City of Legends

And it is a question, as visitors to my Amomancer blog clearly see that I am not currently writing to a single central inspiration of the female persuasion.  The fire is there, the focus is not.

Huerta the other day sent me a frowning emoticon, , when I expressed that I need to find a new major muse.  The fact she frowned tells me that there is much ignorance, even amongst my closest circle, as to what a muse is to me.

God, or rather, Goddess.  Simply put.  But with an explanation.

Not to replace the one true God, but to give me a focus as a writer, which is, perhaps more than man or human or liberal Democrat who has been married and divorced twice, my most evident self-definition. 

The furnace of my passions burns as hot as ever just as the core of the Earth itself is a molten mass of radioactive isotopes and stone.  But without a path for release, what you (and I, and the world) get are small volcanic outpourings, just enough to keep me from being torn apart.  They are impressive in and of themselves, but they are not Krakoa.  And I, personally, am a big fan of Krakoa-sized eruptions (see Psyche, Panther, Brigit, The Goldenheart, Aubergine and even the Leopard).

I am, by my very nature, a monogamist.  I believe in, I celebrate, I enjoy having one person that I can revolve around, like the Sun for my planet to orbit.  I find no shame in that, in basking in a radiant glow that warms and nurtures me.  Without it, my "planet" dies a slow death.  Not just from the lack of heat, but also the tidal forces that pull and stretch, toss and catch me as I spin through a remarkable universe.  Those forces rip me up inside and keep the heat burning, the magma churning and I, myself, learning what is good and beautiful and foul and fair and truth and illusion.  These are the reasons I get out of bed in the morning, these are the reasons to lay down beside someone else at night.

And I have to admit, I miss it.  I’m not looking for a fling, but an Olympian thing.  Someone strong enough to push back when I am half-mad (I never fully get to the whole mad).  Someone who isn’t going to bullshit me about their status and the realities of their world just because they want a taste of the ambrosia that gets flung around like cheap beer at a Steelers game. 

I’m not perfect, God knows.  I can, and have, put up with a lot from people who seemed to get in the door a little too easily with the password "I love you" and then started trashing the place.  I hate playing bouncer in my own heart and soul.  Hate it.  Someone who I can write about their beauty and virtues without having to lie to myself, that when I go back and read the works they inspired, I don’t have to ask "what was I drinking?"

The muse is a sacred thing to me.  It allows me to be who I am.  Without artifice, the vessel of my craft and spirit.  I have made myself Ronin, by choice, and the voice I hear when I speak is diminished as I strive to learn enough about myself and the nature of life that I speak no more blasphemies of the gods of love.

I’m not looking for sympathy.  I don’t need it or even deserve it.  I have been very fortunate in this life to have seen glimpses of beauty and passion and talent of the magnitudes I have seen.  There are those who would say I am being greedy in asking for one more, perhaps one final, run of the Chariot of Apollo across the sky.  If this is greedy of me, then I am greedy, and selfish.

But not dishonest or disloyal to my faith in love, to my unnamed Goddess.  I would rather die for a single, simple truth, than live for a lie. 

The week started unusual.  Someone from my past re-emerged.  A good someone.  Not a footnote someone, a chapter (or two) person.  Red hair.  Very tall.  Great kisser.  I digress.

Received an invite from an old friend to go to the Springsteen concert.  Decided not to.  I love the Boss, and all, but the timing was wrong and, dunno, just not what struck me in the moment.  I am, however, planning to take my sons to an Aerosmith & ZZ Top concert this summer.  They have never been to a concert.  They’re to be 16 in July.  This will be interesting.

Got a reverse query today from a small, small, small press editor.  Wants to do a volume of just my Goldenheart cycles.  Intriguing, but I have to think about it.  I want to hear his vision. 

Leapt a few cliffs in the last few hours.  Getting the power, the adrenaline, back.  The testosterone follows.  Wrote like a hurricane the other morning…loaded about ten poems onto the Amomancer blog, with future dates so they’ll automatically pop over the next week and a half without my having to remember to feed the readers.

Strange dream last night.  Okay, not strange.  Nice to know I still get dreams like that.

An unusual week.

Yes, I know that is the name of an older poem of mine, but it just seemed to fit this morning.

After a run of successful model and photographer recruitment, I had my first refusal today…and it was one o the ones I really had my heart set on.  Not the least of the issue being she is a redhead and I need a really powerful red hair presence for the Goldenheart and Brigit works.  Plus she had an incredible portfolio.  Such is life.

I am working on a proposal that requires input from two sources.  Yesterday.  Don’t have either yet. 

The enormity of the redesign of my poetry pages I have publicly accepted is setting in.  Yikes!

Headache.  Throbbing, pounding, light-sensitive headache.  Argh.

Hey, I have had worse days.  This year.

I was just reviewing my FreeFind report for the past week. A few things jumped out.

First of, some of you read my blog, then head to the website. Right after the Mad Gypsy was referenced on my blog, people were looking her up on The City of Legends. I would love to do a joint reading with her, again, when I tour in June…Karla? You’re up.

Secondly, we need to work on spelling. Someone was looking for the long form (heh heh) of my poem from the Goldenheart Cycles (isn’t it about time I standardized "Goldenheart" as to how to punctuate it?) titled "Impalement". Except they spelt it "impalment", which I think means the act of becoming friends. Of course, so does "impalement" in the context of that poem, just a very different kind of friends. Sigh.

I’m tired. Life is so much hard work. There are times I wonder how the Salieris of the world get through their days without killing themselves.

Me? I have my poetry and my muse. Yeah, my muse is 2500 miles away and unlikely to get much closer anytime soon (and there is a sizable chance this will be, like so many before her, an unconsummated relationship). But, for the moments of the wine, we plant the vinyard, eternally optimistic that the chances we take, the faith we place and the work we do will all bear fruit.

For we recall the taste of the wine, when it does so honor us.