City of Legends

new poem.

struck enough, the crystal cracks and we are so fascinated
by the light that sparkles off the man-made flaws.  we forget
and stand too close.  the brisant report of the facets’ fail
and we are showered with the razor splinters of our folly.
jolly good fun to the observers.  but there is still a pulse,
deep within the core of this frame and I am not one given
to more than an acknowledgement of difficulties.  blood and pain
are not reason or season to turn tail and run to the horizon.
battered, yes.  bruised, yes.  but even when the tethers slip
my grip on the headboard where you bound me with a promise…
remains.  hurry home.

William F. DeVault.  all rights reserved.

the dream shifts.  the dreamer persists.
and all our free will illusions
bind us to what we find resists
our fatal, natal natures, sons
and daughters of the slaughter done
in the name of life, mockery
and memory, songs to a sun
too distant and luminous.  we
speak dark matter, undetected.
we dream variations, measured
in our allegiances respected
by the hypocrisy we cured
by curving the hyperbole
and finding what we bind is free.

William F. DeVault.  all rights reserved.

I have always found myself in extremely complicated relationships.  Unfortunately, under such stresses, sometimes the psyche overheats and misshapen evolutions occur.  The crucible goes white hot and I write straight from the preconscious in spurts and bursts of flame and debris.

in the last week I have been "melting" again and the result is a massive amount of poetry.  but, alas, it is almost all "black catalog*" works, that even my editor doesn’t get to see.  some very cool stuff.  but really not for human consumption.

*black catalog - those works of mine that I feel are so "bent" or diconcerting, I would rather not have to answer for them, so they are locked away until I die. 

Has it really been more than a month since I last posted here?  Wow.  I have been so busy with the new books, my work at deviantArt.com and outside pursuits.

I have been bad. 

Make you a deal;  I’ll do better.  Let’s hear a poem.  This one is entitled "The Alchemy of Flesh"…
 

Faint scent of you remains, stamped in my soul.
The chemistry becomes magic and I
am but another crucible to roll
over the flames and melt base metal, my
contribution to arcane ritual
you make of me, take from me to merge
the frail shadows of souls we are, eventual
victims of desires, boiling to verge
on the moment of incandescent heat
into the alchemy of human hearts,
gold, platinum and silver slivers sweet
as arsenic, swallowed to follow parts
we vivisect ourselves for, mysteries
of futures hung upon our histories.

William F. DeVault.  all rights reserved.

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?

Yes, RenaissanceFive, my lit and arts mag, is still being slaved over.  You would not, can not imagine the people we have working on this thing.  I can assure you, if you are a long-time reader, you will be blown away by our creative team on the first issue.

The new book, Apokalypsis, is on hold…not because of anything other than it is changing direction.  It will now be single-muse focused.  And if you can’t guess which muse, you really need to read more.

The legendary Ophidian himself, Conrad Hoyer, and I are beginning a musical/poetry collaboration that may surprise a lot of people.  Stay tuned.

Yes, I am going to retrofit williamfdevault.com and yes, I am considering a monograph of my poetry suite "The Sacraments".  And, yes, I am giddy to the point of madness in love.  It is starting to annoy people.  Not me.  It is good to be happy.

I will be changing my geographic base of operations within the next twelve months.  To where. depends on several factors.  I will keep you in the loop,

just walking away.  too tired to fly anymore.

The Seventh Song

so bitter lies my wormwood soul
deserved of contempt and of wrath.
the pain and stain of failed control,
reserved for heaven, hellions laugh.
for what is man if not his best,
and what are dreams if not to shape
with gnarled hands and hearts we attest
the moment’s kiss, the decade’s rape.
the towers fall and we cannot climb
higher than the lowest stone that fell.
our wings have not winds, e’en sublime,
to lift us up and mock this Hell.
for patience pales and curdles black
within our souls, we can’t look back.

William F. DeVault.  all rights reserved.

I am not unaware that my latest work, a seven poem cycle using the sacraments of the Catholic Church as metaphors for romantic and even erotic imagery and actions, has created a stir.  I expected it to.

But the truth is, I am an heretic.  Always have been, always will be.  But for clarity, let’s set the record straight about these seven works.

• Nowhere do I use obscene or profane language.
• The romantic and erotic imagery is established as being in the framework of a lifelong, committed and yes, wedded union between two individuals, specifically myself and the Sunday Girl.  It is not a call to excess, adultery or self-flagellation.  Okay, maybe a little self-flagellation.
• It is beautiful, soulful and one of the most proud accomplishments of my life to have penned these.  I include what is almost certainly the only surviving haiku of my career as a writer, a sonnet and a return to my own triskadekian canto form. 

The seven poems are:

• Baptism:  The cleansing and public conversion rite, making the transition, marking the preparation to receive the spirit.
• Confession:  Admitting past mistakes and errors in judgment, making clean and clear the way.
• Communion and Absolution:  The taking of the flesh and the blood into you.  In this case I literally used this (and some Catholic friends are NOT happy with me right now) as an allegory for oral sex, where flesh and body fluids are exchanged and taken into one another to blur the barriers between one body and the other.
• Confirmation:  Affirm what was said in the throes of passion, the morning after.
• Matrimony:  The haiku.  A proposal made and answered within a specific time of year.
• Last Rites:  A sonnet of the passing of one who is beloved, in the arms of their lover.  This damn thing just about killed me to write, for by this point in the write I was inside the sphere of this love.  To one day be so parted from her will be unbearable.
• Ordination:  A triskadekian canto of how love is meant to be witnessed and proclaimed, that to love is like taking on the vestments and becoming an evangelist for the person you love.

Controversial, of course.  Beautiful, undeniable.  All my love to the light that passed through me to the page, my beloved Sunday Girl.

writing with a revived gusto…a full cycle this morning (check it out on deviantart.com or at my Amomancer blog.

Just wrote one of the most kick-ass sonnets I will ever write ("Unfulfilled Wish for Intimacy") and am right now bouncing through the internet on multiple sites while the cats are diving for cover as I play "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars" at 11…"Moonage Daydream" really works for me right now.

I have sublimated some negativity into a purified emotional stream and am right now playing alchemist with my soul and heart.

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.

The baptism of desire, the fire burns away the doubt and shame.
Risen, like the phoenix, in heat and light and a solferino flame.
Passion descends on you, enters you, pure in its own right, no carnival
can drive away this mystery of the touch, avatars of the carnal
gods reborn to taste with lips and hips the eclipse of bartered ad val,
the baptism of desire, the fire burns away the doubt and shame.
I feel your tempested breath upon me, until nothing but you could tame
the lion of my loins that drives deep to fulfill an ancient aim and claim.
Passion descends on you, enters you, pure in its own right, no carnival
to bid farewell the flesh that meshes in urgent, ardent and unsubtle
stroke and writhe and kiss and rage and the poetry of the deeper thrall.
The baptism of desire, the fire burns away the doubt and shame.
I would gladly die tween the thighs that wrap and slap me, with a poet’s name,
taking me for what I am, I surrender my urgent thirst and proclaim!
Passion descends on you, enters you, pure in its own right, no carnival
for I am not to surrender my couer rage for you, but in you, the same
as you will lay upon my flesh the consecration of your sacred scrawl:
The baptism of desire, the fire burns away the doubt and shame.
Passion descends on you, enters you, pure in its own right, no carnival

William F. DeVault.  all rights reserved.