City of Legends

Insane weekend, featuring:

*Business presentations being prepped in the US and South Africa, including one for the US Army.

*A near arrest of a small, feisty woman by a small army of policemen.

*Various ghosts of the past manifesting themselves to their own folly.

*A box of assorted doughnuts.

*The dimensions of a book of poetry.

And I won’t explain any of the above. But Candy knows.

Some of you trying to access Candy’s wonderful Inside Candy blog may be getting a "temporarily unavailable due to bandwidth concerns" notice. That’s what we get for trusting a hosting provider we find out about on a cereal box.

Actually, it is a very temporary thing and should be resolved in the next few hours, there has just been an explosion of interest in her site in the last few days, and deservedly so and I think everyone was taken off guard.

She is amazing, people. I’d share her with you all but she’s mine.

Mine. Mine. Mine.

I’m a happy miser.

I would rather live my life as ronin than ever love another.

I am boycotting posting anything new on this blog until my co-author posts something. I am starting to feel like I am taking over hers!!

God love you, Candy. Wait until you see what miracle this genii next performs.

Knee deep in sleep I creep to the edge and look over it. A long way down.

That’s life, you know. Measuring the moments that may not cooperate in what you think is best, testing the waters to see if they hide diamonds or an unsubtle agenda.

Denying choices you’ve made, and parading serenades you have doubts about, shouting lies in hopes that the repetition at least mocks sincerity.

I’ve been writing, pencil or pen to paper, fingertips to keyboards, for four and a half decades. Who knows how long before that the nature/nurture controversy made its background bend and the emotions befriended the vocabulary. How long did it take for me to realize that I had that stripe? I know the answer, but the question is could I have just painted over it and become another grey piece of the grey clay of the grey day that never ends well?

Forgive my posture. I am of a mood to ponder, aloud (blame Candy, she gets me stirred up and I am stuck with the aftermath, having allowed myself into chambers of my nefarious heart and intricate soul that even I never knew were there).

So I think, aloud. I resent the present, as it traps me from tomorrow. I have no affection for the past except as a plastic-bead necklace used as currency for people who have no defensible values. I have made no excuse for myself, and find myself in a sky pocked with abstractions I am still trying to find convenient collapsible handles on and in.

And there aren’t any. So I have to look at things in new ways, which is a great exercise for the brain and heart and soul…but it is painful.

Hmmm…my partner seems to have not been posting here in nearly two weeks. Methinks she is tired of constant adoration! Nah. I know how busy she has been and, unlike me, she is not a total freak of nature when it comes to writing obsessively.

Sweet dreams, my love.

And on the topic of sweet dreams…in amongst the billions of writing projects I am involved with (and poor Candy has gotten herself swept up into) I have committed myself to a variant on an old project of mine, "The Tales of the Amomancer", which is an allegory on my life and view of the world. Oh joy. More fodder for those who once read the the story of Narcissus and now think they are fully qualified psychiatric professionals.

You may have noted a series of dark works this evening on my blogs, with more likely to follow this brief respite. Don’t worry. I am just letting off some of the darker steam. I made several verbal faux pas earlier today in conversation with the big C, and am beating myself up for them. Unlike some other people (not Candy, but others)I do not have the compulsion to blame others for my missteps, I have allowed myself to get worn down and as a result, I have gotten sloppy.

I need to make some adjustments.

I need to lay down beside Candy and let bleed the wounds I have bound in illusion and allusion for so long. For too long. But the diligence and endurance that brought me to here, where I belong, was not for naught.

I am going to ask the editor on the new book, my beloved angel and queen, Candy, to select favourites of hers from the manuscript to feature over on the Amomancer blog between now and release date.

Poor girl, but she wanted the assignment…and my God, she looks incredible on the cover.

I also feel like I should accede to an interview…it has been a while. Any budding journalists out there in the blogosphere want to take a whack at me? I’d be happy to post it here, and if it is really, really good it might even get into the book…

This is the draft cover for my new book

"As such…romantic poetry of rebirth"

discern what you will on close examination. We’re in final editorial passes, final publication date is March 24th, when we will offer a 24 hour free eBook download of the volume.

A special announcement about the publisher coming up next week.

And Hillary, you still have my vote. I’m at least one man who isn’t so dickless as to prefer empty platitudes to a woman in the White House.

Candy, you have my vote for everything else.

I hereby announce that, pursuant to my vows, I am no longer a "ronin in the temple of aphrodite".

The title of that book of my works was to reflect the sense of being a romantic in a world without a lover. I have found not only a lover, but the lover, and have made my vows and accepted her as the one I will fight for, write for and seek a gentle night for.

Thank you, Candy. It is nice to be yours.

I will dream of you till morning

There are dreams that make you smile. Dreams that make you weep.
There are dreams that come in moments between nights when you sleep,
touching all the shallow hallows and the questions that lay deep
far beneath the linen layers that will catch us if we leap
from the precipice of discontent to seek a better day,
from the lies we prize and subsidize with silence, on the way
to the long deserted schoolyards where our avatars did play
on the road to where we’ve lost ourselves, mislaid our earnest clay
as we sought and fought and thought we caught a moment in our hands
that slipped away in light of day, exposed as others’ bands.
We are more than we remember, taking less than life demands
if we let our dreams just dance away, across the midnight sands.
I will dream of you till morning. Then dream of you till night.
I will dream of you till mourning. Then touch you at first light.

William F. Devault. all rights reserved.

No, this may very well be the most profound thing I’ve ever written.
Thank you, Candy.

journey’s end

There will be times when the sorrows overtake me
and even seem to be of a mind to break me.
Yet time has shown me not so fragile a soul
to crack and fall at the whims of fates’ control.

I am not stone. But I am not alone, not anymore
and I can roar my defiance at the skies as I soar
on wings of glass and gossamer, woven by you
to let me touch the blithe angels you bring, anew.

Beauty I had forgotten in the shadows of despair,
the taste of gentle jasmine on your skin and in your hair.
You’re the answer to all riddles I had at length perceived
to be of Gordian strands and bands, or so I had believed.

But you are brighter than the sun and softer than the wind,
a mentor to my mysteries, confessor where I’d sinned
against the God and gods of love and life I’d sworn
to follow without doubt or fail, to seek a birthright born.

My gratitude knows no limits, my desire knows no lack,
my passion is for all you are and all you’d give me back
for the caustious, earnest footsteps that I took up to your door
at the end of my life’s questing, to know love forevermore.

William F. Devault. all rights reserved.

I will go to ground and write poetry for a time, as that is what I do.