City of Legends

Barbara Holmes, known to the crew who used to populate the legendary Writers Club hangout on America Online (named by Wired Magazine as one of the best places for cybersex) was ringmaster, interviewer and host for various online chats and rooms within that hallowed space that sheltered and embraced such authors as Margaret Moseley, Harlan Coben, Tom Clancy and John Gilstrap.  She was the editor of my Top Ten Lists that were archived there (over 500 of them) and interviewed me more than once for online chats, along with many, many other authors (some of whom I just mentioned).  This is not her first interview for publication with me, and I hope it won’t be her last.

The interview was conducted over the past two weeks, online.

Call Him, William
By Barbara Holmes (TwisterB/Twist) with William F. DeVault (WFDV)

We met in an old AOL Writers Club chat room back in the late 1990’s.  Amidst the groups collective sat me, a fledgling interviewer and humor writer, he a poet and writer of fiery wit and personality.  I dare say neither were surprised at our first offline meeting.  We were what we were, exactly as presented online, honest and forthright.   Screen names and nicknames, yes, but no phony personas, no make believe life stories.  In one word:  Real.

Eight years ago I asked “But why poetry…?”  He answered “Poetry is not a decision, it is a disease.”   As the poet has grown, so has his abundance of work.  Still one of the most prolific poets on the internet, if not “the most”, William F. DeVault continues to captivate us with an absorbing anthology of words.  The result is a personal Everest, a legacy.  One which, I no doubt, in our first interview he only fantasized.  So, how long will he be able to maintain this frenzied pursuit; one can only chance a guess.   For our sakes, if the fates rain kindly on this ever-growing garden, we will indeed be blessed. 

Long live the disease of poetry.

Barbara:  You’ve recently made an enormous change to your website, integrating your original website with your blog. Why?

William:  It was actually on the advice of my ex (Aubergine), who was very high on the power of WordPress.  She had converted her blog to it, and suggested converting my blog to it and raising its profile, its visibility, somewhere along the way it became the front-end to my site.
One of the reasons for the emergence of www.williamfdevault.com.  It is going to take over the heavy lifting of displayed poetry, the City of Legends blog will remain a blog.

B:   Has it changed the way you relate with your fanbase?

W:  It has not seemed to have a major change, except it is easier for fans to leave comments. Which they rarely do…as they are disused to the idea.  Most often my comments are hellos from old friends or hatchet jobs from someone with an axe to grind and bad information.

B:   You’re a poet, what axes would there be to grind?

W:  Good question.  Actually, over the years I have made more than one less-than-admirer for my stance on the status of poetry as an art form, my opinions expressed (sociologically, theologically or politically) and the gravity of my romantic works.  I will give you an illustration:  In high school I was once administered a beating by a young man whose girlfriend had a crush on me because of my works (I didn’t even know her).  I have gotten in the face of more than one other writer or editor in my life, and I have a sharp tongue.  I have had ex-girlfriends call me and tell me that their new boyfriends/husbands know nothing of me and please to keep it that way, or confess they lied to me about their relationship status, when we were involved, to me and that their boyfriend/husband has just found out and is not happy with me.  I can’t go into more details without breaking confidences, but I am far less evil than gullible.  Which I guess, in its own way, is a harder confession to make about oneself.

B:   Between the years of 1995 and 1997 your writing exploded with the Goldenheart Cycles, the Panther Cycles, the Great Cycle to the Goddess of Fire and Poetry and hundreds of other works. How do you think this compares to the more recent upsurge in your works?

W:  I have actually been thinking about this.  I view it as one of three distinct "explosions" of work (the Panther-Goldenheart era).  The first was the early-mid seventies, with a lot of those works filtered now by time so that only the cream survives. The Second Era (the Panther-Goldenheart era) has just started getting the filtration, but in large part because of my insistence of the retention of the integrity of the cycles, there has been little elimination of lesser works.  The most recent era was kicked off by the podcasting and recording I began around 2006, but also as part of a delayed healing process from my second divorce. It reached a fever pitch during the Aubergine courtship, then the death spiral of that relationship played out in poetics, which had integrity, but is interesting now to go back and read.

B:  It’s been 13 years since the writing of the first Panther Cycle.  Where do these poems fit into your legacy?

W:  The Panther Cycles are a monolith.  They are a block of work that does not cap, but cornerstones a whole section of my works.  There are some extraordinary works in amongst those 600 and some odd works, including my first work with villanelles.

B:  How can they be compared to your present works? Or can they?

W:  I think the Panther Cycles are a little less sophisticated, structurally, than the more recent works, but there are certainly some moments in there that are as good as anything I have or ever will do.  The recent works are more evolved, more thoughtful, more earnest, but neither era can claim primacy in my catalog.

B:  Do you ever have the urge to add to any of these previous Cycles? Situations or settings that trigger a memory…

W:  Not really the Panther Cycles, although I did write a few poems over the years as a follow up when situations demanded it, like when the Panther broke a promise to me.  I am far from perfect and have made more than my share of blunders, but I have never held much with people who live for each re-invention with a disdain for what made them who they are and brought them to their change.  I believe in the human capacity for growth and change, but not at the cost of the truth.  There have been a few works, but not enough to tamper with the framework that is the ‘Cycles.

B:  The bond you had with your daughter, Peri, developed numerous fractures which began during the Panther era. Why was this particular cycle of work so crucial in the relationship’s demise?

W:  I think the evidence of my involvement serves as sort of a slap in the face to her mother, upon whom the dissolution of my marriage to her the affair rested, and that leaves a festering wound, for both of us.  The funny thing is, she now manages a bookstore in Los Angeles.  I have not sought, nor will I seek, to have my books sold through her chain, for the very reason I don’t want that aggravation in her face every day.

B:  Yes, the Panther Cycles would be bit of an irritation but why not your other works?  Don’t you think she would be proud to show off her father’s work?

W:  Ours has always been a complex relationship and reality.  I believe she sees me in a less sterling light than perhaps she did when she was younger.  Even I am not aware of all the perspectives and perceptions that have gone into our dissembling relationship.  I am hopeful we shall patch it up, but I know that there are some wounds that, no matter how skillful the surgeon, there will still be a scar and a memory.  You also must recall she had to endure my second wife, who was very jealous of her and did her own share of hand-grenade lobbing into the chaos.

B:  Did it affect your sons as well or just Peri?

W:  Yes, to a much lesser extent.  Elric and Dante did not have the pre-existing depth of relationship with me when the divorce and exile to LA came.  There was no real sense of losing their best friend, not on the scale of Peri and I, who were best friends for many years.  In some ways I think what really hammered the issues between Peri and I were not the Panther events, but the events in my second marriage.  My second wife was very jealous of how close I was with Peri and on more than one occasion I was forced to publicly give Peri the back seat.  That hurt, I know, and I wish there was a way to make it up to her.

B:  We’ve spoken for years of your need to return to Los Angeles.  Do you see yourself there in the near future?

W:  I had hoped to return to stay later this year, but it is now looking more like sometime next year.

B:  What necessitates this desire for LA?

W:  It feels like home to me.  It is where I want to live out my life, where I want to die.

B:  Why do you feel such a strong urge to go back?

W:  It’s funny, I almost feel like a salmon, justifying his need to swim upstream at spawning time.  It is a primal thing, I am only aware of it as a drive within me.  I am at peace there, and peace eludes me.

B:  I know you’ve not been feeling 100% in the past few months.  Has anything else reared its ugly head to stall your departure?

W:  Well, aside from nearly dying of food poisoning and having my heart brutally plucked from my chest, no, all is as it should be.  Ha!
The food poisoning I acquired while visiting my daughter in Los Angeles left me hampered to a degree I would not have predicted, the side effects were staggering (and, no longer being a teenager, my powers of recovery are not as potent as they once were). 
And, as you as well as anyone knows, I am driven by the champion vector of my personality.  Losing Aubergine as a focal point for my energies stripped me of my vector, I became depressed and bored and boring, a laser beam became a series of small, smouldering brush fires that had no purpose or path.  It has taken all I have, all the coping mechanisms and techniques for my own emotional and intellectual self-manipulation I have developed and learned over the last several decades just to rise to my feet.  My energy levels were and are depleted.  I am in recovery, emotionally, spiritually and intellectually.
And, as with all such actions, reality plays its role.  The logistics of the move, my sons, my aging parents, my grandmother (who just turned 97 and is fading) all play into the timing.  As much as I like to tell myself I am immune to the fates, the truth is I am always at their whim.

B:  You and I have had stimulating discussions on the subject of Muses, and your oft times dependence on them to write.  Who was your most recent Muse?

W:  In the absence of a dominating muse, such as the Panther or Aubergine, I am reacting to moments and minutes, so there are many muses in the sky at this time.  I foreswore the use of the totems, last winter, and am now evaluating going back to them.  I don’t honestly know what is next or who is next or where my soul is at this time.

B:  What work did they inspire you to write?

W:  Readers should look at the last two or three months of Amomancer (http://amomancer.blogspot.com) for some of the new inspirations and works.

B:  Who would be perceived as your greatest Muse?

W:  Wow.  The natural, safe answer would be the Panther, but you have to realize that she makes up only a tiny percentage of my works, and not the best works.  If I died tomorrow, Aubergine would end up with the crown, owing to the recency of her regency.  "More than Gods can comprehend", "Aubergine", “ the entirety of the book "As such…" and the works that frame the end of that age of grace, all are so powerful.  Who knows what happens tomorrow?

B:  Who is “Aubergine” that she deserves this lofty state of regency?

W:  Remind me to set boundaries next time.  (Scowl)  She was a friend, a writer, whom I had a crush on for some time, mostly because of the power of her writing, there was an earnest, raw energy to it, and I admired her greatly.  I can’t go much more into that without dragging her fully into the fray.  The relationship evolved unexpectedly, intensified at a speed and on a curve that would astound a hurricane forecaster, then fell apart under its own intensity mere days after my last book came out (some cynic pointed out that women tend to wait to leave me until after their book comes out, but the Panther was 9 years gone from my bed when "The Compleat Panther Cycles" came out!)  [Note: The interviewer is not the aforementioned “cynic.”]
In four years, she was the first person to say and do the right things to get around the walls I had put up.  I had not really given myself in some time (by the way, celibacy is a bitch) and I threw myself into the relationship with the blind emotional vigor of a teenager.

B:  What caused this fall from grace?

W:  I have my own theories, and have had many (some who have no knowledge of what transpired or was said within the relationship) present theirs.  In the end, even if there were sworn testimony of a thousand angels, I would probably still not know all, and I was privy to most things. 
I think it was the old Rita Hayworth trap.  She once said that men "go to bed with Gilda" (perhaps her most famous role) but wake up with her.  Over the years a lot of women have fallen in love with the poetry, ironically enough it is often works written to another, but then can’t find room for the third dimension when I am off the page and in their lives.  No shame to them.  I am not an easy person to love, in the real world.  I am mercurial, literal, intense, sexual and can be slow on the uptake (dropping clues on me is usually wasted, use anvils and shout a lot, that works better).  I shoulder my failures.

B:  In recent years you’ve become more politically active, with such works as "Darfur (Jesus Wept)" and "An American Father".  Is this an evolution in your conscience or just a side ultimately being revealed?

W:  I have always been politically active, but have kept that largely out of my poetry. I am a liberal pacifist feminist Democrat.  Tom Clancy calls me an anarchist.

B:  You’ve graduated from exclusively written prose to recording your work. Why now, why do you feel your work needs a voice?

W:  It adds a dimension, and it records how I perceive a work should be read.  I fell into it, after reading an article on podcasting.  Now we have five CDs and a 24/7 internet radio station at Live365.com

B:  You have also stated these recording take an enormous toll on you so why not another voice, why yours?

W:  It would be disingenuous to give the job to someone else.  These are my words, my thoughts, my soul.  No one else can speak for me, I wouldn’t want them to.

B:  Undoubtedly, you’ve heard other people read your work.  Weren’t you satisfied with their readings or do you just feel you give a better presentation?

W:  Better?  Not so much, but more accurate to my intention.  As an example, there’s a band in North Carolina named "johnnydirtyshoes" that did a reading of my poem "Darfur" at a fundraiser for "Doctors Without Borders".  You can see it on YouTube.  The reading is technically fine, but the nuance isn’t my nuance.  Writers write for several reasons, but part of my motive is to be understood. 

B:  You’ve spoken a few times of the CDs’ “band”.  It has a synthesized ring to it so who or what is this band?

W:  Mostly it’s just me, with Garage Band on my Mac.  I have had a few quest musicians and vocalists contribute, notably Alan MacDonald, Kevin Bond and The Selke.  I manufactured a second face for the band’s lead guitarist, Izzy Durden, when Izzy is me on the synthesizer, indulging my love of the film "Fight Club" and the notion that no one would imagine me as a wild-man guitarist. "Is he (Tyler) Durden?"

B:  The "Evangelist" is your fifth CD in three years.  How does this differ from the others and what is the symbolism behind the name and cover?

W:  It has some cuts from the previous CDs.  Aubergine had suggested a "Greatest Hits" compilation, so I met her halfway.  The cover is a woodcut of Paul on the road to Damascus, struck blind by his confrontation with Jesus.  I added the blood effects to intensify the look and contrast.  The symbolism is that the "Damascus Road" moments we have, when we think we have been transformed by our finding love, are real, but only within a frame of reference.  It took me months to recover from the break-up with Aubergine, and the CD kept changing form…finally I realized I needed to make a testament to love itself.

B:  Which of your books are you the most proud of, so far?

W:  Pride is a tough emotion for me, they are all flawed.  I have to admit a certain awe for "The Compleat Panther Cycles" though.

B:  Which of your CDs?

W:  "Evangelist".  It is honest, earnest and true, and it brings together a spectrum of my works and styles.

B:  Which do you feel exemplifies your work?

W:  Books?  "Ronin in the Temple of Aphrodite".  CDs?  "Evangelist".

B:  Which process satisfies the real Amomancer? The writing?  The readings?  The recordings?

W:  None of it.  The writings are necessary as my adaptive mechanism for life.  The readings became a tool for interfacing with my public, meeting new people and selling books (plus, when I press for it, I can make more money on a single night’s reading than in a month of book sales, plus sell some books and CDs).  The recordings?   Damn, I don’t know why I am doing that except that I can.  People seem to like it and I have some fun doing it.
I am not satisfied with anything.  I sometimes wonder if it is possible for me to be satisfied.  Hell, I sometimes wonder if it is possible for me to be in love, that maybe this whole tapestry has been an illusion, played to random chance or otherworldly amusement.

B:  An interesting personage you noted on your “who influenced me” blog list was “Dangerous Liaisons”, Viscount Valmont.  This character was exceedingly egotistical, a tremendous womanizer not to mention emotionally abusive.  How and why do you feel this type of personality influences the growth of your own moral fiber?

W:  Valmont discovered his conscience through love and did the right thing in the end.  I have never been the kind of man he was in the beginning of the story, although I have seen that beneath the surface.  When he saw the monster he was, he gave himself up, and gave others the power to see the truth.  I’ve spent too much of my life working with people who have been abused, trying to help them get their lives together.  If I ever thought I was Valmont, the monster, I would have to take myself out.  I lack his ego, his skill with women and his hollowness, ethically.

B:  The list also contained many individuals who could be classified as “Heroes”.  Do you see yourself in this light?

W:  I have my moments.  I want to do the right thing, which is sometimes clouded by the arrogance of life and the nature of the world.  I think if I was truly free to speak all truths I know, the world would see me in a gentler light, for sure.  I have a certain stripe of the heroic bent, the sort of kid who burns himself pulling moths away from the fire.

B:  You had the chance to “speak the truths” in your book. Why haven’t you finished it?

W:  Many times I am constrained by the "Dragnet" clause.  "Names have been changed to protect the innocent".  There are things I cannot say because they would hurt others, but at the same time there is the compulsion to speak the truth, so I let myself come as close as possible, sometimes even destroying works before they are published, as I find they will reveal something that hurts another.  Sometimes I don’t realize I have crossed a line until after I have crossed it (I said I can be dense).  Those are moments of great moral conflict and true horror.
I presume by "your book" you are speaking of the body of my works?  Or of my discarded memoir?  The memoir was discarded as I realized it would destroy so many sandcastles out there, and I am trying not to reveal myself at the expense of others, especially those who may be criticized or attacked merely for human failings.
You know, of all the people who have wounded me in this life, Aubergine was the only one who apologized in or after the act of my evisceration.  Perhaps that is part of her special place in my memory and tapestry.  She demonstrated that she has a soul.
But to the question:  Truth is never complete, where humans are concerned.

B:   If you died today, what happens to the hundreds, even thousands, of works you claim to have never released previously?

W:  My children gain control of them.  My brother has the master password to unlock the virtual vault I keep them in.  What happens to them after that is of no concern to me.

B:  What would you like your legacy to be?

W:  He wrote well and championed the couer rage to love.

B:  On your headstone, help me etch the testament: "William F. DeVault ….

W:  "We don’t know where his body lies, but let this be where those who would curse or praise his memory come to express what they perceive as true.  May love free us all from madness."
 

My thanks to Barbara Holmes for this interview.

Maybe it is time to revive the graphic novel project, but take it a step or ten further (farther?).

1. Start with the concept of merely doing a graphic novel. Nothing else on the table.
2. Decide the story, or at least the main characters. The original project was to be called "The Slightly Deranged Adventures of Skye Meadows" and my second wife, the model, was going to be the basis for the main character’s appearance. She was enthusiastic about the project.
3. Write it entirely in poetic narrative form, perhaps even as an epic poem, all dialog and narrative. This is a new element injected into the project. Put my stamp on it.
4. Concurrent with this, work with one or more of the artists/photographers I have encountered of late and have them feed the engine with photographs that can then be, by them, myself or a third party, basically rotoscoped via Photoshop, to form the basic art. Detail and colouring to be determined by later work.

I could use any or all or none or an amalgam of any of the dozen or so novel concepts I have been working with, from my sci-fi epic "Critical Radius" to "Tales of the Amomancer" to "…Skye Meadows". The mind boggles. I am bored and looking for something or someone to champion, I am in my roninspace.

A get-well quick wish to my friend and mentor (not a lot of people earn that title in this life) Yvonne Cronin, who is recuperating from a mild stroke last week. Today is her birthday. Chocolate is my prescription. Yvonne used to have a bumper sticker that read "Just give me the chocolate and no one gets hurt". She gets serious about it.

I am still waiting for final word from Barbara Holmes before I post the interview. It is more about me than the last interview I did with her, which was published in Lupi Basil’s remarkable literary magazine, Emotions, maybe a decade ago? That one was more about the poetry. But, you know, sometimes it is hard to determine where the line is.

I will not die the richest, most famous or most powerful man in the world. There will still be people who don’t like me, some with good reason, some for perversely petty or wrong-minded beliefs. I mourn that, for I wish no one ill will. But, if I die synonymous with my art, that will be enough, and more than most ever achieve in this life.

I am in a strange space, somewhere between restless and content. I know the colours here, and the vectors. All is well. It is time to make some minor adjustments before the rocket motor kicks in. Again.

One of the points brought forward in the first round of my interview with Barbara Holmes is the lady calling me to task for stating that the character of the Viscount de Valmont, from Dangerous Liaisons, is one that has had an impact on me and my worldview. I think I acquit myself somewhat in my self-defense. I recognize that, for the most part, he is not a sympathetic character and for most of the book, play and film he is exactly the sort of person I would despise and, despite my nonviolent nature, be inclined to take a swing at.

My acknowledgment is that, in the end, Valmont is, if not entirely at least partially, redeemed by the power of love and seeks to make amends for his failures. You can argue his motives, whether he is truly repentant or just guilt-ridden, or whether perhaps he sees himself trapped and sees no way out but to die and take his revenge on Madame de Merteuil. I tend to take the romantic view, that this man has been transformed by his first real taste of love and is trying to make amends for his evils.

It is that element in the character that has had an effect on me. Just as there are aspects in every character I mention in my influences list that I would not want a part of me, there are elements of the Viscount that I would not want to carry. I have never seen conquest as a sport, I have never been able to comprehend, much less sympathize, with those who view women as objects, rather than people.

And you think I have fun with that question? Wait until we get into the quagmires of my relationship with my daughter, weighing the Aubergine works in balance with the Panther Cycles and the question of legacy.

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.

Bad neck ache from sloppy posture during the Amomancer cleanup. But it was worth it. There are still a few small things to work out, including the possibility of going back and tagging every poem on the blog that has appeared in a book of mine with the name of the book. Whaddaya think?

I am offering Barbara Holmes to opportunity to preview the titular track from Evangelist before the interview. If she wants to listen to it, she would be only the second person aside from myself, to have heard it. I have already shared it with fellow blogger and writer Susan Sonnen, out of deference to her quick response to the previous tracks.

I have a much larger organizational task ahead of me regarding the tags on this blog. Whereas Amomancer had almost six hundred entries, this blog has almost four times as many. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. I have considered bringing on a new E.J., but I am finding my emotional, visceral reaction to people who want to help me on a level with James Caan’s reaction at the end of Misery when a young woman describes herself as his biggest fan. I daily battle a jading stain, and it is difficult for me to admit that. Combine that with my after-effects of my illness (I am being lobbied to cancel the tour) and the only thing that is keeping me from a psychic meltdown of Tunguska proportions is some cunning cross-wiring that keeps me writing. I am keeping busy for the same reason a man who just lost his job climbs into a bottle and stays there, it is holding back the hordes of internal Hell.

And my demons can lick your demons any day of the week. In fact, they;d like to. Hmmm, maybe that’s what I need.

But while I vacillate between screaming madness, blood-curdling stomach cramps and dichotomous satyriasis, I write, slowly bleeding off some of the pressure…if the walls hold long enough…we’ll at least get some good poetry out of it.

To Barbara Holmes (Twist):

I am communicating with you the ground rules for the interview you are soon to conduct with me in public, here, so that you and the readers will know exactly what restrictions I have placed on the subject, content and context of our interview and what my expectations are.

I am of a mood to speak.  I have allowed too many things to simmer, to boil, to burn, and consistent with my temperament, I have not spoken openly and plainly of them, out  of a sometimes misguided loyalty to friends and people in general to not strike out unless absolutely necessary, even sometimes allowing slanders to go unchallenged.

Aside from some basic human decency issues of not revealing actual names of certain people in my past due to vow I have made to them or damage it might do to their relationships or careers, or to keep certain key confidences, expressed and unexpressed, out of a general sense of decorum, I will answer openly, directly, even brutally, any question you have the insight, balls and desire to ask.

I encourage my readers to contact you directly, or through here, to suggest questions and contexts.

Better than anyone who has ever interviewed me in the past (I count 6 interviews you have done with me over the past 13 years), you know me, my history and my works, you knew me before there was a Panther, you were my editor for my humour column at AOL’s  legendary Writers Club, we have broken bread together, mourned mutual friends, and had you call me on my BS in interesting times.  I look forward to an interview that leaves me feeling sodomized, purified and with a clear conscience that I have spoken the truth as it is known and has been revealed to me.

Yours,

William F. DeVault

I don’t know why I "get" Warren Zevon, but I do and always have.  The late, twisted composer of some of the most truly bizarre rock songs in history always speaks to me.  From Werewolves of London to Lawyers, Guns and Money, the Z has a special place in my heart and consciousness.

And one of his best songs, in terms of stirring me, is Mohammed’s Radio…a song that has passed into the distance in no small part because of Western paranoia over Moslem extremism.  Well, Jihad them if they can’t take a joke.

I downloaded both Linda Ronstadt’s brilliant cover of it this evening from iTunes, as well as the Z’s live rendition.  And they strangely calmed me.  I think Warren Zevon’s self-destructive cycle speaks to me like Bob Fosse’s Joe Gideon avatar, played by Roy Scheider in All That Jazz.  I think people expect creative artists to be a bit unbalanced.  Sorry, folks, move along…nothing to see here except when the peacock is in bloom.  Aside from a tendency to blunder into really, really drama-laden relationships, I’m as boring as life gets.

I’m lucky.  I am in good health.  I still command a decent price in the marketplace.   I have three beautiful, healthy children and friends who would have my back if Hell came for me.  I tend to lone wolf it a bit too much, am somewhat gullible and take horrific risks when someone calls for Superman, but that’s not as bad as some traits I could have, I guess. 

I have decided that when I do my interview with Barbara Holmes later this month to give her a listen to the full package of the CD Evangelist, so she can write her impressions.  After her and the gentleman who has already asked to interview me for his online zine, I’m packing it in for interviews.  Everything I have worth saying I’ll say in my poetry and songs. 

Jan Innes once said I don’t write poetry, I live it.  Might as well take it all the way, you know?  This world of mumbling mediocrity needs a little more elegance and eloquence, and maybe I can’t save the world, but I can inspire one or two more voices downrange…you never know.  Too many people wrapped up in their self deceit and self-defeat.  The violence and venom of this world are not the disease, they are the symptoms. 

We are the disease. 

We need to learn to laugh at the absurdity of it all (as Warren Zevon did, when the pain of life wasn’t killing him by driving him to excess).   Judge me for who and what I am and have done, but my poetry has never lied to me, ripped me off or tried to do anything other than make life a little lighter, brighter, clearer and dearer for me and for others.

That’s the message, coming into focus, I plan to take on the road.

Guess what just came on my iTunes?  Requiem For Soprano, Mezzo Soprano, Two Mixed Choirs & Orchestra.  From 2001:  A Space Odyssey.  The sound of the monolith.

Spooky.

I am now, without further huzzah or fanfare,

going to blow your mind.

I have just placed here for FREE DOWNLOAD, the entire contents and covers of
THE COMPLEAT PANTHER CYCLES in pdf format at archive.org.

If you buy the book in stores, Amazon.com, through the publisher or even through the City of Legends Bookstore, it will run you between twenty five and forty dollars, weigh in at over three pounds and make a hole in your bookshelf every time you pull it out to read again.

Here, it is free.

Happy National Poetry Month.

You owe me one, now.

Special thanks to Dan McTaggart, Barbara Holmes and Brigit for their forewords. To Mari Laureano for the stunning rear cover text. To Jillian Ann for being the woman whose beauty captured the essence of the mythology of the Panther that I spun from a real woman, filtered through my own longings.

It was one hell of a trip, writing, then revisiting to edit, assemble and annotate.