City of Legends

heels

black tiles beneath heels click
click click click click click
as you walk through one door
and look for the next
next next next next next
until you arrive where
you always knew you were supposed to be

William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.
Inspired by a precognizant memory of couer rage.

Yesterday marked the anniversary of Candy losing her brother, Mel.

Today she posted the following tribute, which I think even those who are not regular readers of her delightful blog should read.

listening, still.

Now. Go. read. Be touched and a better person for it.

I spent a long, strange evening yesterday, picking through the hundreds(!) of poems who want to find their way between the pages of “As such…”. It was fascinating (also to see people on my stats, bouncing around trying desperately to track referenced works through search functions, that was a kick).

My work, even at its most innocuous, is extremely intimate to me. It comes from a part of me beneath the hide, where the nerves are raw and fresh and open and the words are the sweat of my passion and my conscience. To re-read my work is rough, not because I sometimes do not like an individual piece, but to read it means reliving the moment.

This sometimes makes assembling a book a Herculean undertaking. So let it be with “As such…”.

Works such as “Aubergine” and the cycle known as “missing you” (one of the first times I had told Candy that a piece was about her, she loved the seven poem set, but we huddled in quiet virtual corners to discuss it, for she did not want me to suffer the abuse others had when they spoke of affection for her, at the hands of those who want to bind but not touch, who want to own, but not embrace or for those who had proven unscrupulous in their own suits) are sure things, others I must ponder.

There are soft meanders, introspections of my heart as it leapt from hesitancy to hope to fear to loss to hope to triumph to passion to promise, soft musings of an erotic nature, and reflections on a merging future for which I am resolute to and delighted in.

I don’t know what the critics will think of it, I recall Bruce Autry of “Poetry Heaven” when he praised highly my book “PanthEon” but admitted the intimacy of my work made him feel like a child peeking through a half-open door at their parents in bed. Some find me a bit much.

I have a lot to do…some poems will not make the cut. Many will. Then there is the art of flower arrangement, the making consistent and readable that which is in pieces, setting the flow of the whole. It is emotionally draining work as I will have to read and re-read these works over and over and over again.

I am the luckiest man alive.

Welcome to the end of the beginning…

officially launching, right here, right now

www.williamfdevault.com

Thanks to the amazing Candy for technical assistance, esthetic nudges and really, really good smooches.

I’ll be tweaking it for some time to come, but it’s a start of a retooling of my web presence.

The alchemy of my heart burns so hot and bright it is difficult to reach into the crucible and draw out the molten glass words that usually flow slow but of their own accord.

This one arrived in the palm of my hand when I contemplated my beloved, just moments ago. The glow is still white-hot and plastic.

from the thorns

How curious and furious
this revelation in revelled elation.
Beauty born, like diamonds and jet,
in the heart of fires that supposedly
would consume all to admire; a higher
purpose, a proposition juxtaposed
to make, from the thorns, a rose.
I marvel at this and kiss the wind
where we have twinned from the solitude,
with gratitude and grace as I face
a future with a heart heavy only with hope.

William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.

Expect, after review and approval from my brilliant and brisant love, a major shift in my presence on the web.

Expect surprises.

As I write these words it is the evening of February 13th here in the United States, but already the day of Saint Valentine (February 14th) where lays my love, in South Africa. It is a truth that for now she is always seven hours ahead of me. I endure, as does she. Obstacles merely make the denouement of the hunt all the sweeter.

So I speak to you today of love, of what I know of it, of what I have experienced of it, and how little I still know. These last few months have proven that my education is just begun in sphere of Venus, that for all my experience and craft, my couer rage and words, I am still a mere acolyte in the Temple of Aphrodite.

But I will tell you what I know of love, what I have been taught and what I have discerned from the lessons I have encountered.

First, let me say that love is honest. A disingenuous lover is not a lover but a liar, no more a paramour than an evangelist who possesses great personal wealth demonstrates any grasp of the Gospel he preaches. The Gospel of Lovers is built on the truth. I have, at times past, been a poor minister of my faith in the human heart. But experience, some of it hard-won and brutal, has taught me the importance of honesty.

Love is also faithful. Faithful to the cause and the person. Even in the abstract. These last few years have taught me that I had to remain faithful to the essence of love, the quintessence, the “fifth stuff”. “I will take no pretender, again, to my bed”, this line from my poetry, it became a rallying cry when I was close to giving out, giving up, giving in. I knew what I needed. A hungry enough man will eat anything he can fit in his mouth. I decided to stop being hungry and instead be faithful to the ideal of love.

Love is patient. When I first realized who I wished to take to me, to share my heart and life with, she was not ready, herself struggling with emotional and spiritual complexities that seemingly excluded me from her heart. I followed my heart, stepped away and lingered, a friend with a heavy heart, until she was ready to acknowledge me. The lesson that taught me was a slow one to come. But patience, it is said, is the last virtue you learn, as you earn it waiting longest for it.

And, finally, love is charitable. Love is unconditional. You do not love and ask for anything. You accept what is given with gratitude, but you do not come in with a list of demands and prerequisites. That is not love, that is bartering for a semblance of love.

I have found a great fortune in the heart of my beloved, given freely and completely. In her grace I have learned all I needed to know to love. The lessons continue, and I pray daily for them to last many, many years and even, if possible, beyond my passing from this sphere.

This is love, and today is the festival of lovers. Let us celebrates those who love us and those whom we love, with patience, truth, charity and faithfulness.

And a great, inexplicable joy.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

Open letter to a certain lurker:

How could you have been thinking about her “yesterday” when our logs show you visiting her blog and mine 10-20 times a day. Sounds a little more like you were thinking about her every day. Several times.

Sorry, man. You may hate me, and with every right, and I will not stop you from looking around or saying your mind, but there is a reality at work here, realize this. I would if I were you, as I would accept her at her word and wish for her the best.

But I believe I understand your obsession.

Something so new…there is still breath in my lungs that I inhaled as I wrote it,

It is happening

It is happening.
I would not have believed the sky
capable of the transformation
as the stars appear in daylight
and night becomes a tapesty of comfort.
It is happening.
Riddles no longer regent fall apart
to scatter like the dried, dyed hearts
of those who stood apart from love,
so corrupted by this world’s toxicity.
It is happening.
And I can see things that I only dreamt of,
light in eyes that shine like emerald stones
taught to lase like ruby rods
set in the face of Aphrodite, mighty.
It is happening.

William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.

To Candy, who has helped me find God again.

in these sacred days

In these sacred days, your tender ways
have found me a patient priest.
I am taking my own confessions
for the headstrong intercessions of this feast;
courses count in decades
and the wine is warm and yours -
the bread we bake in vows we take.
I can feel you poured into my pores.

In these sacred days, the bitter haze
proves brittle, broke and banished.
Lesser idols, cast away, goddesses of clay,
join the shadow lovers, by the light vanished.
I am with you in this sphere, ever near,
and closer than your purified form, warm and free
with the sacraments of touch and such
has ever allowed the cloud of the proud to be.

In these sacred days I have learned humility
and the nature of life and dreams and trust,
where crushed pearls and unwoven webs that ebb
from the shores of explorers’ treads in the dust
that make us missionaries of love, the gods
we’d forgotten break the silence and we are found
alone at the base of an altar where lies falter
and we are unafraid, having prayed to be bound.

William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.

Here’s the full-on (non-imbedded link) to Phill Vassall’s new video featuring “Panther on the Beach”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHO3fLHXULU

So you can comment, etc…

The other day a gentleman by the name of Phill Vassall, who is a very creative and gifted videographer in, ironically enough, the Tampa area (I believe) approached me and asked permission to use the text and a pre-recorded reading of mine of my villanelle “Panther on the Beach” (PC 13) for a video. He promised to give me approcal rights before he’d show it publicly.

Well, I saw it just a few hours ago and I approve, truly. It is so very pleasing to me when another artist embraces my work (I won’t quote what he says alongside the work on YouTube, as it would be immodest, but he seems to like it).

So, here it is, Phill Vassal’s video…

To quote the love of my life…”Uber cool”.