City of Legends

I was challenged by my friend Thomas to compare and contrast what is happening right now in regards to my writing to other muses, from my past.  This reminds me of a challenge a friend of mine once issued when he complained that Larry Bird was getting too much attention in the NBA.  We did a statistical breakdown on his play and found out he was the dominant player, by a major margin, at the time.

But, to mollify Thomas and put my current state of being in perspective, let’s use, as a yardstick, the following muses:  the Panther, the Leopard and Brigit.  I am selecting those as they are the benchmarks of my muses, in terms of number and quality of works, each having been involved with me over a span.

Let’s make it easy. 

Brigit was a factor in my life for approximately the same period of time that the Sunday Girl has been, so far.  During that time I wrote approximate 110 poems about her.  In a recent breakdown of my ten best works, none marked the list (sorry, love). 

The Leopard was a factor in my life for about 6-1/2 years, nearly twenty times the period of time of the Sunday Girl.  During that time I wrote approximately 150 poems about her.  Of those, one makes the all-time poems list.

The Panther was a factor on my life for a year and a half, about four times the period that the Sunday Girl has been in my life, so far.  I wrote to her approximately 800 poems.  Staggering.  In the base period, that period equivalent to my run so far with the Sunday Girl, I wrote 34 poems to the Panther.  Of the full 800, a single poem stands out in my all-time list.

The Sunday Girl.  Four months, more or less.  215 poems, as of a half hour ago.  6 of my top ten all time works come from that collection.  If I continue to create at this rate, by the time we reach the involvement duration I was with the Panther, we are talking nearly 1,000 poems, and already of a measurably higher quality and durability.

We’re not talking a distraction.  We are talking about major, profound and welcome change to the regime of the muses in my work. 

So, Thomas, does that answer your question?

I have long lived by the notion that one should not have regrets.   My daughter, for instance, tried to convince me once that I should never married her mother, because we were ill-suited for one another.  I told her that without that marriage, she and her two brothers, all of whom I love, would have never existed.  I therefore refused the premise of her point.

I am not perfect.  I have things in my life that are troubling to me, but overall, my life is rich and good and true.  I have my health.  I have friends. I have a literary legacy that may yet reach critical mass, and I have the love of a good woman (whether or not she can put up with me is another question).

But, if I could compartmentalize my life and pick a handful of events that I could and would regret, regardless of what good may have, directly or indirectly, been derived from them, here they are.  Hold onto your hats.

1. Marriage to my second wife.  Huge mistake.  She was young, beautiful and aggressively pursued the union.  But the marriage made me sacrifice my career and literary ambitions for a time, and sabotaged my relationship with my daughter.  She (the second wife) made out well on the deal and is quite possibly alive today because of the union, but…nevertheless.  The financial damage done was massive, to me.
2. The lionization of the Panther Cycles, indeed, the realtionship with the Panther.  It was a clumsy attempt to make a mystique out of a mistake.  My first marriage was a mess, true, but I allowed myself to try and salvage something epic out of what was, in truth, a disaster of epic proportions.  Some of the poetry in the ‘Cycles is solid, but a lot of it is "abstra" work, assigning virtues and qualities to the Panther that she never possessed.  It was hyperbole on a level I would never again touch, and I confess it now.
3. My early infidelities in my first marriage.  These sabotaged the bond and probably were a key element in the slow, painful disintegration of the marriage.  I was always suspect, and subject to a fair amount of emotional and verbal abuse from friends and family thus that I was constantly unhappy.  This contributed to the Panther debacle.
4. Not being more aggressive in my poetry career.  It is not too late for this, as even with it as a part-time gig I have made inroads.  The Sunday Girl, perhaps, can help me by giving me the support, emotionally, that no one previously ever has.  I seem to have been forever deviled by those who either a) had no conceopt of what poetry means to me or b) were there for a quick immortalization treatment.  I earnestly believe she could finally be the one.

I think that’s enough for now, my head hurts.  But I am trying to purge my demons to make myself a better person, a better husband in waiting.  And to do this I must be honest with myself to a degree I have never before accomplished.

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.