City of Legends

The baptism of desire, the fire burns away the doubt and shame.
Risen, like the phoenix, in heat and light and a solferino flame.
Passion descends on you, enters you, pure in its own right, no carnival
can drive away this mystery of the touch, avatars of the carnal
gods reborn to taste with lips and hips the eclipse of bartered ad val,
the baptism of desire, the fire burns away the doubt and shame.
I feel your tempested breath upon me, until nothing but you could tame
the lion of my loins that drives deep to fulfill an ancient aim and claim.
Passion descends on you, enters you, pure in its own right, no carnival
to bid farewell the flesh that meshes in urgent, ardent and unsubtle
stroke and writhe and kiss and rage and the poetry of the deeper thrall.
The baptism of desire, the fire burns away the doubt and shame.
I would gladly die tween the thighs that wrap and slap me, with a poet’s name,
taking me for what I am, I surrender my urgent thirst and proclaim!
Passion descends on you, enters you, pure in its own right, no carnival
for I am not to surrender my couer rage for you, but in you, the same
as you will lay upon my flesh the consecration of your sacred scrawl:
The baptism of desire, the fire burns away the doubt and shame.
Passion descends on you, enters you, pure in its own right, no carnival

William F. DeVault.  all rights reserved.

Just saw a piece on CNN.com about alienation of affection lawsuits.  I never realized before that I could have filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit when I was living in Mississippi.  Of course, it would have been malicious, self-righteorus and ironic to do so…but such is life (since when did irony ever stop anyone else from behaving the way they do?  Irony drives the human personality!)  Check it out, though:  CNN:  Alienation of Affection Lawsuits.  Interesting material.

Yes, the new book, loveaddict, is nigh.  And yes, in keeping with my usual pattern I am already starting on the next book (Huerta is begging to be the cover of this one).  Plenty of anvils dropped about the name and focus, so I won’t give away anything here.  Do your damn homework, people.

Was reading a poet’s site that they had asked me to check out and I was ticked off.  They had several pieces listed as villanelles that were not, by any definition, the French Sonnet form, except in line count and rhyme scheme.  What, you say, isn’t that what defines a villanelle?  No, you silly un-French ass, the most important pillar of that form is the line repetition.  The poems were quite lovely, but they weren’t villanelles.  Period.  Don’t argue.  Try again.  Do better.

The Holidays are upon us.  I have some interest tales to tell from my recent Texas/Oklahoma visit.  And, yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.  I’m going to give away some of my books to some avid readers, as well as announce the frame of an Eastern-US tour for the Spring of 2010.

All in good time.

I like to look at my statistics, if for no other reason than to try and decode what I am doing right and wrong and where my audience is coming from. The surface statistics are fine, most of the time, but once in a while I need to drill down and look for other trends.

Most recently, I have been trying to figure out which of my poems are most often being used by students in class, for reports or readings. I often then contact the schools in question and donate books to their libraries. It’s not that tough, you just look for .edu extensions, eliminate the obvious ones who were looking for "Naked Cinderella" as their search argument, and pay particular attention to those who do queries in form like "meaning of Panther on the Beach".

After a ridiculous amount of research, accumulating search engine feeds from many sources, I have a winner. Well, actually, two winners…as while one poem has been dominating the .edu hits for some time, a new poem has been drawing enough of a crowd to almost match it, so I am declaring this a tie. Note that even both put together do not get as many hits as "glass roses" or "Darfur (Jesus Wept)" which was #3 in the .edu hits but much higher when you take into account all the non-school readers.

And the winners are:

The Panther on the Beach

and

The Gypsy Faerie in the Meadow

What makes this uber-cool (to steal a line from someone) is that both, yes both, are villanelles! I love the form, but having only written a few dozen in it, I am surprised and pleased they are well received. My villanelle I stand for you is currently up at AuthorsDen (and may be part of the arc for Aubergine).

Take a bow, Lauri (Panther) and Lucy (Gypsy Faerie), for the inspiration and homework you have afforded to high school and middle school kids across the USA. One day they’ll thank you. Maybe.