City of Legends

Yes, I am.  Ever the brave and bold madman, dancing on the cliffs, I have found age and disappointment have takn some of the edge off the blade.  Being as introspective as I am, I see most of the root causes and work hard to not only defeat the symptoms, but also the internal mechanisms.  I have always been a bit of a mad scientist when it comes to my own psyche.

I am sure there are those who would react with shock or dismay that I am trying, once again, to make a shift, emotionally, but I am tired of being victim to my own scars and those of others.  I am starting to get angry with myself for not being more durable (even though, it has been pointed out to me, that I passed the rated "crush depth" for the human heart decades ago),  I expect more, demand more from myself.

I’m not going to stop tinkering, although I am going against one of my most deeply held beliefs that, as social creatures, we cannot be right for ourselves if we are not right for others, or at least, significant other.  Perhaps that is why I am fighting a fierce holding action, but feeling the bravado of the lost cause of Spartan warriors at the Hot Gates.  It is the acknowledgement that you are engaged in an Herculean undertaking, but one inevitably doomed.

See, there it is again.  The shadow.  I am unamused and yet bemused, at the very point a recent groundswell in the arts community towards me as an icon of hopeful romanticism, I find myself turning from peridot to jade.  Not good.

We shall have to see what I can do with an orchard of lemons.

Originally posted at Author’s Den, this examination of my greatest muse is as relevant today as ever.  Originally written in 2005, I haven’t changed a word.  I guess I’ve pretty much been on this wavelength for some time.

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I was down at my favourite hang out, the "Black Bear Burrito," working on a summary of my book "Love Gods of a Forgotten Religion" when a whim struck me.

And I shall, as is my duty to you, and to love.

Before everyone starts to have major withdrawals…

"here she comes to wreck the day!"

 

One thing we cannot have is the poet boycotting his own blog. (Good Lord!)

The lengths to which he’ll go to get his way… are adorable.

Right now, as I write, he is finalising the judging of the West Virginia State Finals for “Poetry Out Loud: National Recitation Contest”, so I cannot yet announce a winner, or provide any meaningful feedback about the event on his behalf.

However, I can confirm that I spoke to him moments before the event commenced, when he informed me that first on the line-up was a reading of Edward Lear’s Owl and the Pussycat.

We were both tremendously excited to learn this, since the poem holds special significance for us (something I’ll elaborate on in another post).

While he’s doing all the wonderful things that he does, I’m doing the final edit of his new (breathtakingly beautiful) collection of poetry, As Such, and thinking that it’s high time that I began to cultivate my ability to write about love.

Had a nice evening last night. No, not evening, night. Er, no…make that morning.

Long and silly story, which I won’t bore you with, but I managed to, in my spare moments, write some scandalously good poetry. So, a little lost sleep is well earned.

One of my companions kept asking me if I was sleepy. I told them I’d rather spend time with them than sleep. I should have said, with that raised eyebrow that indicate “target acquired” that I’d rather sleep with them than spend time, but that might’ve been too corny.

Besides, she knew what was in my heart. In some ways it is nice to be an open book, to have not the little, petty, cowardly secrets that everyone else seems intent on having and keeping and sweeping under the rug. Yes, it is a little scary, but I like the line uttered by George Clooney’s Major Archie Gates in David O. Russell’s classic anti-war film “Three Kings”: “The way it works is, you do the thing you’re scared shitless of, and you get the courage AFTER you do it, not before you do it.”

Confessing affection is scary, breathtakingly so (ask the Mad Gypsy).

What if the other person out of hand rejects you? It happens, it’s happened to me.

What if the other person gets in for reasons other than the happily ever after? It happens, it’s happened to me.

What if you take that leap of faith and not only release your desperate handhold on the rocks of the high cliffs above Kyrienar but press outward with all your might, so there is no hope of brushing a tree or outcropping of rock as you descend for a last ditch stab at survival, to prove how committed you are to this moment, to this paramour in (you hope) waiting? It happens, it has happened to me.

I could live the rest of my life alone, or living on “mosels and mould” and be a traitor to everything I believe in and preach, just as any Christian minister who gets up tomorrow in front of their congregation and praises the execution of Saddam Hussein is a traitor to their faith. The man was guilty, we know. But pragamatism, judgement and Christian values do not belong on the same altar. Read the Bible guys, especially those books after the Maccabees. But, I digress.

Or I choose to live within my principles and beliefs and religion of love and hope and passions immortal. I have spent almost three years in exile. The return of the poet-king was inevitable, but only on my terms. “I will take no pretender, again, to my bed”.

Besides, my readers love this part, most rooting for the happy ending, some rooting for roadkill, like the people who go to NASCAR events not for the competition, but for the accidents.

I do a great flaming chassis impression…SCREEEEEEEEEECH!