City of Legends

For those of you who have read my poetry cycle "The Sacraments" know that the poem "matrimony" refers to "the time of apple harvest".  As a fierce advocate for my own mythos, that simple line bound me to a cycle in life.  Accordingly, I may only propose to my Sunday Girl during that time, which is generally read as between August 12th and October 20th.

Question asked and, as yet, unanswered.  Has she given indication of a positive response?  Yes, but I am not very presumptuous.  I gave her my gift for this year a few hours ago and now must hold my tongue for 296 days.

It may be a record of some sort, for me, but I will endure.  I am, if not more than a little disappointed, resolute.  I have seen many suns rise, many stars fall and all in all, I am still the argent sergeant of my own soul.

Who knows what tomorrow brings?  Not I.  But I will walk to the horizon, not ronin, but not yet bound (although she refers to us as "lovers", speaks of our "partnership" and you do not want to know the tongue-lashing I received one day when, inpeckish heartache, I took down my Facebook relationship status of "In a relationship".)

We shall see.  Cider, anyone?

just noting that in the past week I have had very brief periods of mood destabilization.  Momentary lapses into intense melancholy.  The first was 11:20 in the morning on January 16th, the second was today at approximately 1:50 in the afternoon.

Not sure if it is chemical (unlikely, but one must accept all possibilities) or I have just backed up that much stress (more likely).  Jessica seems worried that I am taking too seriously my role as ronin.  She’s probably right, but that just means I need to make some adjustments.

I must experiment with my mind and see.

Be prepared for some pretty outrageous poetry.

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. 

Okay, time for our semi-annual ritual of rumour control. 

Very simple. 

I am not currently engaged, about to get engaged, secretly married to or anything else.  I am still ronin and that’s the current battle plan.

There are women I enjoy the company of, but I’ve learned a valuable lesson:  Even the best intentioned people don’t always know what they want.  That includes me, and the vast majority of women I have known in this life (I extrapolate that most fit the mold).

Yes, I have good friends and those who inspire me.  My most excellent friend Jazz (whom you may also know as nightblooming or Huerta), from whose playful work with the English language I take the word in the title you scratched your head at.  We have known each other for almost a decade, and she has even been the cover of one of my CDs.  We’ve flirted, and I have even used her as a muse in absentia of a primary one being in my life.  And make no mistake, I do find her adorable, and intriguing, she’s a very terrific woman (and tall, she’s sort of a Hispanic version of Brigit).  If the mothership returned tonight and said I could only take one with me, she’d probably be the first number I call…she just probably wouldn’t answer, being out in a mosh pit somewhere.  I’m not kidding.  She’s an accomplished rock bassist and writes some seriously demented poetry. 

There’s Liza, whose photography sometimes shows up here, on williamfdevault.com and the Amomancer blog.  Charming, brilliant, talented and sexy as only a Brazilian fireball can be.  The realities of geography and the chronography makes it extremely unlikely that I will ever fill a role in her life other than a counseling uncle, but I do adore her.  Much the same for Mariya, again a long-distance flirtation with many poetic works sparked by her fearless artistic photography.  But, last time I checked, she had a boyfriend and contrary to the mythology, if a woman tells me (not if the man tells me, as people don’t own people) that she is in a relationship, she is off limits.

For now I am left to my adorisimz (the word Jazz coined for our style of mock fighting with compliments), my memories and several decades of genetically ordained indestructibility.  By the time Shelley was my age he had been decomposing for almost three decades.  Urgh.

Besides, who knows what will be coming at me from an unexpected quarter (gratuitous book plug).  My first serious relationship came out of a chance meeting at an airport that ended with me falling down an escalator.  My first wife, I met while I was engaged to another (the one I fell down the escalator over).  My second wife, I met on an airplane and was dating only women at the time.  And these aren’t the weirdest cases.  I accept the fact that the thunderbolt chooses its own time and place to strike.  I just grit my teeth and hope I don’t disintegrate in the firestorm.

My phone could literally ring right now with a new opportunity or someone of my past yearnings, re-entering the orbit of my life.  When the jolt comes, expect me to seize on with both hands, my toes, teeth and eyelashes, and to write of what it does to me, for good or for ill.  I will welcome such an adventure with open arms and seek to carry it with me the remainder of my days, being faithful and monogamous, and maybe taking my time to give her a book cover.  I’ve put 4-1/2 women on book covers (the Panther, the Leopard, nightblooming, the Goldenheart and Aubergine (looking around) I don’t see any of them hanging around.  Jazz suggests, rather snarkily, that maybe I attract women who are seeking immortality, but not the immortalizer.  Hrm.

So to recap:  Not involved with anyone right now.  The poetic works you are seeing springing anew are being inspired my memories and speculations and the occasional sense of awe at the writings or artwork of someone I feel resonance with.  In the last few years there’s been a few near-misses, and one resounding long-distance collision (is that even possible?), but right now, in my soul of souls, I am in solitude, romantically, and it is not a bad place to be.   I am learning to accept and respect the role of the ronin, the integrity of who I am.

It is uncomplicated. No illusions, no doubts, no trust issues.  I used to get up at ridiculous hours of the morning or stay up half the night to be a human alarm clock or comfort food to the passion du jour.  Now I am more self-contained, more self-aware.  I have found some answers I did not think were knowable.  I have written things I would have not been able to a decade ago.

I have not lost faith in love, in romance, in faith itself.  Don’t worry about me.  I’m just getting started.

I’ve been straddling the day, spending time writing and recording, tweaking existing recordings, and amping it all up. 

Right now I am sitting here, in front of the computer, listening to Rod Stewart’s "Every Picture Tells a Story"  Great album, great song.

Spoke to my Dad over the last few days.  He’s 85 years old and took a nasty spill on my Grandmother’s (his mother-in law’s) porch.  No broken bones, but I scolded him for not being more careful on icy surfaces.  He had a sense of humour about it.

I am looking for a bone-breaker track for the CD.  There’s some good tracks, but I want to always drop a thermonuclear track on every CD.  I have a couple of ideas, just trying to sort through them.  Some people are satisfied to catch lightning in a bottle.  Me?  I want to catch the big bang in my fist.  Then, I will be happy.  Until then I am merely accepting occasional moments of contentment. 

Maybe there is more Joe Gideon to me than I thought, seeking more adoration and applause than love.  The psychohistorians will have a party.

Tomorrow is Dan "The Man" McTaggart’s birthday.  We’re supposed to get together soon to discuss some public appearances and projects.  Three books this year, remember.  Funny thing is, every time I work with Dan I am reminded of the beats, the beat poets, not just because of his great fondness for them, but for the parallelisms in my won works and career.  Maybe I should be thinking of further north that LA?  Nah.  This is not a reinvention of a past movement, this is a different sphere.

We bear down, with great force on a few upcoming anniversaries, February 12th and March 20th.  Time presses on, but the echoes have had their ways with us and we are reshaped in the image of the forces we allow and have allowed ourselves to be surrounded by.  I am ready for more, to break this steady diet of "morsels and mould".  Not in foolish haste to waste my heart and soul on another facade, a parade of a charade (watch it as you say that sentence, it’s a tongue twister).  But the notions of leaving as last things in some areas trouble me, as we always remember what was first, last and best, even though we may lie to ourselves to deny it.  To die in the shadow of past mistakes and failures is dung on my tongue, not a fit final meal.

Joe Cocker is right now belting it out through my headphones.  Intensity.  The light of a refrigerator light-bulb, turned in upon itself, focused and made coherent, is remarkably powerful.

I think I am going back into the studio.  Right now.  And not coming out until I have blackened the eyes of a few demons and left not the thighs of Aphrodite dry and cool.  The image emerges, but I find myself tentative, full of self-doubt and hesitancy.  Boldness.  I promised it. 

I may yet be Ronin, but forces pull and call and seek my alliance.  Some of them quite alluring, some unaware of the gravity they generate.  Soon, I promise, soon.

In accordance with a promise I made, the words have been spoken to those who would listen on this day, and I post this symbol as a sign of my station.

I am content. I have done my duty and served well the truths, as I will for as long as there is breath in me to do so.

There are changes coming, my friends. Some beautiful, some beautiful in their own way. I smile, in this time, as only a poet can.

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

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.