Transcendence and the problem with being a vampire

Just got the updates to the podcast menu complete on the site (or should I say "compleat"?). I added two longer selections...totalling almost a quarter-hour of material..."Mood Romantique" and "Mood Poetique"...we're now up to over two hours of material for listening and downloading.

Heard, at last, from Selke over the weekend...she's fine...this is good. I had someone challenge me on my "no unasked contact" rule...as it seems to have made for some rather strange relationships (Alisha is the one usually highlighted) my take is this...I don't ban people from contacting me, or even make it difficult for them. I'm about communication, about discourse, discussion, open thoughts and hearts (even with people who snark and gossip behind my back, Katherine).

But, I also know that sometimes you can blunder into people's lives and create problems. I don't want to be guilty of that...I make enough mistakes without going where I am unwelcome. One friend even called it the "vampire rule" ("Enter freely and of your own will") and maybe there's an origin to that concept there.

Relationships (includes friendships and family ties, get your mind out of the gutter) hampered by the "Vampire" clause include those with my daughter, my second ex-wife and not only my muses "Goldenheart" and "The Truth" but also friends such as Elizabeth, Terri and Camille.

And I am a rogue? Hardly. Predatory? Never. You;re talking about a man who would not even sleep with his own wife if she'd been drinking, as I would consider that rape. If I had slept with half the women I have been reputed to sleep with, parts of me would have fallen off by now (some of the assumed connections are flattering, some are insulting...) Yes, I am flawed in many aspects, my demons have tea with me every morning, and I know I am capable of epic stupidity (I don't mind being flayed alive for my sins, it just bugs me to no end when a falsehood is hung on me) and the occasional act of seeming arrogance...usually because I have surrendered my will to another who then uses me as lightning rod for their own gulity thoughts and deeds.

It's time to trot out an oldie but a goodie...originally composed for the Panther, this time invoked for Ann. I carry my crosses only so far before I get bored with being the reserve clause to impertinent children (don't worry, Peri, you're my daughter and I love you, despite my flaws, I will not dump you from my life, that would be wrong on so many levels...)

TRANSCENDENCE

the heavens are in heat tonight
for this penitent, penetrative dream.

the iron lion stands astride memory.
mantichore wings of black lace fragments
of a leather lost to the weather of whim.
to him alone is there an accounting.

countdown.

grey skies to brown toxic fumes
as the hypergolic moments when
soul and intellect touch in the ceramic chamber
of a nautilus heart.

the skies scream aside in a fictional friction
of breath drawn out to thread like taffy
pulled too long.
an obit of an orbit, undecayed
as the patina colossus pulls free his lame heel
from the grounding earth
and raises high the last romantic verb.

liftoff.

and I am gone.
gone beyond imagination.
a consecration of madness
sold in gold and honeysuckle silver.
quicksliver slowed to sublimate
into a crystalline matrix of time.

farewell.

farewell.

but it is no longer my concern.
for I burn tonight in orbit no longer.
stronger than an epiphany
made construct in the shallows of an id.


William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.

And, you may ask, what is "the last romantic verb"? I'll tell someone that again, some day...maybe this time it will be someone who can remember it.