Tuesday…fighting the addiction
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Evangelist, Evangelist Tour, Journal, The Compleat Panther Cycles, Thoughts about Life
I write. You can criticize me for what I write, what I write about and my style, but you have to admit, I write.
I’ll try to keep it to two posts today…then maybe I’ll fade it back to one a day, soon…
I started laying the musical framework for Aubergine last night. Challenging, as I am demanding a lot from myself on this one. It won’t be easy, it won’t be simple. But, I am game. A reader has suggested I post a link to my version of I rained poetry, and maybe even let readers vote on the selections for the Evangelist CD. I don’t know. Too many things to ponder. My brain hurts.
To those of you who find my promotion of my book As such… a bit surreal, or even hypocritical, I apologize. The simple truth is that I am keeping a promise I made, in both letter and spirit. I have broken other promises in the past (and, sometimes, keeping one promise means breaking another), wrestled with definitions of faith, truth, honor and morality, sometimes losing, sometimes winning, and sometimes being caught in those webs where no matter what you do, you are doing something wrong in absolute terms or someone’s eyes. It is exhausting, and exhaustion sometimes leads to errors in judgement. I actually considered, for several days, pulling the book from circulation.
It is one of those 51/49 percent situations where no matter what I do, someone will find ample room to criticize me. That’s just part of the terrain. Life has no easy answers, no cut and dried resolutions. Someone, somewhere, will take offense at anything you can imagine doing. Anyone who even dreams they know everything that I am doing or why needs therapy. Hell, I probably need it…but it makes it so much more interesting to see me work it out in anapest hexameter, no? I’m going to screw up more in this life, those of you without sin…buy a catapult, I’ll stand in the open and let you snipe. If it makes you feel better to use me as a lightning rod, then I consider it a public service I am rendering.
I began packing my cargo boxes for the tour. A bit early, you say? yes. But I need to keep a running inventory on this trip, as I am traveling with a massive amount of books, CDs and merch (do you have any idea how much a single copy of The Compleat Panther Cycles weighs?). The bookstore reads are nice, as they order their own stock…but the coffeehouse, cafe, etc., type reads need me to drag my own stuff. Pain in the ass. But the boots are nice
Monday night…notice a pattern?
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Evangelist, Evangelist Tour, Journal, music
The boots are more than adequate (Yay!) and I will debate within myself the jacket I have taken under consideration.
I was listening to a random scramble and shuffle off my iTunes and hit Bette Midler’s athletic version of Bob Seger’s Fire Down Below and…and…and…
I sat down and engineered a shell for my reading of I rained poetry I have Jezika™ right now working with. It’s good. It’s different for me, but good. If Jezika™ doesn’t get it done or I don’t like her version, it will go on the CD instead. I might even include both…two takes on the same work. Hmmmm.
I also have to confess I am working on one of those monster production numbers, like Wordslinger, Erotic V and Beasts of Legend. It may come together, or it may not. Watch for further word on it here. It is lush, fantastic and a worthy golem. I am calling it Aubergine. And if that doesn’t send a few chills down some spines, then I’m Will Smith in New York, surrounded by the undead revenants of a plague. And who wants to live in that sort of world?
John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band…take me to The Dark Side.
to a friend who is out of sorts
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Journal, Poetry, music
And even strangers and not-so-friendly people who may be out of sorts. A message from a multi-Grammy award winner, a MacArthur genius grant winner and an Academy Award winner:
Life is to be lived. I am patient. I wait by the small lake near the darkening road.
"and danced.
and danced.
and danced like a hurricane.
at the thought of you,
naked in the rain."
- I rained poetry, William F. DeVault
More Than Gods Can Comprehend
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Blogosphere, Candy Tothill, Journal, Muses, Poetry
I loved the new poem I referred to in the previous posting so much that I went ahead and rescued it from potential annihilation, posting it to both www.authorsden.com and my Random Drafts and Chapters blog. It is called More Than Gods Can Comprehend, and if you are the kind of putz who doesn’t like sensitive, soul-searching, wrench your heart out passion, you’ll hate it. Go away.
Romantic? Yes. Classicist? yes! Fool? Well, that remains to be seen. I am incorporating it into the collection of stories Tales of Aubergine and the Amomancer.
I am working now to figure out how in God’s name I can follow as crooked a path as there will be for the readings tour…maybe it is too ambitious? Nah, I need the distraction.
I have only one ambition in this life, anymore.
Hey, guess who surfaced yesterday after a few years out of my universe? The Selke! Wow. I’m running out of lost souls to bump into. Is Jimmy Hoffa out here in the blogosphere?
Tomorrow is my mother’s 75th birthday!
The Venom, a Chapter of The Tales of Aubergine and the Amomancer
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Fiction
(rough and rude, a very early draft of another chapter to the book)
"deep and unclean, the wound festers,
testing your endurance and those who cannot bear
to see your pain and dare not stand to draw out
the venom you have come to take as part of life
that is permanent and penitent and perverse.
a curse, if you would, accepted as inevitable
and surrendered to in exhaustion and regret.
I kiss the wound and lay my heat upon it,
feeling it as a living thing, saying softly
to me "She is mine, come no closer".
I kiss the wound and close my eyes and dream
a dream yet unfulfilled and, singing psalms,
under my breath, bartering death for life
I cannot live without, I draw out slowly
the bitter gall that chills your veins and heart.
I draw out the venom as gently and thoroughly
as I can, ever vigilant for your pain and strain
that I may not, again, be one who merely
slapped linen to poisoned skin and looked
the other way for another day and did not stay.
the wound is deep and a part of you now,
and everyday for the rest of my life, if I must,
I will draw out the venom in touch and kiss and word
you may have heard once upon a time, but never
through lips that have dared to draw the venom."
The Amomancer awoke with a start, the fresh words having just echoed through his soul, bursting like fire from the geysers of his mind, nearly wrenching his armed, pinned beneath the sleeping form that lay cradled beside him.
It took a moment for him to clear his head, then he recalled the previous night, when Aubergine had come to his bed, surrendering herself to him as he gave himself to her. Life imitating poetry and impregnating the future with new joys to be commemorated in word and echo.
It was then he noticed that her form was cool to the touch. Not cold as in death, but still somewhat withdrawn from life, and strangely stiff. He tried to awaken her with a touch, a soft kiss to her cheek, even a few words, but there was no response. He called out, terrified that she had taken ill or that he had somehow harmed her in the night.
Sleepily her eldest daughter, the Faerie, entered the room where they lay. She surveyed the scene and went over to sit by her Mother, still unresponsive and cool. She took her hand in her own and looked to the Amomancer.
"I have seen this before with her, it happens," she said, reassuringly. "It is an old poison that sometimes rises within her. She always recovers, but we are always worried when it happens."
"Poison? Who and when and how," asked the poet as he paced the floor, grim with concern.
"Many times, many sources and many ways," she relied , her voice betraying her concern, despite the precision of her language. "Look on the back of her left shoulder, where the tattoo is, she had it placed there to obscure the mark."
The Amomancer slid across the bed and turned her, gently, looking for the clue. There, on her left shoulder blade, beneath her tattoo of a small cat, there was a raised area he did not recall from the previous night. He gently touched it, feeling the texture and heat of it, as it seemed to be drawing the life and joy out of her.
"Get me a basin of hot water and the herbs in the short cannister on the table," he softly asked of the Faerie. "Please."
In his voice she read a tender concern and slipped from the room. While he waited the Amomancer took Aubergine in his arms and whispered softly encouragements to her.
"I may not be able to end the pain, but I shall ease it, as you have eased mine."
When her daughter returned with the basin and the herbs he removed the lid from the cannister, which filled the room with a flash of lavender and savoury herbs. He scooped a handful of these out and added them to the water, then turned to the Faerie.
"Do you trust me?"
"My Mother trusts you, and that speaks volumes," came her reply.
The Amomancer took the hot, wet herbs that floated on the surface of the water and carefully laid them on Aubergine’s skin around the wound. The skin reacted immediately, warming as some of the colour returned to the beautiful woman’s flesh.
The Amomancer then bent forward, kissing the mark obscured by the tattoo and began gently to suck at the wound, drawing the venom that had collected beneath the surface. It was bitter and vile, tasting like fear and regret, pain and indifference. He turned his head and spat a mouthful of it into the basin, then returned to his ministrations.
As the Faerie held her Mother’s hand she felt the fingers slowly regain their limberness and the skin grow warm. For more than an hour the poet continued his treatment, drawing out as much of the venom as he could. Aubergine slowly regained consciousness and when she opened her eyes and started to speak her daughter calmed her and told her to stay still, that there was magic afoot.
After an hour the poet ceased his drawing, and spat a final trace of the venom. He touched her gently on the arm and asked if she was feeling better.
"I still feel a little weak. Did you cure me?"
"No," he replied, "Only you have the power to do that. I merely took what venom had collected in recent times. More will collect, I believe, but the treatment should be effective in keeping these incidents to a minimum."
"Do you know what it was that poisoned me," she asked, as she had never known for sure.
"Life," responded the poet, "You are so gentle a blossom that the darkness and cruelty of this life has struck at you a thousand times, each time leaving a little more of the poison within you. You have grown strong but still carry these veoms. You need your sleep now."
He took the basin out and poured it in the garden. As he was doing so the Faerie emerged and asked him if he wasn’t concerned it would kill the flowers in his garden.
"No, for this is where I have poured out my own drained venoms for years, for no one has ever done it for me. I had to learn to do it for myself, I will show your Mother how to for herself."
"I think she’d like that, but I think your magic is more than herbs and hot water."
"Yes," he replied with a soft smile. "Love is the cure of life."
He looked through the doorway to Aubergine, who had gone back to sleep.
"We will let her rest a bit."
A further tale
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Fiction
There was, in a great city, a great building of great importance. And in it, many great things were decided and accomplished and great men thought great thoughts and spoke great words.
The greatest of these was the man known as Lukal, who was rich beyond imagining and powerful beyond question and surrounded night and day with beautiful and talented people who fed his every whim and praised him in all things.
In time Lukal began to doubt their sincerity, whether due to evidence or just his own all-too-mortal self-doubt, he became very sad and grave, constantly imagining that those around him secretly mocked him and plotted against him. On a whim he summoned the Amomancer, offering him all sorts of inducements to come and perform for him and his entourage.
The word came back that the Amomancer was willing and able to pay a visit and that he wanted three things:
1) A pledge to rebuild an old church that lay just outside the city walls
2) A private audience with Lukal’s wife, Jennai, and
3) A new pair of boots, made to exact specifications, on the day that the poet arrived.
Lukal agreed to all the conditions, while wondering to the purpose at all, and asking his wife why this man would want to speak with her, to which she claimed no knowledge. He asked those friends of his who had known her the longest, and they all were perplexed as to the request.
The church was a simple few days work for a modest work crew. A few holes to be patched and debris to be cleared. The boots, there was no advance word as to the nature of them, so Lukal ordered a local bootmaker to be standing ready with all the tools, supplies and possible leathers that might be employed.
Lukal was taking no chances.
On the appointed day the Amomancer came out of the East, the rising sun casting his shadow over the wall of the city as he approached. His walk was bold, although a hard winter had slowed him with aches and pains, and his famed cloak of muses was in need of patch. As he walked he observed the wind and the sky, the road and the faces of those he passed, making note and even muttering to himself thoughts and impressions, to memorize the experience.
At the gate he was greeted with a great procession and after he was introduced to Lukal’s chief assistant he sat in the street and pulled off his boots. They were simple black boots, worn and weathered. He tossed them to the assistant and asked that another pair be made, identical to them in all but age and wear, by nightfall. The assistant gave them t ohis assistant with the specific orders and off the messenger went, dodging through the curious crowd.
The barefoot Amomancer rose back to his feet and asked to be taken to the rebuilt church. As he approached it was obvious it had been rebuilt and cleaned and he smiled at the assistant to Lukal and said "Well done!"
After a brief inspection, going over details on the altar and the windows as though he had been there before, the Amomancer turned to the assistant and commanded
"Bring me Lukal’s wife and leave us for an hour," he said with a low tone, "alone."
As the crowd was ushered out the assistant called for Jennai to be brought and she arrived in minutes, dressed as though to receive a prince (or there were always the rumours of the Amomancer’s true identity), and as she entered the church, the assistant left, pulling closed the door behind him and standing to block the way to curious onlookers.
"I bet you are wondering why I asked to speak with you," the Amomancer said to Jennai. As Lukal was a man of status, she was young and beautiful and well educated and not afraid to speak her mind.
"The thought occurred to me," she replied, "that you may have some questions about why my husband summoned you.
"He did not summon me."
"I was there when he decided to send for you, so I know that he did."
The Amomancer roared a laugh, derisive and cruel.
"I set him to the task, seeding the local tapestry with stories and songs of lonely men of power, beseiged by shallow and craven liars on all sides."
Jennai looked at him and snapped back "Why would you do such a thing?"
"It was necessary, before he found out the truths around him and lost faith in his vision of the world and was no longer a man who is, on the whole, a force for good. You will cease your affair with Mallin."
Jennai turned on him, her eyes narrowed with anger.
"That’s a lie, " she barked.
"I wish it was, but such is the nature of people that they often do not appreciate what they have been given in grace," he growled, "I know of your affair with Mallin, and before him Axtauk, who left town when you discarded him for his friend."
She looked at the poet uncomprehendingly.
"A drunken and spurned lover often speaks of his sorrows when plied with the nectar of sad song. I will restore your husband’s joy and you will stay faithful to him and him alone for at least five years, at which time you are free to leave him, but not betray or humiliate him."
"And if I refuse?"
"Then Mallin dies tonight, a suicide, and in his note he implicates you in the affair. You will be cursed and cut off, left penniless and your name will become a synonym for harlot. I will place such sorrow in him that he will take his life when and where I wish, cursing your name as he dies."
"Why do you do this to me? "
"Because I have been Lukal. And Mallin. And you. And Axtauk. If I must live in so polluted a sphere, I shall at least try to clear a few plots where I can lay my head without pain and sorrow."
"I could have you killed for your impertinence."
"You could try."
"I could claim you tried to seduce me."
"Then I would wager my reputation against yours and you would suffer in the light. Mallin would never stay silent if directly suspected. Do as I say and I shall write of you a song of your beauty and fidelity that shall make all women envious and all men respectful. Cross me and learn to live in less finery."
The Amomancer left at dusk, after his performance for Lukal. As the crowd murmured in awe at his new work "Jennai’s Ode", his new boots made a satisfying rhythm on the dirt road as he continued West, his shadow rising above the city wall.
keeping a promise
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Fiction
This is the opening of a book I have been working on, tentatively entitled "Tales of Aubergine and the Amomancer". I promise to get some of it done this weekend and have stayed up to work on the opening… The fire was down to almost embers when the figure emerged from the shadows, bare hands raised, palms out, in a sign that he meant no evil. The men looked up from their reveries and the thin figure in the old coat nudged the man sitting next to him, and nodded at the stranger who had emerged from the dark. "I am just traveling here and saw your fire. I would be appreciative of the hospitality of your company, as the road has been well under me today," he said in a low, measured voice, his head bowed in respect and apology for the intrusion. "Hell, always room for one more," said the man in the old coat. "Especially if you’ve got something to contribute." He eyed the large pack the stranger had unslung from his back and had carefully leaned against a small tree. "Not much, just water and some dried fruit. And music if you’d like it." "You’re a minstrel?" "After a sort," came the reply, the voice pitched low, measuring the fall of the words to the ground. He untangled himself from a small, hand-carved stringed instrument and lightly brushed the strings. Strange words were carved into the wood, burnt into it, it looked in the dim firelight. "What is that, a lute?" "A cithara, actually. But lute will do, " he replied, his voice slowly evolving into a sing-song rhythm. His cloak was thick and made of the pelts of many beasts, black and silver and red and striped. The man in the old coat looked the visitor over and with a nod caught the stranger’s attention. "I’ve seen you before, heard your words," he said. No emotion to his pronouncement as the stranger turned to him and pushed back his cloak to reveal flowing grey locks bound into a ponytail that fell out and down his back. "Really? Where?" "I used to work in Tampingwood. You were there as the guest of a lady for a time." The stranger nodded then plucked a few notes to match his tone of voice. "I have a piece about that lady, if you’d like to hear it," he said, pausing for permission. "You know her husband killed her when she went back to him." "I know," came the reply, sadly. "That is what this amomancy is about, the futility of rage against love." And the night filled with strange words and soft plucked strings and when the morning came the stranger was gone and the men could not remember or agree on the details of his visit or what he had said and sung that night. There was a sense of lightness, though, as they broke camp and continued North. And they agreed he was heading East, towards the water’s edge. And they would have a tale to tell when they got home.
~so while hanging out in your corner...