heavy is the sky

E.J. says I'll relent. Maybe he's right, but I have to be honest.

After I fulfill my current obligations, for 6 more books, I'm planning on retiring. Not from life. From writing and editing and publishing. It has been a brutal and bruising battle, and I honestly feel I've won more than I've lost. I've done what some would have said was impossible, helped bring poetry back from the brink of extinction. Along the way I've salvaged a few souls, saved a few lives, inspired a few worthies, slain a few dragons and met some incredible people.

But, all warriors should quit the battlefield when they feel the ennui take them. Just as a lame man eventually takes to the chair, his pain too potent to be endured by will alone, I am grimly tired. The edits for '101 Great Erotic Poems' took a lot out of me, and 'Ronin in the Temple of Aphrodite'...well, let's just say I am not looking forward to that process. It will be my darkest time, it will bend me, perhaps in ways inexplicable and unrecoverable.

I have accomplished many things in my time. I have fought an earnest battle, and have earned some solitude. I'm hanging up the blue and red suit, the cape and boots...and going to try and get out as a human being, a role I am unfamiliar with. It will be a challenge, learnig to live as a flesh and blood entity.

Until the last book rolls, I will continue to blog and podcast. I will keep active in all aspects of my creative endeavours, but when the last volume falls, don't expect me to be as easy to find. I will walk away as completely as possible.

The dust has promised not to mark my passing.

But for now, let us celebrate life.