a sense of accomplishment

We've settled on the cover, we've settled on the poems. We even have a layout. Wow.

It looks like "RONIN..." goes to my publisher this weekend.

I think I want to pursue a few blurbs, nail down the exact billing of the cover model and do a victory lap edit. There was something precious, something holy, something purifying about this project.

It was a strange labour of love, as it lacked a muse, a unifying presence, which is alien to my writing. Instead, the unifying force was, by very definition, the loss of love, the absence of just such a presence. The anger, the mourning, the wistful restlessness.

In some ways I will always treasure this above all my other books.

In some ways, I am glad to have it nearly behind me. People will poke through it and ask who inspired this poem or that poem, this mood or that mood, who shadowed me and whom did I shadow, turning one's face from the light of love.

I am not become cynical or sinister by these experiences, I am merely more aware of the nature of the fire any lover must walk to, walk on, walk through, if they are to love. I am scarred and bloody, but the light of my couer rage is, if anything, brighter and bluer and truer than ever before. I have learned hard lessons, and accepted them as necessary to evolve.

I am penitent and confessional in my flaws and failings, but defiant in my belief in love. I will die, as my own glass samurai, with a smile on my lips and a memory of the scent of lover's hips in the eloquent silence of the rest that follows a time of intimacy and communication via the ancient brain with the ascendant heart of mortals, seeking their own transcendence.

On December 14th, 2006, with the official release of this book, the Ronin comes to seek his redemption in the honor of the romantique. Many decades before the fall, and uncertain as to how many masters he has yet to serve to prove his heart and honor, but ready to take up his swords, again.

For tonight, I relax and celebrate the accomplishment. Alone and in silence, as introspection has become my drug of choice in these times. It is not a pleasant high, but it is an honorable one.