City of Legends

Not even close, if you believe my doctor, just going in so many directions, and drained a bit, trying to settle into a relationship that is, in a word, challenging.  Aren’t they all?

I am very gratified with the response to "padparadscha".  I enjoyed writing it, and am enjoying seeing people find resonance with it.  Tying it with my newfound avocation of collectiong gemstones (primarily black star sapphires and padparadscha) I am enjoying myself.

I realize I have been terrible at updating this blog, and will, again, resolve to do better…I am just stretched so thin (I write, I edit, I consult, I write long, meandering love letters, I flirt, I eat, I sleep, I breathe, I am, I said, I am…)

we begin a new phase.

don’t read into it anything, just that I am making some needed changes, consistent with my purpose and my vows. 

blue is not always blue, who knew that my phrase "ruby blue" would come back to me one day…thirty years after I first uttered it?

padparadscha

you alone will know where to find me
you alone I will not refuse

the path broadens, then narrows.
stone to clay to dust to grass to stone again.
when the sun is at the right angle
I can see the long neglected spires.

home.

you alone will know where to find me
you alone I will not refuse

when the wind blows, it is from the South.
when the rain falls, it is down from the skies.
when the sun rises, I can see the the edge
of a world I have never comprehended.

you alone will know where to find me
you alone I will not refuse

vacant streets save for the occasional ghost
of seasons and reasons long past and cast aside.
a bride of dust.  the pride of trust, forgotten.
I am home now, and there is much to be done.

home.

you alone will know where to find me
you alone I will not refuse

the trivialities of other, lesser cities.
pale purgatories to one who has lived
where the gemstones pierce the night
and shed their light on the dreams of lovers.

you alone will know where to find me
you alone I will not refuse

find your way to me, when you can and will.
I will clear out the upper levels of the palace
and lay new stone by my hands, black marble
for the bare feet of acolytes who have fled.

home.

you alone will know where to find me
you alone I will not refuse

I hide in the open, so only the blind miss me.
the tumbling weeds and hungry hornets pass by
and acknowledge me not, for I am not relevant
in the green waves of prairie grass they inhabit.

you alone will know where to find me
you alone I will not refuse

my voice echoes in the violent silence until…
until the echoes find synergy and it sounds
like a multitude, a host of fair heirs, chanting.
and all my words are of you.  all my words are true.

home.

you alone will know where to find me
you alone I will not refuse

the dust slides on the smooth stone in the wind
as the moon illuminates without heat
and I shiver like a frightened child, alone
to face the morning with renewed vigor.

you alone will know where to find me
you alone I will not refuse

trouvere.  priest.  worshipping one of seven.
penetration without flesh or even sound.
the riddle of scrimshaw on jigsaw people.
the towers shift in spectrum, but retain strength.

home.

you alone will know where to find me
you alone I will not refuse

two hundred and twenty three stairs, gently curving,
and I am undeserving to ascend them, empty handed
but for yet another sack of words, awaiting worms
to feed upon me as I lay, sightless, forgotten.

you alone will know where to find me
you alone I will not refuse

the lotus blossom minarets whistle in the wind
and I watch the dance of the stars, forgetting years
and vows I had made, without malice or regret
for I am caught up in the universe and the sky.

home.

you alone will know where to find me
you alone I will not refuse

my padparadscha prison was smoothed by hand and sand
and now stands, neglected.  too long.  too long.
and I am not an agent of rebirth, my muscles
will be dust and rust before you find your way here.

home.

William F. DeVault.  all rights reserved. 

Delivered Elric to his new college at University of Hawaii at Hilo, Dante leaves for Old Dominion University in two days.

Still haven’t finished release of "Selected Poems and Passions"…don’t have the emotional stamina for it, with all else that’s going on.

Survived my birthday on the 16th…hundreds of well wishers, which still was not sufficient to overcome my funk for my Sunday Girl being out of touch.  I admit, wounding…but one embraces what one can and accepts the rest.

I have been writing, sporadically, but some good material.  I need to find a way to decouple my creative/emotional energies from the roller coaster ride of my lovelife…

My front license plate was stolen, right off my car, inconvenient.

Just staying busy, as best I can…feeling in a bit of a holding pattern.  Why is it that whenever I fall into the horse lattitudes that random women come out of the woodwork, seeking a position as new muse? 

Oddly enough, professionally and personally I am doing well…just feeling unmotivated to blog.

Elric and Dante both leave this month for college…I, personally, will be escorting Elric to the University of Hawaii at Hilo for orientation.  Poor kid, trapped for 4 years in paradise.

Dante is gearing up for Old Dominion University, he is majoring in Math with a minor in Physics.  He is giddy over getting into a true academic environment.

My relationship with the Sunday Girl remains strong, if complicated…in time I will tell you the tale and you will go "Huh?"

The delay in final release of the last book ( Selected Poems and Passions: 2004-2011 ) seem to be resolved, and it should ship in the next few weeks…

There is a canard that states that the final muse is death.  I find this only true if the creative soul surrenders to it and accepts it as such.  No artist exists in a non-consensual relationship with their muse, they have accepted it and bound to it, like an acolyte to a Holy book. 

My final muse is not death. 

It is also not pain, or sorrow, regret or revenge.  It is not lost loves, found faith or discovered wealth. 

It is a woman. 

Of course.

I had, in the aftermath of the Aubergine relationship, lost faith.  The last three major relationships I had found myself in had fallen apart, in no small quarter due to duplicity and instability, and not my own.  Having been lied to, and perhaps more shockingly, lied about, I had lost my way, lost my core evidence of beauty and love.  It was a difficult time.

But then, ironically enough, I stumbled upon some poetry.  Lovely, dark, troubled.  Reflecting a path that could have, would have, should have shattered a human soul.  But the poet had emerged the other side battle-scarred and defiant.  She was beautiful.  And for once.  For once, I fell for the essence before the facade.  For once.

I wrote her poetry.  She responded.  I finally saw her face.  She was and is of a form that is beautiful.  Dark and human, full of fire and couer rage and doubt.  Had I been born a woman, I would have liked to grown up to be her.  Brilliant and passionate and complex.  Yes, complex.  I hate shallow vessels of life.

So, this woman is the muse that I call "White Sunday", whose essence has suffused my work for the last year or so.  She remains, for most of you, still in shadows, awaiting her time in the spotlight.  There are rational and irrational reasons enough for this although scarcely a week goes by but that a reader emails me to ask who she is. 

If you have read my works of and to her, and there are hundreds already scattered about the web, you will find a depth of commitment on my part and adoration for her that is unique.  Unique to me, and perhaps more than that.  My friend, the poet Lawrence Jaffe, predicted the failure of my relationship with the Panther, saying "She is incapable of loving as you love."  He was right.  No shame to that muse, but there was a great unbalancing act in our relationship.  As there was with the Leopard and Aubergine.  My time stepped away from my passions gave me the introspection I needed to see with my heart.

A dog kicked thrice has a hard time trusting, and it has been difficult to open myself up again.  I had to make a choice, whether to treat this affection as an idle flirtation, or to accept it as something deeper and more profound.  The final muse.  To make the commitment to make of her the rest of my life. 

I made my choice.  Those who do not respect it, I am sorry to lose you as readers and even as friends, but it is my choice, my life, my legacy.

White Sunday is my final muse.  Check back with me in 30 years and see the truth in those words.

the dream shifts.  the dreamer persists.
and all our free will illusions
bind us to what we find resists
our fatal, natal natures, sons
and daughters of the slaughter done
in the name of life, mockery
and memory, songs to a sun
too distant and luminous.  we
speak dark matter, undetected.
we dream variations, measured
in our allegiances respected
by the hypocrisy we cured
by curving the hyperbole
and finding what we bind is free.

William F. DeVault.  all rights reserved.

am I finally making the crossover?  uncertain.  there are indications, based on my examination of my thought processes.

Interesting.  Have been writing fitfully.   Spending a tremendous amount of brain power trying to help White Sunday with some issues and projects.  When I sit back and look at the mass of my output over the last several weeks, even months, it is staggering.

Estimates place the current wordcount for the White Sunday poems at around 70,000 words.  That’s incredible, almost insane.

As soon as my editor completes the review of "Selected Poems and Passions:  2004-2011" I will lock in the ISBN and it will go live.  It is available now, if you know where to look, but wouldn’t you like a nice copy complete with ISBN and any final edits?

My moods are mercurial and intense.  I have been avoiding tampering with them, but may have to.

Has it really been more than a month since I last posted here?  Wow.  I have been so busy with the new books, my work at deviantArt.com and outside pursuits.

I have been bad. 

Make you a deal;  I’ll do better.  Let’s hear a poem.  This one is entitled "The Alchemy of Flesh"…
 

Faint scent of you remains, stamped in my soul.
The chemistry becomes magic and I
am but another crucible to roll
over the flames and melt base metal, my
contribution to arcane ritual
you make of me, take from me to merge
the frail shadows of souls we are, eventual
victims of desires, boiling to verge
on the moment of incandescent heat
into the alchemy of human hearts,
gold, platinum and silver slivers sweet
as arsenic, swallowed to follow parts
we vivisect ourselves for, mysteries
of futures hung upon our histories.

William F. DeVault.  all rights reserved.

This Friday night, at approximately midnight, as the new year turns on the East Coast of the United States and the people closest to me are, for the most part. elsewhere, the "From Out of the City" podcast returns with something remarkable, "The Sacraments" from the forthcoming book Apokalypsis, perfromed with my band.

I just listened to the revised music, now I have to go back into the studio and tweak my vocals, as I need more from my voice.  The integrity of the original take is amazing, so powerful that the Sunday Girl herself refuses to listen to it.  I need more.  I need incandescence.  I need a religious fervor worthy of a Joan of Arc or a Saint Stephen.  I need to dig deep and release it all.

And I will.  The next three days are very important.  They are a time of great turmoil and pain in my life, or survival and passion and the last romantic verb.  And I don’t want all of you who have waited the last couple of years for the return of the podcast to be disappointed.  I don’t want to be disappointed, not by myself (I am disappointed enough in others, you know).

I’ll post the link once the podcast is up and you shall see, you shall hear, did I take it all the way?  Did the afterburners kick in and the last wisps of fire really press things as far as they can go?

Let’s find out what I have left, shall we?

You asked for it, you got it.

The "From Out of the City" podcast will be returning at the stroke of midnight, December 31st, 2010…

featuring our most explosive set yet as the original Gods of Love reunite to back my madness on "White Sunday:  The Sacraments".

Anyone left alive in the studio after that recording, please turn the lights off as you leave…more info coming in the next two weeks.  And if your WikiLeaks, please clean up and spray some Febreze on the spot.

Okay, my self-pity generally lasts just a bit longer than my anger (I am notorious for split-second flashes of anger that implode almost instantly).

We all need to grieve when we screw up, it is essential to the healing process.  I screwed up, upset someone I truly care about and now, on top of my own self-flagellation (which is legendary) they are cheering me on.  Not that this makes me feel like a victim, indeed, I feel like I should make sure they have a comfortable seat and some nachos and a soft drink.

But the absurdity is not lost on me.  I’ll be fine, I am always a survivor, doesn’t mean I enjoy pulling my toenails out with needle-nose pliers, setting them on fire and stuffing them up my nose, however.  No one does, but it is how we develop our own behavioural feedback loops.

So, again, my Sunday Girl, I am aghast and truly, truly, truly sorry for what I said.  Now, hand me that cat-o-nine-tails, the rocksalt and the thumbscrews.  I’ll show you how a man takes it.