, for oh so long, this is what the night has been for, to appreciate the light she brings into every corner of my being. This is the mantle I tried to place on every woman who entered orbit around me but who could not find a commonality to sustain us or a heat great enough to burn us beautiful. This is why I am a poet, to say things that might please her, that might frame all she is to me so that others can see that the fairy tale is nt only possible, it is real.

I love her without requite, without limit and without end.

But don’t worry, I still exist and I shall write and I still hold strong views on many topics, I am just deliriously drunk on Candy’s love and my love for her. I’m going to take a few decades and give her the proper treatment so many failed to.

I invite you all to join me when next month, in honor of the lady’s birthday, I realize my latest book, "As such", which is a collection of poems I wrote during our courtship. There’s some good stuff in there.

And (tapping chest) there’s now some good stuff in there, too.