City of Legends

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?

I wrote a poem today to a friend.  Yes, a female friend.  No, not that "Sunday girl" everyone is bitching at me for writing so much about and now won’t be able to figure out of they are disappointed in me or relieved because I wrote of someone else.  Give me a break, I wrote "the Goldenheart Cycles" in the midst of my affair with the Panther.

How about both?

I am not so absurd as to assume because I have written a few…er…a few dozen…ell, maybe a hundred poems about someone (White Sunday) that their feelings in any way reciprocate mine.  I have learned the lesson many times in many ways that, even with a public commitment (ahem, you know who I am talking to)  affections are tenuous.  I am, to some degree, certain that the next time a woman says "I love you" in that way, I will have a hard time believing her.  I hate developing a bit of a rind, but I think I have done remarkably well, all things considered, at holding my head up over the aeons.

I digress.  Again.  Nice to know some things do not change.

The relationship between myself and "White Sunday" is an absurdity of its own flavour, and one I am not of a mood to explain.  In her I find all that I like in a woman…and all that has complicated my relationships with other women.  I have leapt from higher cliffs on longer odds and shorter bets.  But I admit we are still in the "courting" stage, and the odds do not favour me.

But there are other women whose companies I enjoy.  No, not that way, keep your mind out of the gutter.  I have been a strangely good boy for quite some time, which seems to frustrate a few people.  Tough.  This is my game, I am playing by my rules for my purposes.  I mean to exchange writings and to draw inspiration from. 

Earlier today I was once again struck by a certain friend who is overwhelmingly beautiful, and creative.  So I warned her I was going to write her a poem…which I did.  It is called "I do not chase the wind" and it about not going after woman who are impossible to win.  I think of the poem and I smile, as it is both true and ridiculous.  I have won the heart of more than one woman in my life who was beyond me, out of reach, impossible.  From the brilliant and beautiful Psyche, to the alpha-Amazon Valkyrie, to the lingerie-model lesbian Leopard to the creative, sensuous and quite-distant Aubergine, there is a spectrum of madness there…on my part.

Even at this time in my life, I still seek, not anyone, but the one.  The person I can live out my life with, even if the ride sometimes gets bumpy and crazy.  We’ll see what happens over the next few years.  I figure it will take about two years to see what is to become of me in that realm.

In the meantime, enjoy the new poem, "I do not chase the wind":

I do not chase the wind
for it cannot be caught
and after I have fought
my way to the mountaintop
there would be no way to go
but down.

I do not chase the wind
for dreams are for their time
and I am wise, if past my prime,
and know how not to make an ass
of myself by thinking above the waist
sometimes.

I do not chase the wind
for it is but a metaphor
or five or six for the war
between the soul and the flesh
damned to fail and wail at rainbows
"Not fair!"

I do not chase the wind
for it would not be fair,
although if I would dare,
she might find me swift of foot,
carrying my golden apples of
poetry.

William F. DeVault.  all rights reserved.

A very Happy Birthday, Ann.  I wish you nothing less than joy and fulfillment in this life and the next.

Be well, be strong.  Peace.

And it is a question, as visitors to my Amomancer blog clearly see that I am not currently writing to a single central inspiration of the female persuasion.  The fire is there, the focus is not.

Huerta the other day sent me a frowning emoticon, , when I expressed that I need to find a new major muse.  The fact she frowned tells me that there is much ignorance, even amongst my closest circle, as to what a muse is to me.

God, or rather, Goddess.  Simply put.  But with an explanation.

Not to replace the one true God, but to give me a focus as a writer, which is, perhaps more than man or human or liberal Democrat who has been married and divorced twice, my most evident self-definition. 

The furnace of my passions burns as hot as ever just as the core of the Earth itself is a molten mass of radioactive isotopes and stone.  But without a path for release, what you (and I, and the world) get are small volcanic outpourings, just enough to keep me from being torn apart.  They are impressive in and of themselves, but they are not Krakoa.  And I, personally, am a big fan of Krakoa-sized eruptions (see Psyche, Panther, Brigit, The Goldenheart, Aubergine and even the Leopard).

I am, by my very nature, a monogamist.  I believe in, I celebrate, I enjoy having one person that I can revolve around, like the Sun for my planet to orbit.  I find no shame in that, in basking in a radiant glow that warms and nurtures me.  Without it, my "planet" dies a slow death.  Not just from the lack of heat, but also the tidal forces that pull and stretch, toss and catch me as I spin through a remarkable universe.  Those forces rip me up inside and keep the heat burning, the magma churning and I, myself, learning what is good and beautiful and foul and fair and truth and illusion.  These are the reasons I get out of bed in the morning, these are the reasons to lay down beside someone else at night.

And I have to admit, I miss it.  I’m not looking for a fling, but an Olympian thing.  Someone strong enough to push back when I am half-mad (I never fully get to the whole mad).  Someone who isn’t going to bullshit me about their status and the realities of their world just because they want a taste of the ambrosia that gets flung around like cheap beer at a Steelers game. 

I’m not perfect, God knows.  I can, and have, put up with a lot from people who seemed to get in the door a little too easily with the password "I love you" and then started trashing the place.  I hate playing bouncer in my own heart and soul.  Hate it.  Someone who I can write about their beauty and virtues without having to lie to myself, that when I go back and read the works they inspired, I don’t have to ask "what was I drinking?"

The muse is a sacred thing to me.  It allows me to be who I am.  Without artifice, the vessel of my craft and spirit.  I have made myself Ronin, by choice, and the voice I hear when I speak is diminished as I strive to learn enough about myself and the nature of life that I speak no more blasphemies of the gods of love.

I’m not looking for sympathy.  I don’t need it or even deserve it.  I have been very fortunate in this life to have seen glimpses of beauty and passion and talent of the magnitudes I have seen.  There are those who would say I am being greedy in asking for one more, perhaps one final, run of the Chariot of Apollo across the sky.  If this is greedy of me, then I am greedy, and selfish.

But not dishonest or disloyal to my faith in love, to my unnamed Goddess.  I would rather die for a single, simple truth, than live for a lie. 

Love, romance, sex.  The high of raptured contact.  First kiss.  Parting kiss.  The discovered lie.  The damning truth.  The smell of brimstone.  The smell of jasmine and warm skin.  The spirituality of making love.  The necessity of pain.

Themes.  Themes to be covered in loveaddict, my next book (you’ve seen the cover in my last entry).  What was originally to be a volume of all new poetry, exploring the nature of love and why we are drawn to it, has evolved.  I am not giving details.  I want to surprise you, to please you like an unexpected kiss or a bundle of roses.  I will tell you that the book is a confession, and the titular character is me.  Not a confession of some great evil or crime, but of how my mind and soul work and how I have sought to fill the need for love and to love in my life.

I am still editing at this time, but we are probably looking at around 160-175 works.  Many published previously, elsewhere, in various literary and poetry journals (I don’t keep track of my publication credits, which I find in the ghetto of academic poets is considered a worse sin than plagiarism.  Fuck ‘em.  This is not a game to keep score in, this is my religion, not a dilettante’s hobby).  Many of the poems are new, so new you can smell the afterbirth.  Some are refractions of the past, distillations of the present and visions of an uncertain, but hopeful, future.

There are reflections of the catalog of my muses, from Alabaster to Aubergine.  From the Mad Gypsy to Brigit.  Valkyrie and Goldenheart.  The cats are present, Panther and Leopard, but only there because the Radiant Tiger found virtue in them, spoke of them, and chose to make the words public.  There are new muses, or at least ones you have never met before. 

Soon after the book comes out, I will be removing selected selected earlier volumes of my works from circulation.  Some of my older volumes contain works that, in the filter of time, I have judged disposable.  Just as I have decided certain people are.

The blurbology for this one will be interesting.  I haven’t decided yet who to approach.  Maybe Larry Jaffe?  Some new people.  Som non-writerly types, even.  Many were startled when "Artisan and domestic diva" Michele Beschen, the host of B. Original, blurbed As such…

I do wish to thank the lovely and talented Liza Lorraine for her contribution to this book, in the form of the cover photo.  It is stunning.  If one poem in this volume speaks to one person the passion and evocation of emotion that her photo does to me, I will be pleased.

Now. back to the editing. 

I just wrote a cute piece comparing the ebb and flow of my inspirational muses to the stock market, but decided it was insensitive to many, so I deleted it.

Just wanted to let you know, though, that we put some time in on it…pretty interesting stuff, just not for public consumption.  Check my archives when I am gone.

Okay, time for our semi-annual ritual of rumour control. 

Very simple. 

I am not currently engaged, about to get engaged, secretly married to or anything else.  I am still ronin and that’s the current battle plan.

There are women I enjoy the company of, but I’ve learned a valuable lesson:  Even the best intentioned people don’t always know what they want.  That includes me, and the vast majority of women I have known in this life (I extrapolate that most fit the mold).

Yes, I have good friends and those who inspire me.  My most excellent friend Jazz (whom you may also know as nightblooming or Huerta), from whose playful work with the English language I take the word in the title you scratched your head at.  We have known each other for almost a decade, and she has even been the cover of one of my CDs.  We’ve flirted, and I have even used her as a muse in absentia of a primary one being in my life.  And make no mistake, I do find her adorable, and intriguing, she’s a very terrific woman (and tall, she’s sort of a Hispanic version of Brigit).  If the mothership returned tonight and said I could only take one with me, she’d probably be the first number I call…she just probably wouldn’t answer, being out in a mosh pit somewhere.  I’m not kidding.  She’s an accomplished rock bassist and writes some seriously demented poetry. 

There’s Liza, whose photography sometimes shows up here, on williamfdevault.com and the Amomancer blog.  Charming, brilliant, talented and sexy as only a Brazilian fireball can be.  The realities of geography and the chronography makes it extremely unlikely that I will ever fill a role in her life other than a counseling uncle, but I do adore her.  Much the same for Mariya, again a long-distance flirtation with many poetic works sparked by her fearless artistic photography.  But, last time I checked, she had a boyfriend and contrary to the mythology, if a woman tells me (not if the man tells me, as people don’t own people) that she is in a relationship, she is off limits.

For now I am left to my adorisimz (the word Jazz coined for our style of mock fighting with compliments), my memories and several decades of genetically ordained indestructibility.  By the time Shelley was my age he had been decomposing for almost three decades.  Urgh.

Besides, who knows what will be coming at me from an unexpected quarter (gratuitous book plug).  My first serious relationship came out of a chance meeting at an airport that ended with me falling down an escalator.  My first wife, I met while I was engaged to another (the one I fell down the escalator over).  My second wife, I met on an airplane and was dating only women at the time.  And these aren’t the weirdest cases.  I accept the fact that the thunderbolt chooses its own time and place to strike.  I just grit my teeth and hope I don’t disintegrate in the firestorm.

My phone could literally ring right now with a new opportunity or someone of my past yearnings, re-entering the orbit of my life.  When the jolt comes, expect me to seize on with both hands, my toes, teeth and eyelashes, and to write of what it does to me, for good or for ill.  I will welcome such an adventure with open arms and seek to carry it with me the remainder of my days, being faithful and monogamous, and maybe taking my time to give her a book cover.  I’ve put 4-1/2 women on book covers (the Panther, the Leopard, nightblooming, the Goldenheart and Aubergine (looking around) I don’t see any of them hanging around.  Jazz suggests, rather snarkily, that maybe I attract women who are seeking immortality, but not the immortalizer.  Hrm.

So to recap:  Not involved with anyone right now.  The poetic works you are seeing springing anew are being inspired my memories and speculations and the occasional sense of awe at the writings or artwork of someone I feel resonance with.  In the last few years there’s been a few near-misses, and one resounding long-distance collision (is that even possible?), but right now, in my soul of souls, I am in solitude, romantically, and it is not a bad place to be.   I am learning to accept and respect the role of the ronin, the integrity of who I am.

It is uncomplicated. No illusions, no doubts, no trust issues.  I used to get up at ridiculous hours of the morning or stay up half the night to be a human alarm clock or comfort food to the passion du jour.  Now I am more self-contained, more self-aware.  I have found some answers I did not think were knowable.  I have written things I would have not been able to a decade ago.

I have not lost faith in love, in romance, in faith itself.  Don’t worry about me.  I’m just getting started.

I am there.  Not just in my mind, but in the flesh.  Fate and happenstance have brought me here more than eleven years since began an arch still unraveling.

Business to do, dark business, but not evil.  I brought with me a keepsake, sworn to eternity.  A symbol given to me with an oath, broken, but not by my hand.  Funny, I’ve been a pretty good guy for the last decade or so.  A few mistakes, but mostly due to the deceit of others.  Not that I excuse ignorance or gullibility.  In others, maybe, in me, no.

The spring knows me well, has borne witness to my life.  Tonight it will serve its purpose again, and one more burden will fall away.  I am content.  Five years to undo 3 days. I wonder if anyone will find the offering and wonder on its origin.

I often wonder on the origin of it all, myself.

"a flash of night that splits the light, licking the ticking until silence reigns as violence in my veins"

"boxed toxic.  let the qat out of the bag and the arc will sag, haggard and hammered like a young woman beaten down by her collusion with the enemies of her sanity and freedom"

"gossamer filaments/a lightbulb shaped like a spider/I danced mating with, once,/when the dunce’s hat was something to fear/to sear into flesh already branded/too many times to decipher the cybrous fibers/injected invectives played with, layed with/like a manipulation of a dream/a dry dram of powder replacing oils thought essential/but proven no more than shadows/on a tongue stung by the dung dug and drug/into the sky to play constellations with memory."

Hold it, that last one is more than a fragment, let’s try this one write/right.

gossamer filament
a lightbulb shaped like a spider
I danced mating with, once,
when the dunce’s hat was something to fear,
to sear into flesh already branded
too many times to decipher the cybrous fibers
injected invectives played with, layed with
like a manipulation of a dream
a dry dram of powder replacing oils thought essential
but proven no more than shadows
on a tongue stung by the dung dug and drug
into the sky to play constellation with memory

William F. DeVault.  all rights reserved.

It will do, for now.  Four muses in one poem.  Kinky.  I will think of a title later.

Gnight.

Today I slipped over to Facebook and found myself startled.

I startle easily, but I also startle well…think of old Tex Avery cartoons and you get the idea.

There, in the right column was a list of upcoming birthdays from my friends.

Okay, two of my friends have the same birthday, tomorrow, January 13. So? Not like that doesn’t happen. In fact, my older brother Robert? His firstborn, Crystal, was born on his birthday. Now that’s a neat trick. But, I digress.

The two friends are Janet Innes and Claiborne Schley-Walsh. Those of you who know me well would find that interesting, twice over. First ,because I did not know the birthdays of two of my closest and most beloved friends on the planet after all these years, but also because they occupy such similar roles in my life. Come to think of it, I think I met them both for the first time within a few months’ span.

Both live a good distance from me and I never get enough time to keep in touch with them. So far, not such a big deal, huh?

Now for the meat, part one: Jan Innes was editor for several of my books. "Claibie" organized the two Southern Poets Reading Tours I read with. Getting better huh?

Part two, anyone? I met them both through the AOL Writers Club, and both championed specific women I met through there as relationships for me: Jan kept me from walking away God knows how many times when "the Panther" was up to her roller coaster emotional roller coaster, and Claibie all but shoved me through the door in my getting closer with Karla Frances Sasser, the Mad Gypsy. Of course Claibie also placed two hands firmly on my back and applied pressure for me to take the possibility of a relationship with a much younger woman, Ann (who ended up being my second ex-wife). I don’t think Jan ever tried a second pass at matchmaking for me.

They are both fantastic ladies who I have nothing to say but glory and praise and I am delighted they are still in my sphere of contacts. My life is better for their having been in it.

Happy Birthday, Jan and Claibie…and here’s to the comet that must have passed over the world that most auspicious day!

In my spare time (ask anyone who knows me, I define "manic") I have been polishing my poetic inventory. Well, actually my overall writing inventory. Just to see what all I have. Hey, it beats the hell out of reruns of "Two and a Half Men".

My current catalog breaks down thus (as of midnight, August 1, 2008. We all know that I have written about 50 new works since then…deal with it).

• 18,642 poems
• 143 essays
• 82 short stories
• 3 novels in various states of completion
• 3 screenplays in various states of completion

This does not account my general discourse on my various blogs, which numbers int he thousands of entries.

The poetry breaks down, as best I can figure, out of the 18,642

• 285 sonnets
• 46 villanelles
• 22 poems greater than 100 lines

Credited inspiration:

• 2,182 to Abstra (the abstraction muse)
• 740 to The Panther
• 488 to Aubergine (I have gone back to using totem on this one)
• 94 to The Leopard
• 82 to The Selke
• 72 to Brigit
• 55 to The Goldenheart

Some of these numbers are a little rough. I tried not to dwell on anything for too long.

So what does it all mean? I don’t know, but it was an interesting exercise that gives me fodder for internal debate for a while. And don’t think that the numbers mean much. In terms of classic, timeless and quality pieces, I would say that Panther is way down on the list, for instance. I will let history decide which muses were really luses and not just channels for a generic creative spirit needing outlet.