picks of the litters

I am taking up a challenge from E.J. to select my personal favoruties from each of my extant volumes. I am excluding "101 Great Love Poems" for my own peculiar reasons.

FROM AN UNEXPECTED QUARTER
An interesting book, the thickest by far until ...Panther... Very uneven...If i had it do over, I would have cut it by half for the quality and demanded my original cover, more provocative. Still, better than most, with some tasty mouthfuls, including the compleat Goldenheart Cycles...

from out of the city
the darker angels
ritornelle for silence
Damascus: Movement III
traveller to an antique land

LOVE GODS OF A FORGOTTEN RELIGION
There are at least a dozen works in here that can count amongst my best. a reall author's book...but still not srong enough of an identity and it is often overlooked in marketing the brothers on either side...

Love Gods of a Forgotten Religion
I rained poetry
We Owe Debt to Memory
The Patchwork Skirt of My Love
feasting on memory


INVOCATO
The work I started with Love Gods... comes to fruition. This is some of the best works I have written or will ever write...originally conceived as the first of a trilogy, but that concept was abandoned when THEOCRICIDE took shape. Still, astounding, I can't open it without being pleasantly surprised.

Cartouche
The Unicorns
In the Arms of the Dragon
TRIUMPH
Soubrette

The Morgantown Suite Poems
A thank you to the kind folks at Arts Monongahela, a bit uneven artistically, but many of the things needing said getting said, including my overdue farewells to Melissa Andes, Michelle Tomasky and Dave Dlugos. A difficult volume for me to compile, but well worth the trip down memory lane. Besides, the look on the faces of Carole Weidebusch and Rosa Sebree faces when they realized they are both in there was worth the trouble. I wonder how some of the others who are in there must feel (at least Bob Wasson was flattered)

Hollow Shells
I will walk these streets again
the spot where she died
First Date Blues
Local Talent

The Compleat Panther Cycles
Difficult to rate, considering the massive content, but for the moment I'd endeavor. I would like to say that this volume is not the tombstone, but the cradle. I said it almost three decades ago: "The last of my breed. The first of my species."

Cassiopeia's Garden: Wildflowers
the common tongue
Panther On The Beach
I dared to dream of night blooming jasmine
The Reich of Self-Discipline


Of course, these are my tastes, and subject to change.

What next? Watch, but with one eye shielded from the light. You never know.

hypothesis

I want to go the distance, not just stagger through the night,
I want to win the war - not just a single knockdown fight.
I'd like to prove my instincts right, that love can well endure
if alchemied from equal parts of lust and sure love, pure.

I want to test the theories, and prove the critics wrong,
I'd like to write a catalog and not just one good song,
for life is more than living through a single hour's span
and I should like burn with you for as long as lovers can.


William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.

passion, play

I'd like to see you hot and taut and caught
between the divine and the defiled,
wild and willing to be instilling awe
in every angel daring to watch
you notch my heart.


William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.

the garden of poets

This shell decays and falls away
to pop the pod into the wind,
carried low to finally sow
a seed to bleed where hope has thinned.

A spark awakes to burst the husk
and send forth roots and shoots,
to seek the sun and deeper flow,
the needs are nourished as suits.

The grains of sand that make a land
are parted for the reach
towards sun and sky and butterfly
to pollinate words what teach.

The leaves now form to shade the worm
that crawls for shadows cool.
The buds erupt to interrupt
the greening skin, colours of the fool.

Sending scent and sentiment
the flowers flow and their power
is more than their smell and hue
but as metaphors they now tower.

By time the sun grows cool and rare
and petals fall and falter
as kernels curl and fall to earth
as sacrifice to the altar.

And I shall be as such as these,
a moment in the motion
of life and light, of day and night,
of dust and crust emotion.


William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.

an earnest hunger

in a bed of coals
stirred by impure thoughts,
raised to a blue white heat,
sweet,
a sheet made into an altar,
altering prayers of the players
to an earnest hunger.
a sacrifice to gods
that no longer are listening,
but glistening forms
transfigure meager measures
of pleasures
into something immortal.


William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.

sorrow in the sphere of Venus

I dreamt of you last night.

dark dreams that break the dark with a truer sense of silence.
avatars and metaphors of dangers and strangers.
violence to my good wishes for you.
a sense of sorrow borrowed from
the histories and mysteries we've shared.

I dreamt of you last night.

and every muscle and sinew braced to pull you from harm,
only to be faced with the burnt ends of a rope
I would have cast you, blasted from my hands
by the demands of shadow figures
in your head, in your bed.

I dreamt of you last night.

yet no cold catalepsy returned to make mock by mettle,
only a hollow sorrow the the one promise
I'd ever gotten from you was orphaned
by the side of the road like a castoff kitten,
left to die, as was I.

I dreamt of you last night.


William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.

alone and triumphant

where the water meets the sand
I stand
remembering the texture of the text
is a pale parody of the flesh
but it is all that is left
now that you have left.

or was it I?

purpose pales. memory fails.
and a ship sails
for a horizon undefined,
beyond the pillars where pillows
made willows bend in a wind
where we were twinned
and never sinned
until the silence was broken.

I awoke from the dream.
no longer afraid of a new religion.
a pigeon made a dove, made of love,
to crest the waves and wrest the brave
hostages from an uncertain fate.
waiting for hate, no more,
but a shore where the water
finds solaced blue
in the white sands
where I left my imprint.

alone

and triumphant.


William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.

Smallgods and Blacksmiths

The craftsman is consistent.
The artist? He is not.
The craftsman is content with fate
and builds from what he's got.
The artist look behind the screen
to find the source of light
and weaves us wisps and wonders
to illuminate the night.


William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.

(the return of the obscurantist)

a pure poetic morning/Jasmine Thighs, Brittle Things and Time Kings

Jasmine Thighs

jasmine thighs and tender lips.
the sound of a seven minute sigh.
the missing piece for my release:
the earth, the sea, the sky.

kiss me as a question mark.
stark and without hesitation,
for I am hungry for a dancer's answer,
to be part and party to passions won.

lay with me, play with me,
but in the sense of an earnest heat,
surrendering to a sweet theocricide
in merging flesh and fair heart's heat.


brittle things and time kings

time has flown and I have grown
ancient to the child that I recall.
crawling forth, heading North,
seeking answers from before the fall.

iridescent peasants
dance for me and spawn
a new reflection, a resurrection
of what I had thought was gone.

brittle things and time kings
litter the path I have trod.
doubts that stick in fogs so thick
I lose sight of self and God.


William F. Devault. all rights reserved.

* * * * * * * * *

Interesting morning...just wrote those two pieces. Wonder where my head is at?

Got my weekly report from freefind, which shows what search arguments have been used on the internal search at www.CityOfLegends.com - the usual bunch of platitudinous searches for sex and love poems and mythological allusions and - hold on, what's this - a name.

Lusebrink.

Wow. An agent evocateur comes calling.

Someone out there knows a name to search for. I wonder if it brings anything up...I think the specifics of that name are not mentioned on any of the indexed pages, but seeing as a major portion of my poetic history springs from that family, no wonder someone came looking for them on my site.

I wonder who. I think the only hit they'd get is "theocricide at Mach 10e6" which was written in the emotional aftermath of the death of Mary Wiles Lusebrink, who was to have been my Mother-In-Law, if I had kept faith with her daughter, Nancy, who was my totem known alternately as Psyche and The Electric Lady. Two other daughters of Mary made it into my firmament: Amy (yes, the same Amy Lusebrink who put out a book of Celtic designs, she was a good artist) who is known as Arachne (a minor muse, mentioned only once) and Aurora, the subject of my work "virgin's dawn".

Talk about blasts from the past. Last I heard, Amy was in Japan, Aurora was living somewhere here in Morgantown and Nancy was still happily married and living in Atlanta.

Of course, this pales beside the time a few weeks back when I got my listing of search arguments and "Alisha Blomker" was in there...which tells me that either she herself or someone who knows our obscure past came to look for carrion. That got inside my head and stuck for days.

I am always delghted when I am recalled. Preferably fondly, but at all is sufficient.

Morgantown vs Los Angeles

I was talking to my old friend Bob earlier this evening, and the topic turned to Los Angeles versus Morgantown.

Don't laugh.

Okay, laugh.

Don't get me wrong, I love the town where I largely grew up...but this whole provincial paranoia just gets under my skin. There is a pervasive air of fear of the new, the different, the unknown, that keeps the culture from embracing change, from moving forward to achieve what the people here are smart enough and strong enough to actually accomplish.

I'm going to try and tough it out here. Give it at least a few more months, see what happens. LA will still be there.

Waiting

Me, Brad Paisley and Justin Timberlake

I had a brief tete-a-tete with Melanie Skeen of the Appalachian Education Initiative. I am donating two copies of their volume "Art & Soul", one to the Morgantown High School library and one to the Morgantown Public Library. I will also be, later in the season, donating a copy each of The Morgantown Suite Poems and The Compleat Panther Cycles to the Morgantown Public Library. I would donate copies to the MHS library, but I'm punishing them for now for not having me come speak during National Poetry Month. They'll have to ask. And nicely.

We discussed how the books are getting out their...she did mention that, in addition to Brad Paisley donating for books to Eastern Panhandle counties in West Virginia, they just got a grant from the foundation that is in Justin Timberlake's name. Okay, I can live with that crew (although my usual peers are Bruce Willis, Kevin Costner, Mel Gibson and Billy Bob Thornton, due to the whole age thing).

Got some copies of TCPC mailed out today...damn, that thing weighs a ton and costs a ton to mail, but such is life.

I have still not gotten to go see "The Aristocrats", but will move heaven and Earth to accomplish this by week's end.

Made dietary shift today...and my legendary cast-iron stomache disapproves. Well, it better get used to it. If I am going to get rid of the stubborn pounds, I am going to have to get Medievel on my own ass. I admit, I've gotten lazy in taking care of myself, I have been so focused on playing Florence Nightingale to others...

Random Bits for a Monday

I'm having fun randomly picking a handful of works on the City of Legends website every day and adding annotations...look for them. It is strange, as I have generally avoided introspective examination of my works, to see and hear myself figuring out what I meant by this and that.

Good season start to The West Wing...I hate the notion of the TV universe reaching a point where Jed Bartlett is no longer President (because then I might have to deal with the actual kind of person we seem to have a President...er, can we have the fiction, please...Martin Sheen or Gregory Peck or Michael Douglas?)...

Had a nice chat with my boys yesterday...Elric (of course) wanted to tell me his latest mad scientist experiments with the editor for Myth II on the old iMac I gave them, and Dante, God love him, was all about his tuba. No one can accuse these guys of being too much alike.

Missed a chance to see "The Corpse Bride" yesterday. Harrumph. Will have to try later...also, "Serenity" is on my short list, and I still haven't gotten to see "The 40 Year Old Virgin" or "The Aristocrats"...I guess I need to get my act together.

I'm making plans to see my boys next month. This means I'll also get to spend some time with Tony and Anastacia, which is just fine by me.

Gotta run...busy day, busy day. (Down the rabbit hole)

books for Gulf Coast libraries

If anyone out there knows any good charities that are looking for books to distribute to public libraries damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, drop me a line...I'd like to donate some books of mine to the cause.

In a perfect world, I'd like to just ship the case to one locale for distribution, but if I have to send the books one at a time, so be it. Also, next Spring I already had plans to pass through the area on my tour, and would like to volunteer my time to assist any fundraisers, or to hold one for libraries in the Southern Mississippi or New Orleans area...I was a guest of the Mississippi Library Convention two years back and was one of the host of the Mississippi Gathering of Poets the same year (similar groups in West Virginia still ignore me, "a prophet is not without honor...")

And I stand ready to donate a handful of autographed copies of some of my books for fundraising auctionf or the cause...legitimate organizations only, I will have you checked. Of particular interest are any charities related to schools, animal shelters or libraries in the Bay St. Louis - Pass Christian area. I've spoken in their schools and visited their libraries before, and used to work with Friends of the Animals.

On the topic, anyone know the fate of Da Beach House in Bay St. Louis? I used to read there with the local poets' group.

Hi, Peri...your father loves you very much. Tell Brian I said hello...I am right now working on your joint Christmas present.

Teri, you've been awfully quiet. So have you, Nancy. Patience may be the final virtue earned or learned, but eventually wisdom trumps the folly of infinite patience. Camille, your gift is in the mail.

I bleed for you a symphony

The key to the readings for the podcasts will be the tentpoles: Those key pieces around which I build each session. some are obvious, some not so much.

The Patchwork Skirt of My Love is so evocative of a mood, a time, a place, a mindset. It is certain to anchor the "campfire" set.

I rained poetry is most likely going to be the soul of a live reading set. It will be my most difficult set, as I will have to really "bring it" to be happy with it. But, I trust my engineer/producer, and it will be a closed set. This will perhaps be my one chace to really cut loose since the Fairhope Arts Center in 1997. About freaking time.

from out of the city will be one of the key works for the "prophecy" set. How can it not? Add "horizon" and you have already a potent stew of majesty...but they will not be alone.

The seduction/romantic set is interestingly problematic. "Sacred Smile" is certain to be in there, as is "The Unicorns" and "Warm Breath Stirs Soft Flesh"...and "Soubrette" and "Dare We Cross This Rubicon?" and "Monument" and "Gibbous"...and the list goes on and on...

I have about another twenty pieces I've already settled on (yes, Fuzzy, "sex cookies" are amongst them).

Argh...brain melt...overloading. Have to unjack and focus on nothing, instead of everything. These are days when I feel like Prometheus, chained to the rock..weary of my seeming indestructibility. Eventually I will find my crush depth. Place your bets if "theocricide" will be at the line.

Read some more of Tag (Daniel S. McTaggart)'s manuscript. Impressive, for a human.

a new work, I needed to bleed pressure. I am bottled up like Krakoa:

I bleed for you a symphony.
a place to lay your head.
the corners of conundrum.
a distant, darkened bed.

where children spark
in the brisant dark
to bring us back to light
in the mourning of the night.

here is the bone that turns the blade
but wears the wound, forever,
a pocked and marked stark arcade
the didn't reach forever.

William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.

Goodnight, Epifantastic

I just posted more annotations to works on the website...I won't tell you all of them, but one is the longest I have written to date and it is on a poem about some guy from the legends of King Arthur...go find it.

Got word that Mary Jo, a dear friend from Los Angeles, has passed away. She was kooky and deranged sometimes, but she had always been very supportive of both myself and Ann (for our wedding present she gave us a massive astrological analysis she had done on us...the conclusion? We'd have a few good years but eventually things would fall apart...duh...nice wedding present, hm?) Sleep well, Epifanny (her screenname on AOL)

Tag handed me off the manuscript for his book of poetry...looks good. I am supposed to write a foreword. I shall. I am glad he has found a niche in the world of poetry. He is much more working class is in his themes and outlook, more Bukowski or Sandburg to my Shelley or Burke (or, according to Bruce Autry at "Poetry Heaven", John Donne)...and that's fine. He's gifted and clever and I already have enough competition, thank you very much.

I feel for the people being hit by Hurricane Rita...this will certainly displace and take many lives. I am sorry the incompetence of those we trust with our safety is so great. They can blow things up pretty well with my tax dollars, but they can't seem to get their act together to actually save lives unless specific votig blocs are on the line.

Jack Thompson, the PR guy for the Morgantown Visitors and Convention Bureau, got hold of me yesterday and asked if I was still interested in doing a ghost tour of Morgantown next month. Sure, might be fun. Jack is transitioning over to be the new head of Arts Monongahela, now that the marvelous Meghan King-Johnson has moved on. She's a tough act to follow, but I am hoping that Jack will exploit more the possibilities in "The Morgantown Suite Poems".

Gotta run for now. My prediction for this afternoon's WVU-East Carolina game? heh!

Mountaineers: 37, Guys with Parrot Poop on their Shoulders: 14

new poetry tonight: bent sentience

I can see through eyes silent no more,
floor to the sky. I understand the bland passions
that lack the dimensions of true emotion,
going through the motions in the cold wombs.

Tombs we can't admit to, we submit to pain
like brittle, bitter spittle bugs, no real soul
but relexes and pretexts that chain us to dreams
we walk though, uncomprehending.


William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.

Subtext to my works

I've started what will be a long process...daily adding a few annotations to works on the City of Legends (www.cityoflegends.com) website. Just a handful (3-5) on the average day. Initially they'll be hard to find, but in this way I'll be giving people some subtext to the works, some historical and psychological perspective (for instance, one of the ones I framed this morning explains the poem "Warrensburg Farewell").

Not much else to say this morning...

Casting the Poet

Just got a note from a longtime reader and friend who suggested her concept for casting me in a movie about my life:
Mandy Patinkin.

I am flattered, he's a terrific talent, but I just don't see it. I always figured more a Kevin Smith sort...or Michael Madsen.

Of course,w ith Mandy's pipes, I could always hope for a soundtrack album with songs made from some of my more appropriate works...

hmmmm...get me my agent on the phone.

Out of caffeine, dammit

There's a certain ruh of excitement in getting a project done on time or early. But there is also that stutter-step moment of...er..."okay, now what?"...that hits you and leaves you feeling a little let down. The fact that the revised layout to the City of Legends is at least going to be dynamic and updated (including the re-connection to certain subsites for Mari Laureano, Erin Kelly-Moen and perhaps even Karla Frances Sasser...) keeps me from totally feeling like time for the nunc dimittis.

I can now focus more energy on the podcasting project for now.

EJ says he has a winner in the "Edit the Blog" contest. Took him long enough! I think he had a couple of entries that had noted problems that he hadn't noticed, so he had to verify them.

I've been contacted by a headhunter firm in suburban Washington, DC, about a potential position..and am having a meeting next week with a nonprofit about becoming their official/salaried rain-maker (grant writer) and once they get solid funding, becoming their Executive Director. Gee, and give up a menial day job making 1/8th what I am used to (my decision to return to Morgantown for family reasons has not been very financially rewarding, yet...)

Of course, having been able to knock out theree books this year, reconnect with some of my oldest friends and feel both alien and alienated: Priceless.

A side effect of the weight loss...testosterone levels are up...uh oh.

Casting my life and posting the new website

I put the new webpages up today...two hours early...check out the new look to my City of Legends www.cityoflegends.com...

Almost three hundred poetry pages presenting nearly 700 poems...

I know the edits aren't perfect, but we'll tweak it in Peoria. Or maybe Mishawaka.

I got a note today from someone asking me that, if I was casting my life, who would I cast as the muses (especially since I'd already said Evangelie Lilly of "Lost" is practically a dead-ringer for "Arachne".)

Okay, let me think:

The Panther: Kate Nauta (from "Transporter II")
The Leopard: Mena Suvari
The Valkyrie: Jorja Fox
Brigit: Uma Thurman
The Selke: Carla Gugino
Psyche: Famke Jannsen
The Mad Gypsy: Helena Bonham Carter

As for me? Damn...no idea...

What? No African-American, Hispanic or Asian actresses? Well, my life is not yet over, and I have an open mind and an open heart. Stay tuned. Meanwhile, be aware of the fact that I am going to be refining, annotating and expanding the site...the city will grow.

Why I Hate Editing

I've gone on the record before as hating to edit.

It's simple: It is not something I do all that well (for a short list of things I do well, read some of my poetry, or sleep with me), especially with my own works, as I tend to skim over familiar material and miss obvious problems. Then, I have failed the primary task: To catch the typos.

That's why doing my last book, The Compleat Panther Cycles, as a dual pain in the rump. First off: When I read my works I relive them. Going through that era of my life with all the pain and bagagge is a torment. Secondly, I hate editing (see above).

Needless to say, this is one of the reasons why I am right now audtioning editors for my next book: theocricide.

In other news: Two "reality" competitions wound up last night: Rock Star: INXS and Big Brother 6.

I was mildly disappointed in both finales. There have long been rumours that the INXS competition was already wired for JD, the rest was just show and pretense to serve as a long form ad for their next CD. BB6? Neither of the finalists deserved to be there, but since it was between Ivette and Maggie, I felt that Ivette, whose need was greater, and whose self-absorption and deceit was somewhat the lesser of the two evils, should have won. The two big winners turned out to be two losers: Janelle and Kaysar, both of whom acquitted themselves well and can use this platform as a springboard to bigger and better things.

Well, I have things to do...including review edits of the new design for the website, which goes live in 13 hours.

an embarrassment of personal riches

An embarrassment of riches on a personal connection level. Not only have I, within the last day or two, heard from half of my friends on the planet (still no word from Stephanie and no direct word from the Diamondhead gang)...but out of nowhere, some ancient voices revived.

There is this marvelous lady I know out West who almost ended up being the model for the cover of The Compleat Panther Cycles. Beautiful and classy...Camille is a nice person in general...she popped out of the woodwork today, just to say hello.

Meanwhile, a strange case. There was this young writer who used to hang around the old, original Romantic and Erotic Poetry Group on AOL when I founded it and hosted. She was in her early teens, but she was always asking to read these perversely erotic works she was writing...well written work, but it made us all a little squeamish to have a 13 year old girl keep coming in, asking to share her observations on sex. In the first person.

Well, we ran into each other online. She's now 21 and living in...drum roll please...Venice Beach. MY Venice Beach, just a few blocks from where I sat when I ran the old R&E sessions. Bizarre!

Caught "Transporter 2" the other nght with my lovely friend Maggie. Tag and I have to get together later this week for me to start looking at his book's manuscript.

Add to that my recent reconnects with Alan, Lenny, the goddess Brigit and the lusty, trusty Selke and I'm up to my eyeballs in old friends. Now all I need is for Anastacia to shake loose her friend "Legs" and I'm going to have to start hiding from life.

I just finished the final page edits on the new site design. Argh. I hate editing. That's what I have E.J. for. Now I have to review the front end changes and we can launch the changes tomorrow evening...go to the website after 9 pm, Eastern Daylight Time at http://www.cityoflegends.com to see the new, lean, clean city...with hundreds of works and more to come.

Two new additions, on request, to the podcast recording sessions: "Sacred Smile" and "Cartouche". Looking forward to trying to live up to those two.

Tuesday Morning Rant

Head is a little fuzzy this morning, must be the weather. I wonder what it feels like to be hung over. I never have been, never plan to be, but I hear it is even more unpleasant than a sinus headache. That people would inflict that upon themselves is ridiculous. I wonder if future generations will look ta us as the moron society we are, spending billions of dollars a year on our legal drugs to either help us get over our inhibitions (alcohol) or make us feel less awkward (tobacco). Children, we are all children. And ill-tempered ones at that.

I recalla friend who had been "clean" for a half decade and how her own family complained that she wasn't as much fun, now that she didn't party. "Yes, please, dear sister, die for my amusement" - was what they were saying, when you come to the nubs. I wonder if part of the problem was she had never let her family know how bad she had gotten. Coming from a family that celebrates alcohol as a rite of passage (I was told I was suspect because I didn't drink) and a sacrament of daily life, I can only hope she has gained enough sense in the last few years that she can shield herself from those social forces that almost killed her last time. If not, I hope I am not invited to the funeral, I would not be able to hold my tongue and I am not sure they would want to hear my indictment of their abuse of her.

Wow. We are a disease of a culture. No wonder we are so beloved overseas. The emotionally retarded guy with the biggest house, the biggest car and the biggest gun. Armament is not a virtue, at least not in any version of the Holy Bible I read. Of course, virtue is such a touchy subject.

Back to the day. Got a bunch more done on the website redesign...we are now down to abut 37 hours before I swap out the old for the new...

Tonight is the final competition for Rock Star: INXS. I was disappointeed to see the last woman depart last week...but I understand that the band is more a testosterone thing. I'm hoping for a Marty win, but know I have no say in it...

"Lost" comes back tomorrow...yeah! Of course while all this swirls around me I have all these thousand of little projects I've thrown my hat into...Evangeline Lilly from that show is almost a dead ringer for a woman from my past: Arachne. Maybe I should be talking to someone about making "Wings as Often Leathery as Feathery" as a movie, instead of "The Compleat Panther Cycles".

Lenny, Alan, Anastacia and the coming transfiguration

Just got off the phone with my old friend, Lenny. He's an actor in Los Angeles whom I met one day while waiting for Ann outside of a 12 step meeting. I love him like brother and I am also happy to hear from him.

He's happy to hear that the last word we got on Ann and her family was that they were well (property damage but no loss of life). But, like me, he is disappointed at the dearth of 1st person information. We'll heal. And our friendship will be stronger, but we are both sad.

Must be old friend day...spent some time with one of my oldest friend on the planet, Alan. We've know each since 8th grade. He's an incredible musician and a good person. Oh, and he'll be at the console for the recording sessions I'll be laying down next month for the podcasts. I trust him, and he brings to the mix those brilliances I lack.

I also heard from Anastacia...mortified that I have not mentioned her favourite poem of mine, "Sex Cookies" in my discussions of the podcasts. Okay, Fuzzy, I pledge it will be there. There will be a taste of the 'cookies (I did it all for the cookie. The cookie...) in one of the podcasts. I expect you to help spread the gospel of the Amomancer for this...

The website redesign will be implemented no later than 9 PM, eastern time, on Wednesday, September 21. Be ready.

Money where your browser is

Let me start today by a digression, a tip of my hat to Big Ben Roethlisberger and the Pittsburgh Steelers...nice game against the Houston Texans yesterday. Hines Ward, Willie Parker, looking very good. Keep it up guys.

Visitorship at The City of Legends is up, sharply, a look at the stats indicates that there may be some pockets of new awareness of my works at certain colleges and universities. Breaks my heart. Okay guys, if you like the works, drop me a line and let's discuss my speaking fees. I'm not free, but I am cheap. Poets got to eat, you know.

I will kick off later this week a poll to select special works for a "by request" podcast when I go into the studio next month. Of course, as capricious as fans can be, you all will probably stick me with works that are particularly difficult to do aloud. Go ahead, I'll do my best. I have received several notes suggesting I do a "Morgantown Suites" show. I'm considering it.

Still no direct word from my ex-family in Mississippi in the aftermath of Hurrican Katrina. They do have time and will to contact other people, who have had the decency to let me know that they are okay, but direct contact has been absent. This may be taken to mean the bizarre scenario that was alluded to by Ann on last contact is real (one can never be sure of the truth, you know). At this time, after the time, energy, resources and good faith I've devoted, it is hard not to take this as an insult, but I am no Montressor, so I will let this slide as merely a pale mystery of strange hearts and minds. I wish them all well. I am sure one day I will be given an interesting tale of what really is or isn't.

I need to get together with Tag sometime this week to see where he is on his manuscripts.

Congratulations to "Lost" on their Emmy wins.

Precognitive production notes for the podcasts

Someone asked me where E.J. has been lately...I explained that he's been up to his 'pits in reading the entries in the "Edit the Blog" Contest. I think he's afraid he's in over his head...but that's the best place always to be, you don't grow if left to complacency.

Work on the site redesign for The City of Legends is coming along nicely. It's transparent to the users right now, just one night there will be a big ::BAMF:: and you'll hardly recognize the place. Stay tuned.

Congrats to the West Virginia University Mountaineers football team in their victory over Maryland (I never have been the type to say "We're #1" as that is sooooooooooooostupid. The guys on the field don't know who you are, they're busting their butts (and the occasional bone) to compete for media attention so they can have a successful transition to a well-payed but short-lived career in the sports/entertainment field so they don't have to try to figure out what they can do with a degree in advanced basket weaving management. I'm sure they appreciate the support, but why don't you try to live, I dunno, through your own accomplishments?)

Working on the concepts behind the podcasts is getting to be strangely fun. So far there have been a few suggestions and I have my own ideas, and I think there are at least a dozen pieces that are shoo-ins for the shows. You can bet good money that I will get use out of (numerical notations explained below in programmatic cross-reference).

(*1)"Love Gods of a Forgotten Religion",
(*1)"The Darker Gods",
(*1)"from out of the city", "
(*4)"I rained poetry",
(*5)"First Date Blues",
(*2 or *3)"Dram",
(*3)"The Patchwork Skirt of My Love",
(*4)"Feasting on Memory",
(*1)"horizon",
(*2 or *3)"My Electric Lady" (been awhile, no?),
(*2 or *4)"In the Arms of the Dragon",
(*2)"The Pale of Your Breasts",
(*2)"Gibbous",
(*2)"Hold You",
(*5)"epitaph",
(*3)"The Unicorns",
(*4)"Glass Roses" and, certainly neither last nor least,
the increasingly, absurdly ironic
(*3)"Damascus: Movement Three".

Early plans subject to change:

(*1)One program will be mood pieces of a metaphysical or spiritual nature. Production notes: Attempt to give this a feel of a sermon or a prophetic pronouncement...acoustic to resemble a temple or ampitheatre. A medievel or fantasy setting feel, perhaps? Still cogitating.

(*2)Another is to be seductions. Production notes: Pillow talk, use "the voice". I'll know I hit the right tone if I start getting strange emails with pretty pictures. You never know, the next great muse might be out there...waiting. I've already been from Jeremiah to Job to Joel...what next?

(*3)A third, romantic works. Production notes: Pastoral, perhaps? Trees rustling, wind even? A sense of life and possibilities. This also might tap into the muses.

(*4)Yet another will be a standard reading set. Production notes: Crowd noise, hall acoustics. Bring it. Bring it. Bring it.

(*5) Biographical works that don't really fit any of the other sets. Production notes: Lean, club setting? In my own head? Funeral? Joe Gideon-esque?

In my mind my goal is to finish with about six full programs, 15-30 minutes in length. An extremely aggressive goal, I know...I'll be happy with three or four, but I'm going for 6. Pray for me. Prey on me. Pay me.

By the way, I note that Barnes and Noble is showing sales stats for THE COMPLEAT PANTHER CYCLES. Now if the lazy bastards would get off their asses and actually put the book in a few of their stores.

The Great Amomancy

"The prizefighter in his corner is told; 'Hit where it hurts.' Silver and gold." - U2, "Silver and Gold"

I always have loved that line by U2. Find your opponent's weakness and use it against them. Don't waste time or energy on unecessary efforts that deplete your resources.

The problem is, I don't like the concept of an opponent. Not being a violent man by philosophy, even if God saw fit to stick me with a hot-blooded nature, I have a hard time accepting someone as my mortal foe. Sports figures, yes, I can appreciate their accomplishments, but I never felt the drive to prove my masculinity by throwing a ball or catching a ball or running while people are trying to stop me. I can feel the adrenaline when I do compete, but the competition has not been a motive for me.

Does this make me shiftless or lazy? No. I've worked the six figure jobs. I've worked eighty hour weeks. I've worked two, even three jobs at a time. But I need a motive. A reason. As my purpose fades, so does my drive. Is it the poet's (or lover's or worker's) fault when the inspiration is so insipid or bland that it blunts your appetite to earn another taste of the mock ambrosia?

I recall when I was in LA and working for GE. I was not living up to my potential. The Brigit comes to town and spends the weekend with me and in days I became the ubermensch. The CIO came to my office and asked if the lady in the picture on my desk was the person he needed to thank. I had shifted gears and moved mountains. A few weeks later I helped GE get a half-million dollar rebate from MCI, then showed MCI how to improve their process for Vnet updates.

I guess I have always been the champion, needing someone to play the courtier for. My enforced period of isolation, marked only by limited social engagements designed to keep me in the flow but not merging with it, has left me with a hunger deeper and darker and sharper than any I can recall. But it is a blunt hunger, a memory of mincemeat but not the scent of it to make my mouth water, my eyes to focus, my hands to grasp. Also, I have learned my only real opponent is myself. This makes a total jihad a little difficult.

Three books in a hundred days. Over one thousand new works. Completing a novel and verging on completing a second. A long idle screenplay actually nearing completion. A grander tour. Going into the studio to record. Lifestyle changes necessary to give me a good shot at outliving even a substantially younger lover (Ann never accepted the fact that, despite the fact I was 18 years her senior, I was in much better survival condition than she was, physically and emotionally...I only hope that someone is taking care of her now who knows what to do...)

Who will be the next great muse? Perhaps even the final muse? Now that's a good question.

And I have an interesting answer for it. It involves my own dichotomy and my own need to "hit where it hurts" in my internal struggles. I'd make a great Master's thesis for anyone with the genius to pierce the veil. I'd like to read that, you know. I am fully aware of my internal partitions, the variances between the gallant and the demon and the everyday facade. I am them and they are me and we are all together (goo goo gajoob). Nancy let me see them hear them, touch them...and I owe her far better a legacy than I have left her so far.

I know what I am looking for...but, ironically, the great poet, the poet of note, he is without words to describe her.

I will have to find these words, then hope the woman who they define sees in me what she wants and needs from this life. My magic, I have proven to my own satisfaction and that of my critics, is intact, even perhaps a magnitude better than ever. The Amomancer has his answer. He never slept, he never died, he merely crawled off into the swamps of anonymity to lick his wounds and heal his dreams.

The great amomancy begins. Tonight.

Jasmine and the scent of a woman's hair and breath.
Passion, held at bay with laces and lace.
The sound of a distant cithara.
Elements of a chosen nature. Nomenclature of dreams.

Podcasting concepts and Terrapin Stew

I've already received some feedback/input regrding concepts for the podcasting project. Worthy ideas, most of them.

Yes, I agree, using themes or moods makes more sense, for the most part, than most ideas. My current thoughts run this way:

*One program of the gentler romantic works. Perhaps "The Unicorns", "The Patchwork Skirt of My Love", "We Owe Debt to Memory" and others of that ilk. I like the idea, since Yahoo was kind enough to call me the "Romantic poet of the Internet" I might as well live up to the name (although the word "romantic" is so improperly used anymore...(10-20 minutes)

*One track or program or show of "seductions", works that are romantic in their own way, but with a definite bent towards seduction, such as "Hold You" and "Warm Breath Stirs Soft Flesh". Something to play while putting the moves on the warm body sitting on the sofa. (10-20 minutes)

*How about a selection of the "prophetic works", pieces like "Horizon" and "TRIUMPH" and "From Out of the City"? (10-20 minutes)

*Perhaps a full reading of "The Goldenheart Cycles"? I'm actually leaning against it... a few of the works definitely deserve it, but much of that cycle of cycles is filler. (20-30 minutes)

*A standard reading set, designed to give the feel of one of my shows? "I rained poetry" and "Love Gods of a Forgotten Religion" would certainly find their way. The former has become my "New Shoes"...fellow poet Ruth Solomon has this one work called "New Shoes" that, whenever she does a reading, if anyone in the audience is familiar with her works, people would call out for her to do that one..."I rained poetry" has become my most requested work in readings, much as "glass roses" is the most commonly visited poem at the website. (20-30 minutes. Yes, I know I usually go for an hour or two...but the bandwidth would be staggering there...)

"A "book-centric" set, targeting one or more of my books, which would serve practically as an audio advertisement for my volumes.

This is certainly a thought. I'd rate the worthiness of the books to have their own show to be (top to bottom):
-INVOCATO,
-Love Gods of a Forgotten Religion,
-From An Unexpected Quarter,
-The Morgantown Suite Poems,
-The Compleat Panther Cycles,
-101 Great Love Poems.

But, from a marketing standpoint, it should be in this order:
-The Compleat Panther Cycles,
-The Morgantown Suite Poems,
-101 Great Love Poems,
-INVOCATO.
-From An Unexpected Quarter and
-Love Gods...(10-15, each!)

If you have any thoughts, send them my way. Particular ideas for shows, particular content. I might also do some single shots, 3-5 minute storyteller versions of particular poems, these can be used as filler or daisychained together by listeners.

Oh yeah, before I forget...Go Mountaineers! Beat Maryland today at football! My prediction (I suck at this but what the heck, WVU victorious, 23-17)

WVU's rivalry with the Terps is nowhere near where the legendary Pitt and Penn State rivalries of a quarter centry ago (Bobby Bowden, when he coached here, used to say that if a coach went 9-2 but lost those two games, he'd be fired, but if we went 2-9 and beat Penn State and Pitt, he'd have a lifetime contract) but I would prefer we have some turtle soup.

Getting jazzed for the studio

I've made the appointment and found an appropriate engineer/producer, so next month I go into the studio to start creating the podcasts that are just one more step in my eventual subjugation of this backwash planet.

To that end...I look to you all to give me some input: what do you want to hear? any particular pieces or themes? romance? lust? a particular muse? a particular work or group of works? I have 11,000 ideas, hypercubed into infinity...a few suggestions might keep me sane.

Most of you out there have never heard my voice, except perhaps on these scratchy, tinny, cell-phone driven audioblogger entries...this ain't that, trust me. I get to use the voice that my editor, Jan Innes, banned me from using on the phone with her and that led one of my first wife's friends to keep calling my voicemail when I wasn't around so that she could...er...entertain herself. (I found out later and was bemused.)

I await your input!

Dragon: The other white meat.
(No idea what that means, but it just came to me)

The nemicorn is naked
that waits beside the lake
where I will one day take my rest;
this ancient, winged snake.
Where the pith of myths I made or merged,
to lay a jagged path,
converge and merge to urge me stay
and lblunt a well-turned wratx
that drove me to a lonely way
that dodges twist the stars,
where I can count the distant suns
but not my throbbing scars.

William F. DeVault. all rights sreserved.

It's how I register despair...

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life.
Electric word, life, it means forever and that's a very long time..."

Prince wrote those words. The song is called "Let's Get Crazy".

Amen.

So, here are my promises.

Right angles. In four dimensions.
Sudden revelations.
Love. Joy. Peace. Sex. Religion.
Poetry designed to melt hearts to such a level that they dampen panties.
More chances to win copies of THE COMPLEAT PANTHER CYCLES.
Some interviews you can't possibly predict.

I'm going to suddenly do things you can't imagine. Yet.

The "Edit the Blog" contest ends tonight...the new contest will begin on October 1st.

I got to speak with my friend Nicole this evening, she who fled the wrath of Hurricane Katrina. I'm going to ship her a shipload(!) of books once she gets settled into her new digs, because that's the kind of person I am. I know my life isn't perfect, but I always try to help the less fortunate. She'd do the same for me.

Oh, and we're working on the redesign for the site. When it is ready, we'll set it up. Until then, relax.

Echoes of a not forgotten time

Last day for entries into the "Edit the Blog" contest...first prize is a copy of The Compleat Panther Cycles (autographed). If you have been asleep at the switch, check the entries in this blog from earlier in the month for details. It's not brain surgery. Then again, maybe it is. My brain.

Thanks to the nice folks at U.S. Cellular, I am back up and part of the universe. My phone myterious crapped out on me a few days ago...they gave me a loaner while mine is in the shop.

Got an invite to the birthday party of an old friend for next month. What makes this intriguing is this will be the first time in a few decades I am in the same room with the original muse, Alabaster (no, no chance at something, she is happily married and I have mostly retired from poaching on marriages...besides I am not as big of a deal in West Virginia as I am in L.A. (you'd think it would be the other way around, no?)) But it will be interesting for the vibe.

Made a simplification of the front end of my website at www.cityoflegends.com to make it seem less chaotic. Check it out.

Although I figure it is completely a political move, pressed on him by the one or two advisors who do not completely have their heads up their butts, I still think that President Bush's comment that he is, in the end, the guy resposnible for the slow Federal response to Hurricane Katrina is the right thing to do. Okay, he gets promoted from "a total nightmare" to "a waste of airtime" in my book.

I have David Bowie's "The Man Who Sold the World" stuck in my head, right now.

old manuscripts

I was transferring files to the new computer when I ran across a treasure trove of half-completed stories, poems and essays.

My favourite? "Funeral"...the backbone for a screenplay I have worked off and on over for a few years. It's about a writer who dies and the women who show up for the reading of his will, to see if they get his works.

It was written right after a certain ex told me of a dream she had in which I was quite old and in a wheelchair, and she was pushing me around at some big event, and was very happy with her life. Two flaws with that scenario: I will never be pushed around in a wheelchair, and she skipped out on me when times were okay...would I honestly think she had the character to stick if I was old and infirm? Unlikely.

I've learned some cold womb lessons about life over the last decade, and I am grateful not to have been embittered by them.

In the story she was just one of the crowd of women who had inspired the works, and she got her share of the rewards....of course this was back, before I revised my will.

I have undone all I can. Now it is time to weave new tapestries to outshine the older ones.

One of my personal goals for next spring is to complete my screenplay for "The Prince of Love" along with the accompanying novel. It will only be the second novel I've ever finished writing, and the first to carry my name (the earlier one was a gift of a ghost writing task, which obviously was unimpressive to someone who has no grasp of what it takes to write a novel...)

I need to pamper myself later today...I am tired and drained, not irreversibly, but clearly weary. I wear my sadness as a thick cloak of kudzu on an ancient willow, dragging me down but not conquering me.

We shall see, we shall see.

I will endure until the dawn, at least. Topanga calls.

Why does Wednesday feel like Monday?

Still getting used to the AirPort connection, it is pretty stable...but sometimes....

Long day yesterday, a lot of little things went haywre (my cellphone decided to go on the fritz, for instance).

I called yesterday and left Jan, my ex, a birthday message on her voicemail. I know Peri has told me before that she doesn't really appreciate this, but I have found so much that either she (Peri) didn't interpret accurately or that has changed over the years that I have decided to just do what feels right to me.

Was helping Dad offload a set of boards for a building project and took a huge splinter in the hand...had to go to work with sharp things and grabby things to get all of it out. First time I recall getting a major splinter in probably a decade or more.

Ran into my old editor Janet Innes, online...we chatted for a while. She's bee so wrapped up in her grandson, Max, that she hadn't been following the buzz on THE COMPLEAT PANTHER CYCLES. Such is life.

I am seeing the sanity of a project I was going to be involved with slip away. A lady of my acquaintance has been working for sometime on putting together a concert and CD to show out support for our troops stationed overseas (not for a particular mission, or whatever, the men and women themselves). In time I was able to convince her that a website would be of value to promote it and tie it all together.

Now the project has largely evolved into a website for the posting of music and message and photos to and from West Virginia servicemen and servicewomen stationed overseas. That having been said, corporate sponsors want corporate website development (its sort of a "we all scratch each others' backs...one of the things that has really kept the West Virginia business scene so inbred...) and corporate website support packages costing thousands of dollars just for change control.

I'm staying on to advise, but at this point, I think all the monies they raise are going to go to general and administrative costs for businesses, rather than to making something truly homegrown and special. A support project for several hundred dollars is now the life of the milieu itself for several thousand.

Didn't write much yesterday. Heard from Dan McTaggart, and he reports he's in a writing frenzy. Good for him.

I have a headache...think I am coming down with something. Bleah.

contact info

Someone asked that I post my contact info on this blog, in plain sight...okay, here it is, use and abuse to your heart's content.

email address:

(me) williamfdevault@cityoflegends.com

(ej) trojanhearse@cityoflegends.com

chat connections (me only):

aim: wfdv
yahoo: the_real_wfdv

Why the strange name on Yahoo? simply, I had WFDV aeons ago on that service, but have been unable, for sometime, to authenticate myself to their satisfaction, so a few years ago I created the "real" wfdv id, in case anyone else ever claim jumped my monogram.

my cell phone number is easy enough to find, it's posted all over the damn planet.

Meander on a Tuesday Morning

Still getting my feet under me from the new computer. Wrote an entry of great depth and eloquence last night...lost it in an AirPort confusion. Still learning.

Hearing from so many people of late. E.J. tells me we have several entries in the "Edit the Blog" contest (details a few days ago, here). Glad he is around to work these angles...me, I am busy.

I will coordinate with the AEI when to make the donation of the copy of "Art & Soul" as well as some of my books, to the Morgantown High School library, I wonder if they've already placed one at the public library? I need to check with them about that.

I can feel, even at this distance, at least in my own mind, the pull of the Santa Ana Winds. By whatever means and to whatever purpose, I vow to stand in them next September, to be revitalized in them. I allowed myself to wander from the high desert, and I need it, like the Submariner needs immersion in water...

Maybe I can score a copy of the 1973 Morgantown High School yearbook? Mine, along with my coffin and many personal tokens of dear moments and past childhood friends, ended their cycles as storm debris after Hurricane Katrina, if they even still existed then. I apologize to Carole, Terry, Michelle, Jon, Jeanne, Q, Thom and others whose traces in my universe were obliterated because I trusted too well. It was a bitter lesson, but one I can learn from.

I'd also love to lay my hands on a copy of the 2003 North Salinas (California) High School yearbook - my picture is in that, from when I spoke at Career Day (nice to deal with a school system that acknowledges your existence, eh, Monongalia County Schools?)

Well, time to go...much love to all...will be doing some major redesign work on the website this week, in between hoding up the sky and creating the heavens and the earth (small "e"...).

Monday Mourning Poetics

I was talking to a young lady I occasionally have dinner with the other day and I told her the story behind "Monday Mourning Poem", which is one of my more popular works.

I was in Venice Beach (Los Angeles) living blessedly alone. My divorce was over, I'd already been dumped by the Panther for the 2,623rd time, the Brigit fiasco (Part I) was over, Gracie and I had become an historical (and hysterical) past item and Karla had decided she wasn't what I wanted.

I was seeing, socially, a couple of female friends, but no actual relationships existed. I did have this one strange friendship with an extremely attractive (but young) lesbian named Ann, who had been begging to come stay with me ever since the last days of her lover, Kori, who died of AIDS just a few months before. I had told her a resounding "No", as she was needing to face her commitments and grow from them (historical irony, no?)...Kori had asked me, a few months before her death to look after "our princess" once she was gone, a fact that Ann would bring up whenever I was not of the mood to listen to her collect call soliloquies or help her deal with a problem.

I'm in bed (okay, futon) one Monday morning when my phone goes off at about 4 in the morning. I sleep with my phone inches from my head so that if someone needs to reach me in an emergency, I won't miss the call. And, at the time, I slept alone...

The first ring snaps my eyes open.

The second ring doesn't finish before I have grabbed the phone off the makeshift nightstand I'd constructed of a cardboard box and pulled it to my head, croaking a good morning.

A collect call. You should have seen my phone bill. And all of them from Mississippi. where Ann lived.

On the other end of the line was Ann, breathless and excited (the first time I'd heard her thus in six months). She just HAD to tell me that she was so sure that after Kori's death she'd never be able to love again, but there was this girl she'd met and she'd just spent the night having wild-mutant, hot-monkey lesbian sex with her and she was sure that this was the real thing and that she was so happy and could she borrow eight hundred dollars?

As I listened to this beautiful creature tell me about her sex life (and ask for money) I noticed a small ant crawling on the windowsill near to my futon, and for some reason or other, this snapped my focus into a different plane and the absurdity of it all became apparent to me...

After telling me all about her overnight encounter she got off the phone (I had a sense she was getting ready to head home from spending the night at her new sex toy's apartment). I lay there for a moment until I heard the familiar tapping on my attic door (inside my head), I had barely made it to the table to grab a pen when this came forth:

Monday Mourning Poem

the headstone of my bed
makes a metallic ring as I fling
one desperate arm to thwart the banshee
in the machine (my portable telephone
emitting the moan of prophecy
that there will be someone on the other end
who is having a bad day, whether they define it
as a bad day or not being irrelevant.)

and so it goes.

or rather, begins.

and if ever I needed ample evidence
of the malign (or at least cruel humoured)
nature of God..I need look no further
than at the ant that crawls across
my withered windowsill as a voice
too chipper for anything short of the death penalty
jerks the choke chain of my obliged pleasantries
as I listen while counting the carcasses
of last night's sheep, strewn across
the grey battlefield in which I sleep.

or rather slept.

a call is bad enough.
why does she always call collect?
or more to the point...
why do I always accept?
thud. ten more minutes. please?

William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.

Kristina would call the tone of this work "sad". Anastacia would say this is just one more historical statement of the abuses I endured from the woman who would be my second wife.

Me, I smile whenever I read it, as I can step back and view the world as it is, without me at the center.

Whoever you are, wherever you are, have a great day. Tomorrow is my first ex-wife, Jan's, birthday. Happy Birthday, kiddo.

Words of Power and Poison

On two different reality shows this week, the "C" word came into discussion (as well as earlier in the season on "Rescue Me")...I need to weigh in on this for a moment.

A couple of years back I was the facilitator for the YATV (Youth Alternatives to Violence) program conducted by Monterey County Probabtion for local youths who'd been convicted of violent crimes. This means I taught two classes, one at the Silver Star Youth Building and one at Soledad High School, with kids of various personalities and proclivities on how not to beat up the kids sitting next to them every other day.

One of the classes I taught was on "verbal triggering". You and I, and our kids, are conditioned to respond to certain words in a violent way. These words are so offensive that they can be used to manipulate us to physically assault someone we even perceive to have used the towards us (think of the classic Richard Pryor/Chevy Chase "Word Association" sketch on Saturday Night Live).

I found there were fundamentally three "word bombs":

For black students (which I had few, mostly hispanic, actually, were my students) the "N" word (nigger) was a trigger in most cases.

For most of the males, "bitch" was a winner...but not as in calling them a bitch, but calling them "my bitch" which carries a totally different connotation. This worked well with the Hispanic and Latino (some only want to be called one or the other and are actually offended when you call them the wrong one) students, both gang-members and wannabes, as it carries the connotation of being so low on the prestige chain that you are providing sexual services for a stronger man (of course, doesn't that make him even more gay than you?)

For the women, I rapidly found that the "C" word (cunt) was the female equivalent of the "N" word. "Twat" runs a close second, but it is more like "coloured" to "nigger" than on an equal footing.

It has actually been that way for a long time. I recall when I was at a picnic attended by many friends and associates, my ex-wife went up to the guy who had been her good friend for years and told him that his girlfriend (who had been involved in an affair with me and had cut a swath through most of our friends in the aftermath of all of this) was "a cunt". He turned to her and told her, flatly and with visible anger, that if she ever said that again, he'd punch her face in.

While I agree some words carry negative messages and some names are so degrading that offense should be taken. But when individuals allow themselves to be driven to reckless behaviour, even violence, by mere words, then the wordsmiths and even the not so bright amongst us, who can exploit that aspect, take control over our lives: They whisper a word, we throw a punch, we go to jail, they laugh.

I even had one black student who, when asked why he was in my class, told a tale of how badly he beat some guy up. When I asked him why, he told me that the guy had called him a "nigger". Later he came to me and admitted the guy hadn't called him that, but that saying he had was the only out he had seen to avoid punishment. It didn't completely work, he still was arrested and sentenced, but it did earn him some sympathetic treatment.

So, let's watch it people, I am sure I will get some nastygrams over this blog entry. And, I understand, but when we give words that much power, we give them power over us. And, if we are going to give any words power, I would rather those words be friend, neighbor and lover than nigger, bitch and cunt.

Just my opinion. Remember, what others say or do cannot degrade us, it just speaks of their character and perceptions.

Football am not my life

In the doldrums between event days. That's alright by me, I've said my sentimental piece and will now get back to it. In yhe past and in promises unlikely to be kept are nice places to visit, but lousy places to dwell.

West Virginia University (WVU) won their home opener yesterday. Congratulations. No, I don't get all excited about a game or a team, although I do like it when WVU (and the Pittsburgh Steelers) win. I just don't surrender my self-esteem to another person or entity's success. It's not emotionally healthy. I'd rather hang my self-esteem on my own accomplishments. Must be something in the beer (I wonder if future historians will view beer the way we view the lead in Rome's aqueduct system?)

I wonder what future civilizations will say about our addiction to other people's status as a substitute for our own status. I noticed when I lived in the DC suburbs so many people who, if the Washington Redskins won, came to work on Monday feeling good about themselves, and if they lost, came to work feeling bad about themselves. How unhealthy. And, utterly, pathetic. Surrendering yourself to being a reactive piece of fluff to the performance of others?

I view it a lot like people who insist upon wearing clothing with large advertisements on it. Now, if I was being paid to play human billboard, that would be one thing, but to pay a premium price for the right to be used as a walking advertisement, that's pretty twisted, in my mind.

I see E.J. has weighed in on THEOCRICIDE. Dude, if the book freaks you so, you don't have to apply to the editor's slot, you know?

My thoughts and prayers are still with not only those people I know and knew, love and loved, from the Gulf Coast, but also with all from that region who have suffered or lost. I lost irreplaceable personal effects to the storm, but not on the magnitude of a house or a car. I leave those losses, usually, to a divorce. (snarfle)

While on the topic of snarfling...Brigit, wtfru?

Blathering on and risking his wrath

There are a few days during the year I am not supposed to tread upon:

February 4th:
Which is the poet's youngest brother's birthday and a day traditionally when he makes momentous decisions, for good or bad, regarding his relationships.
May 3rd:
His Mother's birthday...and the anniversary of his accident - he always seems to be in the middle of something on this day.
June 9th:
His daughter, Perelandra's, birthday.
July 20th:
The birthday of his twin sons, Phobos and Diemos...ooops, Elric and Dante.
August 12th:
Nancy's (Psyche's) birthday.
September 10th:
Ann's birthday (today).
September 13th:
Jan's (his first wife) birthday.
November 1st:
His own little sacred inside joke. Only one person alive really knowns the depth of the significance of this day. I know the facts, they know the flavour.

So, for me to post something today, I have to be a little full of myself. And I am.

Just a couple of notes.

First we are starting to get the first of the entries into the contest for the free autographed copy of The Compleat Panther Cycles. Details below. Remember, entries must be in by midnight, Eastern Time, September 15th. And yes, you can even be from overseas (the first entry I got was from India...)

Secondly, let me tell you I have seen his sketches of the concepts behind THEOCRICIDE. If you have a vested interest in his life, buy your policies now...if putting out this book doesn't kill him, a deranged reader will. If THE COMPLEAT PANTHER CYCLES was the most ambitious poetry book ever executed (which it has been called by some writers) than this is...hm...I don't have a word for it. He calls it "the quintessential collection of my essense, my nunc dimittis". It is beyond ambition. It will be interesting to see how people react to it when they see it incarnate. He has redefined himself. He has become his works.

Er...yeah.

As to Ann. Girl, yes, he still loves you and respects you, and your silence is the most violence I've seen done to him by another person since I have known him. But, you know, I envy him his facility to love in the face of madness. He has celebrated your survival and I honestly believe that had he stayed in Mississippi he would be dead by now, thanks to the toxicity of the environment he was trapped in or by his natural heroic nature in the face of Hurricane Katrina. Perhaps one day when you have evolved enough as a person to understand love, you will understand this better, even be worthy of him. That would make for an interesting book, no?

Anastacia - I understand your desire to keep him safe from being eaten alive by his next "project". Don't worry, he's developed this interesting aspect I'd never seen in him before. The ability to say "No". He's not looking for another cripple, he's looking for a peer. Not a lot of those around, you know? It will take a goddess, whether she is aware of this capacity or not already. He has a history of taking women to the cliffs and jumping, to see if they follow...most don't, a few do and fall, a few hover briefly...based on what I have seen, none have blazed their own comet's tail across the sky. That would be a good thing. That would save him. I know he waits for that now.

Also, he's tasked me with another damn project...it's an homage to the muses...trust me, it is deranged.

Happy Birthday, Ann

I'll keep it short, simple and sweet today.

I know you've been through a lot these past several days, but I hear that your mother and Sydney made it through the storm with you, and there are still people in this world who value you.

So, Happy Birthday Ann Michelle Costilow (DeVault). Things may look rough in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, but you have been in worse places and transcended. I hope all your friends and loved ones are alive and well. Things are just things and can be replaced (as well I have learned).

Love,
An old friend

Sentimental drivel

To hear E.J. ramble, I am near death with emotion.

E.J. needs to get a life. Hmmm, maybe it is time I got another assistant? Maybe that could be a contest later?

I have faced the mortality of those I love on more than one occasion. I had only been married to Ann a few weeks when I was told to prepare for her funeral. She lived, and I rejoice in the fact that, even if it is not with me in her life, she lives today. I am glad for the well being of her, her mother and our puppy, Sydney, all of whom are important to me.

I love my children, Peri, Elric and Dante, even when I do not see them sometimes for weeks or months at a time, and they are a missed part of my soul and being.

All this fuels me. Yes, the stress takes its toll on my frame and concentration, but it is in these fires of chaos and pain and misery that I first found myself and that I accept as my place in life. I was not made for comfort and boredom.

Ann, if you read this, I am glad you are okay. If you need anything, you know I will do what I can, as I have always done in the past. Maybe we should have stayed in Salinas?

Katherine, I may have never been your favourite person (let's not lie out of a sense of polite deception) but I want you to live and be happy, and to take good care of Ann. She loves you. Losing her back to you was not easy for me, but I know it is what you both wanted, and I can live with my own loss if you two are strong, safe and happy. I hope all of your friends are well and safe.

Sydney: Woof woof ruff ruff woof woof snarfle woof. (They won't understand, but you and I do. I am glad the storm didn't get you.)

Be well, all of you. All of you are, all people, in some sense, my cousins, my sisters, my brothers, my children, and I love all of my children.

Tomorrow is your birthday, Ann. I gave the present I was setting aside for you to the relief efforts, in your honor. I hope you understand.

I will make for you a new present, if you will it. If not, you and yours be safe, happy and well.

word from Mississippi, sort of

The big guy just let me know that they have received word that his ex (Ann) and her mother and dog are all alive. Their house was given an improper Wizard-of-Oz treatment by Hurricane Katrina, but they had moved inland to ride it out.


His heart goes out to them (we've talked him out of going down there, as he doesn't have enough information as to what he could do for them anyway). They are in our thoughts and prayers (hey, they may not have treated him well, but he does love them and as such, cares for their fates and suffering).

I know he's kind of overcome with emotion right now, so I figured I'd put out the word so he doesn't have to.

Cue the Beethoven. Oh yeah...leak time: Podcast City of Legends, coming in October or Novemeber. Betchur mother's virtue on it.

Rock Star: In Excessive

The big guy sent me this link, I decided to jack the photo. I'm too busy reading entries into the "Edit the Blog" contest to do much more.

We both like reality TV (note to the ladies: he likes reality TV) and even though many of the "reality" shows are really just amped up game shows, one of his faves is "Rock Star: INXS".

Last week one of the contestants, J.D. Fortune (wow, what a dorky stage name) wore a T-shirt with Japanese script on it.

Well, no. It's not Japanese. It's sideways English. Turn your head to read it.

Yep, that's right.

Let's see what the FCC and CBS do as they react to this.

Hurricane Katrina, Ann's Birthday, The Aristocrats and Group Sex

It is gratifying to see the response to the destruction and refugee problem from Katrina. I find it pretty laughabble that a part of our government's response is to try to make sure they don't use the "r-word" (refugee) to describe our refugees. Typical Fed fix - deny the label and the problem isn't really there. Instead go on talk shows and accuse the people who aren't spending millions of dollars worth of jet fuel, during a shortage, flying in and out for photo ops of being the problem.

I see 2008 and very possible 2006 as a time of great change at the Federal level. People are tired of the pompous photo-op style of the current admin (and Bush's sense of self-involved, frat-boy humour has started fianlly wearing thin with the people misguided enough to have voted for him in the first place. Stupid isn't the same as being part of the common-man class, it just seems that way at first...)

Tomorrow is Ann's birthday (my ex-wife, whom I still haven't heard from or of since the storm. Either she is dead, constrained from letting me know she is alive and well or doesn't really think I, after all these years, deserve to know her fate. I hope it is #2, although depending on the level of constraint, it speaks poorly of her and those around her as people.)

Yes, I still care if she is alive or dead, well or wounded...it is just difficult, as a human being, to deal with the kind of elaborate soap opera I've been living in for the past two years, and particularly the last two weeks. I thought I taught her better. Either I was not a very good teacher, or she was not a very good student. Or both.

I will go see "The Aristocrats" this weekend - Monday at the latest. Just about everyone I mention this fact to gives me a look of thinly-veiled disgust and shock. Good. Next tick on my list: a woman who can enjoy the same things I do. I don't habitually watch sports (despite having access to free tickets to Mountaineer games last year, I attended only one, and left at halftime, and I can't tell you the last time I did more than spot check a game on TV). But I do like films, particularly edgy, original films.

Yes, I'm weird (particularly my Morgantown standards). But as a man who has at least twice in his life turned down legitimate offers of "threesomes" I don't consider myself normal (yes, the idea is intriguing, and for a guy with my sex drive I'm not worried about keeping my end of the bargain, I just know the murky emotional waters it can invoke and I'm NOT THAT STUPID!!)

E.J. says he's heard from a few people who are working to win the "Edit the Blog" Contest. For those of you who are latecomers to the party, just six days left to do an edit of my blog (just for mistakes, not style) through September 6. The winner gets an autographed copy of THE COMPLEAT PANTHER CYCLES. See entries from earlier this week for details.

defining theocricide, for morons

I got one of those moron emails today I so dearly love...

like the time when some guy with a copy of a poetry anthology on his lap challenged me back when I was the moderator of The Romantic and Erotic Poetry Group on AOL...he was claiming that Gertrude Stein's poem "Scared Emily" has the line "A rose is a rose is a rose" when actually the line is about, not a flower, but a woman...

"Rose is a rose is a rose"...

that editors have oftentimes befouled original works with such recurrent mistakes is one of the reasons why I don't like using editors. My experiences with them have be excruciating. And often the author is forced to accept them as variant versions of their works. My features editor on the Red and Blue Journal at Morgantown High School can tell you what happened when she tried to rewrite my works...my first real battle with an editor...she ended up running whitespace, which did not diminish me.

Any the way, this individual (I cannot define them as lady or gentleman, as they were so craven as to even hide their name from me...) was taking umbrage at the name of my forthcoming book:
theocricide.

It seems it offended them that I was using a word (of my own coinage) that means literally the "killing of a god".

(rosining up my hands, excuse me for a moment, cracking knuckles...dipping cestus in venom)

That I chose that word as my book's title is my own concern. Originally conceived as a word for a title of a eulogy for the woman who was to have been my Mother-In-Law (and was a far better one to me than at least one of the ones in fact), the word means literally the "killing of a god" but in the broader sense means a willful act that undoes a major element in one's belief system.

Example: If you've never been a liar, telling a lie is a theocridal act. A small one, perhaps, but one nonetheless. Having endured a one time the necessity of keeping a huge lie to maintain peace in my household for more than a decade, I found that such a thing is corrosive in the extreme. I am still wrestling with the aftermath of this, daily.

In fact, most aspects of modern society present the Christian or any person on conscience with a constant stream of theocricidal acts. (Hey, how long do you think a religion that says "don't kill" "don't lie" and "don't place yourself first" would last in today's society? So far, about 2,000 years, we just do a real bad job of living up to it. But don't despair, as despair is indeed an act of theocricide. Try again tomorrow. Or right now.)

One of my favourite quotes from my own works is the apt: "I have fallen, and have risen. And taken penance given, every mile."

Of course, my favourite quote of mine probably remains the ironic "A quote is but a tattoo on the tongue."

So, anyway, in this world, if the best thing you can make of yourself is a pre-emptively judgemental critic...go away.

I am unamused.

Storm Update

She's brilliant, she's beautiful, she's alive.

Just got word from my old friend Nicole (Nicorleans from AOL's Writers Club) did ride out the storm from a safe distance.

Still no word on Ann, Katherine, Sydney, Janet, Steffi or anyone else still on the "and where?" list in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Also, if anyone has any word on the Pass Christian Branch of the Hancock County Library or the Bookends Bookstore...I would like very much to contribute books and support for any events in their honor in the aftermath of the storm.

I'm considering going to see "The Aristocrats" on Sunday evening and posting a review, complete with a breakdown of how I rate the various tellings of the joke.

Having told the joke myself, I understand this the same way one famous actor once said that the Academy Award for Best Actor would only be fair the year everyone does "Hamlet".

Rumour patrol: I have received several notes about rumours flying that I am optioning "The Compleat Panther Cycles" as a film. No comment. Personally, I think it deserves it's own TV series...maybe Bravo...hmmmmmm....but only if I get casting vetoes.

One Week Left in the Blog Editing Contest

One week remains to win yourself am autographed copy of THE COMPLEAT PANTHER CYCLES. Details in earlier posts...

Got a follow up note from a friend of my ex-Mother-In-Law from down in Southern Mississippi. We have shared contact information, what little we have. I have come to realize just how little of hard facts I've had over the last several years. Strange. I know names of some relatives, but not exactly where they live. Makes hunting people down to confirm fates in the aftermath of Hurrican Katrina (and the Waves) difficult.

Of course, having been asked to not initiate contact, for fear of creating a domestic issue between Ann and her flavour of the week, makes it all the more perversely constrained. And I have been learning, once again, how much I hate artificial barriers.

A long time ago, I wrote this:

"Experience feeds memory.
Memory leads to knowledge.
Knowledge is power.
Power is the ultimate currency of survival.
Anyone who denies me experience, memory, knowledge or power is stating I have no right to survive."

I guess I should have been a better steward of my life.

Some word from Southern Mississippi

So far, some good...I have received not only word of the fate (good) of my former Episcopal priest, the Rev. Brian Seage and his wife. Kyle (also an Episcopal priest) from the ravaged areas of Southern Mississippi (they are well), I have also heard from a family friend of Ann's mother. But she seems as much in the dark as I am as to their fates.

Sigh.

I have completed the first take of the architecture for my new system...which is still "in transit"...

Sigh.

I gave Tag a peek at the most controversial aspect of the upcoming "theocricide". I'm not sure if he'll ever be right again. But he's a poet, so that's okay.

I have taken to sighing rather than raging. Anyone finds this too passive? I'll match my record of achievement against any other lone wolf in the history of modern man. And I'm just getting traction.

A bone to pick with Apple

Not a huge problem, compared to the rest of the world's issues...I just have issues with misleading information, always.

Nearly two weeks ago, I placed an order for my Mac Mini. At the time I was told 1-2 days to be out the door.

Okay...let's start counting.

Order placed: August 26. Add two days, that would be the...er...carry the 7...hmmm...the 28th.

Let's give them the benefit of the doubt and say they don't work weekends at Apple...so it was not going to go out until Tuesday, August 30th.

Er...around the 30th, checking status, I was told it would go out on the 1st...now we're to 6 days.

Late night on the 1st I get an email from Apple, apologizing for missing the deadline. Followed one hour later by an email telling me they'd made the deadline, and giving me a FedEx tracking number.

Now we're back on track kids, even by ground, tracking FedEx is a snap...so, package went out on the 1st.

No, on the 2nd.

No, on the 6th. Twelve days. To take an existing configuration machine off the rack and put a mailing label on it.

Seems they slapped a pre-printed FedEx label on the box, late night on the 1st...

transmitted the label information to FedEx on the evening of the 2nd,
and the package was actually picked up by FedEx on the 6th...
now a scheduled delivery date of the 12th.

If I had been told that as an approximate delivery date on the 26th, no problem. But the shifting of expectations is leaving a sour taste in my mouth:

So let's see:

Ordered on August 26th.

Sent out/to be sent out on: The 8/30/. No, 9/1. No, really, we sent it out on 9/1. No, we didn't, we sent it out on 9/2. Er...actually we sent it...it just didn't get to FedEx for 4 days after that, er five days after that...

Hey guys, I don't mind slowness, I mind disingenuousness, even if it is just part of a sloppy handling process. You;re Apple, for heaven's sake, the best computer company on the face of the planet. Don't suffer from pretty girl syndrome, where you know people want you so you don't have to perform, just eventually show up.

Had I been told on the 1st, or the 2nd that it wouldn't be out the door until the 6th, I may have cancelled my order, just out of peckishness. I had other uses for that money, and could just walk into one of your stores and get the same machine with zero wait time.

Books, Contests, Drunkeness, Date Rape and Leadership

Sat down with Tag (poet Dan McTaggart) yesterday evening and discussed both of our upcoming book projects...these are exciting times.

He hadn't been to the blog yesetrday, so he hadn't heard about the editing contest that I'm right now running (read down a post or two if you hadn't seen it yet)...but he thought it was an interesting idea.

I've promised to give away several copies of The Compleat Panther Cycles this fall, so I've decided to set up a series of contests to allow people to win them...this is just the first. I won't reveal any details on the next contests until the closing date on this one (September 15th) or after, I don't want to muddy the waters.

WVU plays at home this Saturday. Oh joy, more amateur hooliganism. Word on the street is there is an element within the student body (and the wannabes) that wants to show the local police that they can't stop them from public drunkenness and destruction of property...this could get real ugly.

So what is WVU doing, in its wisdom, to keep a lid on it? Why sponsoring the big rally Friday night at the Mountainlair, to get the drunkenness going...Morgantown may not be a fit place for man or beast for a day or two...not quite the French Quarter after Katrina, but pretty much a besotted mass of idiots. And WVU has the marketing good sense to keep a lid on their on-campus rape stats so as not to scare away next year's students, as do most colleges.

Watched The Daily Show with John Stewart last night. Man, did they tear Bush a new one...and deservedly so. It's no secret I've never been impressed with the lackluster frat boy, I am just sorry his shortcomings are resulting in death and suffering. You can at least argue that our sons and daughters being PR cannon fodder in Iraq volunteered to be in the military. The poor people of Southern Mississippi, Louisiana and New Orleans deserve better.

I guess we get as leaders whom we accept as leaders and it is our own damn fault.

C'mon you editors, have at ye!

(shown: rear cover of "The Compleat Panther Cycles", click on it for fuller detail)
Yes, it is true.

I'm allowing people to win a copy of The Compleat Panther Cycles just for nit-picking.

So, whether you're a college professor, a grad student or just a really motivated OCD, go for it. There's no wired result, no bonus for being a friend or ex-lover...alas, rules of simple decency forbid me giving bonuses to beautiful wantons, alas.

And, on top of it all, you get a shot at something more than just the book itself, I need an editor for my next book, "theocricide"...and maybe you'll be the right one. Think of it as "American Idol" for editors, your chance to go from nowhere to being the editor of what is destined to be a much discussed and debated book, controversial in its own right.

Be a part of the digital renaissance, not some sidelines observer.

Just wait until you see what I've got planned NEXT month! Beautiful wantons will be eligible for bonuses for that month's contest!

In other news...

Still nothing from Southern Mississippi.
Anastacia says I should go to the Maryland Renaissance Festival in garb and wander about, reciting love poems, to find a lover. Not the worst idea she's ever had, but I'm pensive.
The new computer is en route, although if Apple lies to me one more time about the shipping status...I may just give it away and go to Windows.

The First Panther Cycles Contest: Win a Free Book!

I know I am not perfect. The big guy (William F. DeVault, he hates it when I call him "the big guy") knows he is not pefect, and his blog reflects this, he makes typographical mistakes (almost never a misspelling, usually transposed characters, etc.) but they bug him, as he know it is tough to edit your own material.

Here's the contest:

Between now and September 15th at midnight, Eastern time, go through the entirety of this blog (prior to September 6th, 2005) and document all the editing mistakes (there are several, have fun!). Send a complete list of these to me at trojanhearse@cityoflegends.com under the subject line "BLOG EDIT CONTEST". The person who finds the most actual mistakes (which then I will have to go correct!) will get their name mentioned in this thing and a (trumpets, please) free copy of the poet's magnificent volume THE COMPLETE PANTHER CYCLES (MSRP; $37.95) autographed by the poet (PRICELESS!).

Remember, midnight on September 15th. Free copy of the greatest poetry book since Whitman's "Leaves of Grass". The entirety of this blog prior to September 6th. Contest is open to everyone and anyone. Winner will be announced on September 30th. Four runners up will be given copies of his now out-of-print PANTHEON.

Besides, I know he hasn't picked his editor for "theocricide", you may just get the opportunity of a lifetime if you're impressive enough.

Lost Links, my Beloved Sons and The Search for the Phoenix

The revisions to the site continue...I nudged E.J. the other day, as I see he has NOT YET re-established his links to the special sites I had made for a few of my poetic friends (Mari Laureano and Erin Kelly-Moen to be precise) as well as the links page...he says he's on it, we shall see.

It was reinvigorating to see the boys...they are growing up so fast (they're 12 now) and they are brothers, for sure. They argue over ridiculous variations in worldview (Dante is very zero-sum, Elric is into the path) and I love them both (and their mopey sister, Peri) very much. I've been asked repeatedly why I do not write much about them in my poetry...the bottom line is conflict. I am completely unconflicted in my feelings towards them. Conflict creates internal stress which is relieved through the poetry.

I'm going to add a weekly update on my blog entitled "The Search for the Phoenix". So many people have written about how excited they are that I am pulling a "Bragi, reawakening in his tomb" and deciding it is time to seek the (next?) great muse. My preconscious has pulled another magic trick in choosing a preliminary name for the muse. What does it mean? I don't fully know, as I did not truly grasp the humour (my preconscious has a sublime sense of humour) of Ann being "the leopard" (as in "a leopard cannot change its spots), but it could mean I will be more hyper-aware of women I've already known who may make a re-entrance. It may be somebody going through a personal re-awakening. It could be a redhead. Who knows?

I am "lost in the possibilities" as I once wrote in the poem (oops, "award-winning poem") "The Patchwork Skirt of My Love"

the sound of soft fingertips across the strings of a lute.
strumming the memories. humming the melody of life.
and I am lost in the possibilities of your presence,
pleasant, peasant prayers that lead to the summit
of the mountain in the distance, where legends reign.
kings cannot know this brandywine. princes pass perplexed.
and all the bishops seem ignorant of the nature of God
when their ignorance of the crux of creation is displayed,
paraded in the sudden dance of a smiling child by the fire.
and I am lost in the reverent reveries of this revelation.

play for me that melody, the one you tried to teach me,
you tried to reach me with when I despaired of lost love
and the angels and faeries all seemed annoying pinpoints
that pricked and sticked and stole the moment that was mine
and you came for me, barefoot and arrogant, like a poet.

and the fires swam into the sky and I, I was reborn.
torn to pieces and re-assembled like a patchwork skirt
to brush your bare legs in the summer heat and to defeat
the angry winds that would come down from the mountains,
mounting the horses of hoarfrost to charge your charms.

I live now, in more than just abstract recollections of a score
of forgetful lovers who would not give me second thought
were it not for the trinkets of my words they wear as bright badges
as they tell their tales of the pale blue moon of memory.
and they don't wear the patchwork skirt of my love. or play the lute.


William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.

Selah.

Home again, home again

Made it home in one piece...had a nice visit with my boys and with Anastacia and Tony (and, for that matter, my ex-wife Jan, who was uncommonly civil)

Got a lot done, mentally and emotionally, on the road...and laid the groundwork for my next great miracle.

Jan made a good point in our discussions. I do grant wishes. Jan's biggest goal in life was to be a Mommy. I was the agent of that. Ann's greatest wish (or need) was sobriety and I granted that. I'd go on, but we'd have some real problems if I started giving away all my secrets. But every woman who has come into my sphere has directly or indirectly gotten what she wanted or needed most from me.

No wonder I am exhausted (but pleased with the story, so far)...

One thing that came out of this...I am officially rebranding Jan from The Swallow to The Valkyrie as a muse. She has proven herself as a fierce defender of our children and a tough minded competitor in all things, she deserves the upgrade to greater legend status.

Anastacia taunted me once more with the image of her friend "Legs", whom I had a crush on at one time, but was unattainble (without subterfuge and harm to many persons). Alas, she is still out of reach, being married and securely so...and that's good as far as I am concerned.

fragment from the road

getting out into the universe is useful, it allows me to think, to understand, to write...

of course, scrounging for scrap paper at 70 miles and hour is a challenge...but, nonetheless...

there's no one left
to play me
betray me
to decay me into memories
to slay me
flay me
to play the role
that takes control
of my soul
for a moment
lost to lies.


William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.

words from a distance

In Defense of Imperfection - and What I Believe In

Interesting points, E.J. (I do, on occasion, read your comments, you know)

I think, perhaps, you are starting to listen. Maybe too much, which means I either have to promote you or kill you.

Actually, sorry...no open slots higher on the food chain and I am committed to non-violence, so you'll just have to stay where you are.

You leave out the point that I am not the easiest person to live with. I am passionate and giving, true. But I am also not good at focusing on just one thing or person to the exclusion of all else. Ann used to complain constantly that I would do things for others, not just for her, that my willingness to put myself for others; including my children, made her feel less special. The day I have so little love in my heart, so little strength in my form, that I can only help one person in this life, I am a shadow of what I should be.

Note to Ann: I took your birthday present and donated it to the relief efforts for Hurrican Katrina, I know you won't mind. (beatific smile)

I have been told I snore. I believe in monogamy. I like Los Angeles. I write when the spirit is upon me, even if it means getting up in the middle of the night. I like to work, I am not good at just relaxing. I don't drink or smoke or accept the notion that you can be a good person while committing a crime by using and dealing illegal drugs. I have fans...sometimes they get a little excessive (love letters from them? naked pictures via email of them? them showing up on my doorstep? somewhere along that chain there's a line to be drawn.) I prefer attractive women to unattractive women. I believe a potato is something you should grow in your garden, not be on the couch. I think all things should be open to discussion at all times. I think cats should not be allowe don the kitchen counters during meal preparation...

I have other faults, to be sure, but these are amongst those that have been invoked from women I've been involved with as to why we didn't work out. I have to note I've left off anything that might be considered actually a compliment (there are some people who consider certain aspects of me that I should not feel any regret over as faults)

By the way, E.J., you messed up the Statscounter code on this Blog and the new pages...I fixed it. Relax.

Now to the show: I've been threatening for some time to do my own rewrite of Crash Davis' remarkable speech from "Bull Durham". Here it is, to reflect my worldview:

"Well, I believe in the soul, long legs, and full lips, the beauty of a woman's shoulders, the villanelle, red meat, Diet Dr. Pepper, that mass market fiction is not literature. I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing slams and spoken word artists who can't write poetry. I believe in the transcendence of language, written erotic is more arousing than photographs, opening one present Christmas Eve rather than Christmas morning and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last a lifetime."

I have other beliefs, of course, but I tried to stay to form...now to just find my Annie Savoy.