City of Legends

A recent note from someone let me know that there had been, once again, an identity issue surrounding me.

Let me clarify who I am (best Christopher Lambert impression, from "Highlander"):

I am William Francis DeVault. I am a poet. I have many sobriquets, but since I gave up on pseudonyms in the 1970’s, just one name. My monogram is "WFDV" and my family motto translates to "Humble only before God".

I am regarded by many as the "Romantic Poet of the Internet", a title originally given to me by Yahoo, in the mid-1990’s. Some consider me one of the fathers of the "Digital Renaissance". I have even been regarded as a possible reincarnation of a Holy Man, a notion I disregard and reject. I am me.

I have written thousands of poems, published several books, been in many publications, toured and presented my works from coast to coast in the United States, and known the love of some truly remarkable friends and lovers along this strange road.

I currently hang my ponytail in Morgantown, West Virginia, where I work as a trainer and coach for TeleTech and also moonlight as a teacher with Monongalia County’s Technical Education Center.

I used to write a comedy column for AOL’s Writers Club and used to write film reviews for AOL’s Roadside, USA hub. My favourite movie, all time, remains Bob Fosse’s "All That Jazz".

I am also called "The Amomancer", as one who "casts spells with words of love". It comes from the word "Amote", which I coined as both a contraction of the Latin for "I love you" and as meaning "To speak of love".

I have three wonderful children, all by my first wife: Perelandra (Peri), Elric and Dante. I have married and divorced, twice.

I host the podcast show "From Out of the City".

I graduated from Morgantown High School, in Morgantown, West Virginia, in 1973…a school that has never invited me to speak before even a single English class. I briefly enrolled at West Virginia University. I suppose attending classes would have helped, but I was off, in my own sphere, writing all the time.

I’ve survived gangrene and pneumonia, both in my younger days. At one of my last physicals, the doctor told me it would take kryptonite to kill me, but that I’d look better if I lost some weight. I have dropped almost 50 pounds since then.

Thanks in part to my relationships with psychologists and psychology students, I have taken just about every psychological test there is, and I know the results. Neurotic, bright and mercurial. I achieve emotional satisfaction from gratification of my very strong sex drive. In the absence of sex, I eat. I am conquering this as we speak, and to that I attribute this incredible run of productivity over the last three years. I have learned to sublimate to editing and writing and recording and painting and engineering and composing.

I am shy with women, my poetry being where the romantic can express himself.

But I am not psychotic and not pathological. Most lies I have told in this life (a bad habit for any cause) were told at the behest of others to cover their sins, not my own. I know my demons, I converse with them, and I keep them under an iron fist, but I keep them. I have sworn to fulfill the "Nosferatu’s Dream"…that if I ever see myself turn evil, I will destroy myself. I don’t hide from those who seek me, I don’t charge for good acts, I believe that any person who gets rich off of spiritually by making others pay to find their paths is a charlatan and a fraud. All truths are to be freely given, as is all love. Love = truth.

My favourite person is my father.

Perhaps the most famour quotations from me are: "A quote is just a tattoo on the tongue" and "The existence of a single atheist does not disprove the existence of God".

I am overly generous, sometimes taken advantage of for that. I have been an ennabler. I do recall the middle name of every woman I have ever been with. I am a natural flirt, something my daughter pointed out to me years ago, and I like bright, articulate, beautiful women. Despite my failings in my first marriage and some rather aggressive temptations, I did not cheat in my second marriage. I still haven’t taken a lover since then.

I was once given a tryout at Marvel Comics at the behest of Stan Lee. I didn’t make it.

I hosted the Mississippi Gathering of Poets in Bay St. Louis, three years ago. I headlined with the Southern Poets Reading Tour, twice, in 1997. I am featured in the Appalachian Education Initiative’s "Art & Soul" volume, celebrating arts education by honoring 50 "outstanding creative artists" from West Virginia. I was a featured in the Edinburgh International Internet Festival of the Arts. I have read in schools, churches, bars, coffee houses clubs and colleges across the United States.

I hosted the Writers Club Party at the Algonquin Hotel in New York City in September of 1995.

I have lived in South Carolina, Alaska, Washington, Colorado, Michigan, West Virginia, North Dakota, California, Maryland, Mississippi and Virginia. I have been homeless.

I have a tattoo. It is of a lion, on my right shoulder, mtching the lioness on my second ex-wife’s shoulder, as she requested. Duh.

I used to teach "Youth Alternatives to Violence" for Monterey County Probation in California and was the county coordinator for Monterey County for the California Friday Night LIve Partnership’s FNL program for young people. I was the Alcohol and Drug Resource Specialist for Harden Middle School in Salinas, California.

I have never eaten a live hamster. I love chicken livers. I do not like broccoli.

That is a picture, from 1974, of me on the cover of my book "The Morgantown Suite Poems". Those are pictures of my second wife on the cover of "from an unexpected corner" and "Love Gods of a Forgotten Religion".

A mystic once predicted that I would die a violent death. If so, I hope it is for a purpose and not just as a random target of random violence. I do not attend funerals, as I find them barbaric. Celebrate life, not death. Jesus said "Let the dead bury the dead".

I designed the cover of Daniel S. McTaggart’s book "Midnight Muse in a Convenience Store". I sometimes, in my spare time, edit books and design covers for other authors.

I don’t drink or do drugs, never have, never will. I believe sleeping with a person under the influence is rape.

I have made, in the past, a healthy salary as a manager of software development teams, a proposal writer and manager, and as a consultancy director.

I am an ordained minister. I have been admitted into both the Southern Baptist church and the Episcopal Church, but I count myself a Quaker (Society of Friends).

I prefer Macs to Windows platforms. My drink of choice is Diet Dr. Pepper, which is unfortunate as I do believe Splenda to be a much safer choice for artificial sweetener. I tend to wear black because it simplifies my life, I have bad taste in colour coordination. I love jasmine tea, as to me it tastes like a woman.

And, until proven otherwise, I am immortal.

At least spiritually and literally. Check in with me in 500 years to see how the physical side goes.

When Odyssey’s men were to pass by the island of the Sirens, he had wax poured in all their ears so they could not hear the song they sung what drew sailors to their deaths. But, curious man he was, he first had them strap him to the mast, with instructions that, until they were out of sight of the island, no matter how fiercely he struggled or gestured, they should not unlash him.

He knew what was coming and set impediments, or at least warnings and wards, in his path.

The next week is going to be pretty stressful on me, so I want to get in my licks now, before the stresses malform me for a brief season. Don’t worry, no matter how freakish my attitudes will be over the next eight or nine days, I will be fine…if my flesh endures so shall my spirit, which was always made of still sterner stuff than my bulletproof form.

Tomorrow is August 12. Big deal you say? Not for me. For a half decade my soul was merged and made strong by my union with Nancy, whom I have called Psyche and the Electric Lady in my works. August 12 is her birthday. There is only one more sacred day on my emotional calendar than that, November 1. And she and I know the import of that day. Tomorrow will be a day of sorrows and celebration. Last I heard she was well and happy. I hope this year finds her thus as well.

August 14 was the day we used to celebrate together, as it is the midpoint between her birthday and mine. Romantic, no? It made sense to us as it signified that we were no longer two people, but one joined destiny. That will also be rough for me.

August 16th draws nigh. Elvis died on that day. But, more importantly for future generations, that is my birthday (yes, I know I share it with Madonna, Frank Gifford and some former daytime hostess…woo-woo…). I turn the big 5-0 this year (me, Mel Gibson, Billy Bob Thornton, Kevin Costner and Bruce Willis are all in a twelve month span, from what I understand…I’d like to have Gibson’s money, Willis’ physique, Thornton’s ex wife, and Costner’s…er…well, we can’t have it all…). This will be the first in many a year since I have been in a relationship, even last year I had Ann making (I am sure under the table) assurances that the separation would be over soon (usually followed by a reque$t of some sort or other), and she called on my birthday. I don’t expect that from her this year. And last year I did not hear from my daughter (this was the first real sign that she had grown mute to my existence). We shall see if either of them steps up this year. If not, Matthew 10:14 comes to mind.

Then comes the 17th, speaking of that Bible verse, and I am to speak as part of "Arts Week" in Morgantown. I would rather face a room full of strangers than a crowd where there are friends and family looking at me. The one exception was the assembly at St. Mary’s School in Salinas. Having a few hundred beautiful, well-groomed, uniformed Catholic schoolgirls file in to listen to you is something of a Kevin Smith nightmare (or wet dream, or both). It marked the only occasion in my life an audience has ever intimidated me. Of course, woman have always been my Achilles heel, I guess we know what I was held by when dipped in the River Styx. Ouch.

I may be going to see the boys on the 18th. That is always stressful to me. And, with my new work schedule, it is complicated to do.

And then, on the 19th, I am one of the guests for "Malt on the Mon"…one of the first local tests of my celebrityhood. If this was LA or New York, no problem, I know the crowd I’d get and their timber…this is different. But it’s cool, I probably need a cold shower for my ego, the new book is just too magnificent…for the first time in my existence I am producing packaged material as good as I know I can…of course, my psych profile tells me now I have to step up and not just hit home runs, but screaming line drives that decapitate the pitcher on their way up and out of the stadium, leaving a flaming trail agaianst the gloaming skies.

Excelsior.

Now, you know some of the stresses I am facing (that combined with having a daytime gig at Teletech where I make a salary about 1/5th what I am used to making, but I am surrounded everyday by dozens of charming, intelligent and beautiful women, so there’s that)…so please, if next week I miss a deadline, or babble, or type in all caps one entry, excuse my humanity. I have come to accept that fact that in some ways, humanness is not something most of my readers expect from me.

I am often reminded of Deborah Atherton’s statement, upon meting me, after having know me online for a while, that she was "expecting Charlton Heston, but got John Lennon"…to this day it remains one of the sweetest compliments I have ever received, on so many levels. By the way, check out the information on her opera about Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (the young woman who wed Percy Bysshe Shelley and wrote "Frankenstein") at this link The Mary Shelley Opera. You’ll find it remarkable, as the woman who co-wrote it is.

I digress. As always. I have a book to go work on. You, get on with your life or go viisit my website and drop me a line about a work or two, I always like comments…and, if you have a sister…