gheez, people
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Candy Tothill, Journal, Poetry
I walk into a dark room, announce it is dark with my usual flourish and suddenly everyone thinks I am losing it. Get real, people, I have been writing from darker spaces than this for decades. Has my happy-happy-joy-joy love-in with Candy made it so you don’t respect or expect my right to feel lonely or morose (c’mon, people, the love of my life is 8000 miles away and tending to things other than my ego once in a while, get real! Do I love that? No! Do I accept that? Yes! Did I know what I was signing up for? Yep!)
If it will make you all happy, I will write something uplifting and life-affirming, okay?
waiting for your smile
I will hold you in arms carved from the earnest stone of hearts triuphant
that I might draw you to me, for my need for you is great and the weight of the world
is more than I can bear, now that I know you are in it.
I will pick you daisies to brighten your room when you are sad,
I will learn the proper alchemy of spices for your meals
I will remember your birthday, and those of your children,
and will never lose this love, even if sometimes it is
temporarily misplaced in a dark room, waiting for your smile.
William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.
Now, please, shut up and let me be grumpy.
lips as sweet as morning
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Candy Tothill, Poetry
It occurs to me that, for a poet, I have not been really forthcoming with poetry on this blog of late (check out Amomancer for the real fur), but I feel I owe you all one.
If I have been a bit…odd…of late, chalk it up to the intensity of my life at this time. I am totally, desperately in love, and there are complications enough to make a major mini-series out of it all. The bizarre part is, I am not fundamentally troubled by this, as I believe that sparks fly upwards and that, aside from God’s love, nothing in this life is truly free. I like having to work for it, it makes me feel a little less unworthy.
So let poetry reign for a bit…
lips as sweet as morning
taste lips as sweet as morning,
blessed and confessed in my heart
as more than adequate a proof of God
and evidence of light and life
found to confound my cynicism
if you will dance with me for a night
that stretches on past morning, into forever.
William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.
for Candy. for ever.
I will not lose my love for you
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Candy Tothill, Poetry
A new poem, that literally came up in conversation with Candy.
I will not lose my love for you
I will not lose my love for you,
in this you can believe.
I will not lose my love for you,
I promise I won’t leave.
I will not be like other men
a counterfeit, a fraud,
I take this vow without regret
before you, all and God.
William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.
free eBook download for Candy’s birthday
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under As such, Candy Tothill, Poetry, Publication, peacat
If you hustle and make it to the new site
before 12 midnight, Monday, March 24th, 2008 (6 pm, edt on the 24th) you can download a free eBook edition of my upcoming new book “As such…romantic poetry of rebirth“.
This offer is being extended in honor of Candy Tothill’s birthday on the 24th, as well as to launch both the book and the new website, which is a collaborative coming together between myself and the inestimable Ms. Tothill.
Thank you all, and enjoy. The hardcopy edition will be out later this week and I will be giving you distribution information on that as it becomes relevant.
I will dream of you till morning
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Candy Tothill, Poetry
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
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Candy Tothill, Poetry
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.
The new Banner
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Uncategorized
Thank you my most beloved Candy, for all the hard work you have put in to making my blog looking positively navigable. You are a miracle worker.
To those of you who are wondering what the hell all the pictures are that are in the new banner to this blog, here’s the breakdown (left to right):
The covers of my books
101 Great Love Poems. I designed the cover of this volume, still my only book available in both softcover and hardcover editions…
Ronin in the Temple of Aphrodite is one of my few books I am truly happy with, the cover was designed by myself (I even took the photo) and it features my friend Sarah Chadwick, photographed in front of the cracked glass wall at Dorsey’s Knob, just outside of Morgantown, West Virginia…
Love Gods of a Forgotten Religion features a cover photo of my second wife, Ann, taken by the marvelous Stephanie Fenter, and contains some of my better works…
from an unexpected quarter also has a cover featuring my second wife, Ann (the original cover design was too provocative and for once I gave in to the publisher). It is a very uneven volume, some great individual works, but some filler as well…
The Compleat Panther Cycles is my massive coffee-table book of the 640+ poems that comprise the panther cycles. The cover and inside artwork features alt-rock model Jillian Ann and the book itself is huge (not to scale in picture)…
The Morgantown Suite Poems has a cover photo of me by noted news and feature photographer Ron Rittenhouse. The book is a pleasant diversion back to my roots…
me in a shot I call my “California headshot”. The filtering made my hair look blonde (never!), and Candy insisted I use it here…
Amomancer (nightblooming), Nemicorn, The Naked Reads and The Last Romantic Verb (clockwise from upper left) are four of my CDs. I couldn’t leave them out…
Invocato is by a substantial margin the book I am most satisfied with. Don’t bother looking at your local bookstore, I chose to, at least for now, leave this “greatest works” volume an orphan the the ISBN distribution channels, although the clever amongst you can find it at lulu.com…
PanthEon was my first book, and thank you, Lauri, for convincing me to forget my prejudice against mainstream publishing and allow you to produce it. The cover is a self-portrait of the Panther (I should have known the relationship wasn’t going to last when she charged me to use the image…)
Candy Tothill, who is not only beautiful, but clever, competent and kind beyond words.
So there you have it…
~so while hanging out in your corner...