all around the world

It's a good day when I write something I like, I hear Jaz's voice and I see readers coming into my site from countries I don't hear from every day. Yesterday we had visitors from Egypt, New Zealand, Oman, Canada, Romania, Ireland, Switzerland, Singapore, Ghana, Japan, China, India, Russia, Brazil, Colombia, Spain and several other nations. Many were looking up specific references that people always seem to look up just before Valentine's Day, "poems about kissing", "love poems", "sex poems", "erotic poetry".

Usually my traffic is about 75-80% from the United States, and that's fine...I do like remembering that there are readers out there from around the world. It is humbling and energizing.

The piece I posted yesterday is just the tip of the iceberg, or should I say the flower petal, for "Night Blooming Jasmine".

in the silence of the afterbirth

Writing like that peels the hide from me, feeling like I'm being sliced open (we all have our mutilations, no?). I read it and I am blown away by the power, the fire, and for a few minutes after writing, there is a painful peace...an ache of surrendered humanity. The first time I recall ever encountering that was, ironically, when I wrote "My Electric Lady"...I almost went catatonic from the emotional backlash.

I listen to music to re-center myself...the Spinners, Otis Redding, CSNY, Terence Trent D'arby, Joe Cocker...nothing too intense or too evocative. Beautiful, powerful, proud words.

The creation of my poetry is a primal, bloody act, leaving me winded, fragile. The music is like I am laying a bandage of the words and thoughts and emotions of others over my self-inflicted wound. It heals, and I am actually stronger for the scar tissue of the birth of the work...now multiply that by 50,000-100,000 (no one is really sure how many works I have written, just that most are discarded and that about 14,000 have survived my rages...)

That's who I am. I do three things well. One of them is poetry. The other two feed that beast.

That is the silence, the violence, of the afterbirth. I am a patchwork dragon.

Tortured always by memory, comforted only by legacy...

new erotic poem: Night Blooming Jasmine: Gratitude

Night Blooming Jasmine: Gratitude

thank you for the moments
just slipped from my grasp
where every sigh and gasp
communicated something
more than just the pleasure
of the touch and taste and texture
of your skin as you surrendered
to the inevitable arts as I parted
more than just your hungry thighs.
feeling desire rise to take me
into more than a hallowed, hollow dark
to swallow my needs to fill your own.
flesh and bone and a battered stone
made smooth by the waters
as we ran with the touch of lips
to hidden corners where we warned
ourselves not to let anyone go
unless we were open to the memory
and the moment of the fit of passions.


William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.

for Jaz, who knows how to awaken me.

Valentine's Day at Barnes & Noble

Getting together poets for the Valentine's Day reading at Barnes & Noble is like herding cats.

First off, many already have their own gigs to deal with and a reading at a large chain store just isn't something one jumps into without prep.

Others actually have lives outide of their poetry and want nothing to do besides snuggle up to their significant other that evening.

Still others don't feel comfortable in that sort of venue.

Hey, large bookstores are not my favourite place to read. Bright lights, a lot of background noise and foot traffic. An innate necessity to not get too outrageous, as there are children about. Really tough to do a poem about a lover's reaction to really intense oral sex when there's a four year old sitting ten feet away reading "The Cat in the Hat".

But they middleman my books, the rep is a good and supportive soul and they usually offer me a free drink.

And I get a nice flyer to add to my collection of posters, flyers and articles about my writings.

But I hate herding cats.

red dragon blues

In response to a writer from Texas:

The music is nice for setting the mood, but when the human voice merely becomes a musical instrument, it detracts from the content and intent of the lyric. Too many people can't tell you the meaning, very well the words, of a favourite song. I reject the posturing and artifice of many singers, who play a pop kabuki opera role to sell product to consumers who need a clown show to appreciate their spectacles. They are insincere.

I'll keep my integrity, thank you very much.

note to myself

fulminare

Monday Monday Monday

Yeah, I'm alive. What of it?

Actually, I am not in a bad mood...just a rough weekend, which is not a bad thing in my lexicon...rough weekends usually are when a lot gets done. Think of it like running an ironman triathalon. It is brutal and you ache for days...but you accomplished something.

Posted the piece "Bright and Deadly" to the MySpace area for the band. I am not happy with that file of it, but the final version was too dense to go on MySpace.

Major editing, read some good works by an up and coming newcomer (who may be getting a place in the 'City).

Spoke to my sons, conversed with my daughter, moved furniture for three people, including myself. Chased a very wily Pekinese through the woods and over icy roads. Nice to know I am still fast and surefooted.

And I wrote some pretty amazing, gut-wrenching stuff. I may yet get into poet's heaven. Hold it. I already am.

Ah, now for a few new goals.

Bright and Deadly is now on MySpace

He's of a mood. Not sure why, but he's of a mood, so this falls to me.

On a lighter note, he's made his first substitution on MySpace:

He's replaced "Centaur" with "Bright and Deadly".

He's pissed, I know, as the version he had to upload isn't as clean as the CD cut, but he had to go with a lower fidelity to conserve bandwidth and storage constraints. Just one more thing to aggravate the living crap out of him.

I wish he'd just hurry up and get laid. He's easier to handle. Pardon me, I have to get my cattle prod rewired.

Swapping Tunes on MySpace

Okay, people. Now I have a dilemma.

I really want to swap in some of the new stuff, including "Bright and Deadly" at the MySpace page for William F. DeVault and the Gods of Love...but I am perplexed as to which songs to take down.

Currently there are four (what they allow) and those are

DARFUR (Jesus Wept): This one has immunity. Too well respected and it is meaningful.

The Faerie (Strange but Beautiful): Lovely, a favourite of mine. It will be tough to see it go, if it goes.

Centaur: The newest addition to the stable. I love this piece. Very sweet.

Right Set of Lips: The acoustic jazz effect is on full in this piece and it is gloriously romantic.

So, which two are to go? I don't effing know. So, let's take a poll...follow the link, listen to all four, then leave a comment here (I can check the IP log to make sure no one is stuffing the ballot box). I need guidance, here's your change to be heard. Pick one or two you feel we can live without, then I can at least know I have an external opinion on it.

The Intro to Bright and Deadly

Try to not completely ravage my bandwidth, download (it is a free music download, after all) it the first time.

Here's the first 1:35 of Amomancer, Bright and Deadly. It stops just before the vocals kick in.

Ain't I a stinker?

I can't promise it will be ready for this week's podcast, I am trying like hell to make something that kicks it up a notch or ten. Jaz knows why.

Don't you just love how grouchy, introspective and psycho I get while working? My ex used to call it my "dark countenance".

An Overseas Perspective on Senator Obama

An excellent article in The Jerusalem Post, from January 23, discusses the odds against a successful Presidential campaign by Senator Barack Obama on this try. I agree with much of what they say, both in substance and in analysis of American voters and media.

I do believe that the Senator has a place at the table, and in the long run he could be a fine Presidnt, but it may be a bit early, not for any real substantive reason, we've already proven a not-so-clever man can be elected President (the current resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue), so why not an inexperienced but sincere and eloquent, well-educated man? But with the strikes of his youth and his race against him, he's going to need a proven resume.

Yes, the time has come for America to demonstrate more to our concepts of diversity than prime-time sitcoms, but I think 2008 might play its role in that history by being the year we get our first female Chief Executive.

NBJ

There's always the question of when do you not have permission to not do something you have not been told whether you can or can not do it.

Understand?

The poet himself has given me some of the advance on his next book, and has not banned me from talking about it. But, does that mean "Say nothing" or "Say anything" or "Use your judgement"? Ah, decisions.

Don't get me wrong, I like his most recent books, I just feel that he needs a worthy successor to "The Compleat Panther Cycles" so people will stop talking about that book as if it were a life's work. Yes, it is monumental and incredible. Over six hundred poems. Defiant and confessional, sad and erotic, all at once (I can only imagine what the Panther was like in bed).

But he has written hundred, thousands of works since he wrote those poems. It has been almost a decade since he wrote his last poem in those cycles. That's a lifetime, if you're ten years old. I know he's been laid since then, although mostly badly, from what I hear.

"NBJ" (my nickname for this project, as the proper name for the book will be "Night Blooming Jasmine", regardless of whether he decides to go with "Inamorata" instead) can be that book. He just has to relax, breath deeply and bring it, again.

We shall see, indeed, what this man is made of. And Jaz (Jasmine), thank you for inspiring him so incredibly. Now, keep him out of mischief for the next few decades.

Saturday afternoon update

A normal day, for me. For you? Nope. But, that's okay...because I am the one living it.

Did some overdue housecleaning. Burned all the remaining digital images of my ex (the model) to a CD. Will mail that, not to her, but to a mutual friend with instructions to either get it to her or keep it (she is also an ex-lover of my ex, long story, buy my memoirs for the full skinny). My computer seems less cluttered now...there were a few thousand, I believe, images...some fof them low-res for her website. I had ported them over when I had changed computers and, since the last thing I actually know I heard from her was a vague call nearly two years ago, I'm presuming that rather bizarre chapter of my life (and five chapters of my memoirs) is over.

Did some writing and editing and research and decision making. I know what my next book will be and, most likely, the one after that. The next one will be poetry, edgy, romantic and erotic poetry, the volume named either "Inamorata" or "Night Blooming Jasmine". I'll decide later. All new or very recent material. Regardless of the volume's name, it will have the exact same poems in it. A bit thicker than my usual, but not the death star that is "The Compleat Panther Cycles".

After that comes the erotic sci-fi novel. I had originally ghosted it to give to someone as a parting gift (I'd never written a novel before, it is strange the first one I finished wasn't even for me). But, I have come to realize that 1) I was wrong to do that, 2) People will figure it out anyway and 3) She isn't ever going to publish it. And since the handoff was informal and I never assigned the copyrights: Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine.

The first book will be before I do the summer tour. The second (my 11th book and first actual novel) will need to wait until late Summer or early Fall...maybe even next Spring so it can be in time to be a beach read. After that there is a melange of possible projects, with several of them possibilities for next in line.

Very nice to hear that Rage Against the Machine is getting back together...I know some people extremely excited at the prospect. I'm excited, but not psychotic about it.

Later, all...I have to go do some editing.

new poem: the scent of recent petals

the scent of recent petals

spilling wine before swine
the ties of the fork
beat a staccato rhythm
on the perfect crystal vessel
that holds your kisses
in crimson and burgundy
sips and gulps and a cherished
aftertaste to be faced tomorrow

not ruining the reunion
by the counting of the hours
the sixth of seven powers
is the power to dream
and step through them
to do them justice in the real.
sealing the ceiling to wall hope
behind a facade of sad sentience

having been left for dead
in a bed of what was bled and said
when only the moment mattered
I understand the difference between
saying the words and living in worlds
we descend to, lambent as moonrise
in a starless sky of forgotten world
in exile until. until we elect to love.


William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.

I will run the final laps of this race beyond my endurance, that my legacy will not be chosen for me, but by me.

all the vectors

You walk down the street.

But, beneath you, the street, or rather the Earth, is moving. Much faster than you are walking. Your pace is an illusion of gravity, relevent only next to the other articles on the surface.

That's okay. The Earth is revolving around the Sun. A new and faster vector of movement.

Which in turn is just one of billions of stars in a small galazy know (to us) as the Milky Way, which spins like a top, giving us yet a new and more extreme vector.

Oh, did I mention that our galazy is just one of billions, all exploding out from a common starting point, on yet another vector?

And there are cosmologists who insist there are many, many universes...I wonder what their movement is int he quantum foam and how we could measure that?

All in all, we get around.

slow day at eBay

Truly odd...the autographed (custom autographed) copy of my book 101 Great Love Poems at eBay is not getting any attention. Considering the fact that the same exact hardbound book is selling well (it is just before Valentine's Day) at Barne & Noble, Amazon.com, etc for twice the opening bid, I am perplexed.

But resolute. Trying to liquidate things here, move the valuable stuff, as moves tend to be rough on my collector's items.

by the grace of the cold

If you walk to the middle of a frozen lake, late at night, miles from the nearest city or town, and stand perfectly still, eventually even tuning out the sound of your own breathing, you hear the world around you. A world that goes on with or without you.

You hear the wind in the trees. The "floof" sound of a branch-fork of snow falling at a moment of chaos. A distant sound of some creature you cannot see and never will figure out exactly what it was that made that noise, made without regard or even awareness of you, standing there in the cold winds and darkness.

If you stand long enough, barely shifting your weight, you may start to contemplate the depth of the water, just inches beneath you, that you are held from by the grace of the cold. If it isn't cold enough, or you chose a bad spot, you might even become slowly aware of the sound of the ice beneath, slowly, inexorably, giving way to plunge you to your death.

There are times I am grateful for the coldness of this sphere. There are times I wish, for a change, the ice was thinner, the air warmer, and the waters deeper.

to a point

Note to the universe: While having your words impact a broad audience is a joy to any author, having a rifle shot taken as a shotgun blast by so many people, as is the case with my blog post "words to a stricken, worthy heart" is annoying. Snort.

No one who wrote to me or commented about the piece is the person I was talking about. Someone needs to do a study on transference in blogging commentators.

Having called me (sans permission or request) or having once met me at a signing does not mean I sit around composing poems or blog entries about you and your world. I have planty of things to keep my pen, my mind and my heart busy on my side of the fence.

As an author it is nice to have universal impact, to hear people say "what you wrote speaks to me"...that is good. To a point.

shed a patronizing tear

An editor once attacked my poem "of fallen and falling angels" (or is it "of falling and fallen angels"? I can't keep track.) for the opening stanza:

"the shattered glass leaves fractured face
as witness to this crack'd sphere.
we place our bets on cold disgrace
and shed the patronizing tear. "

She said it was "brutal, brutish and thuggish, not to mention pessimistic". I disagree and take exception to those remarks.

In the last few days I have seen the worst in the subtle behaviours of mortals. Not murder, rape and armed robbery, but the subtler sins that are, in their own way, more vile and, by their very nature, less likely to be resolved with simple acts of contrition.

I have always had an issue with patronization. Why? It is not just the very nature of the insult when someone pretends to affections and emotions they do not have, but it is also the destabilizing effect, leaving the victim doubting the sincerity of everyone around them. Have I been guilty of this? Certainly? Have I fought, sometimes unsuccessfully, to make things right when I have caught myself at it? Yes.

To my knowledge, at this point in my llife, I am not guilty of it with anyone...but I have seen the effect on others, and I feel it against me. It is terrifying to realize that kind words have unkind meaning, or are a coward's way of retaining your good graces or favours yet to be requested.

Hypocrisy also disturbs me. People of faith often poison the well for those seeking to communicate a faith. Whether it is a friend who does not remember that we pray to God "And forgive us our sins as we forgive others..." or a President who boasts of his faith and orders men to kill and die for political bravado.

Yes, we are a debased race. I need to tuck that knowledge away and get back on my feet, remembering that the hypocrisy and evil of others is that. I need to deal with my own failings and move on.

I need to shake the dust from my sandals. Daily. This takes us back...

Back to the poem. We are tainted. We are shattered, each in our own way, and while I may have used the transpositional metaphor of a former lovers' car wreck as an element in this poem, it was not to her disgrace. She is not the cause of the system's breakdowns, she is one of the victims. We are, all.

We need to stand up and fight. Fight the toxins of insincerity, as, in the end, these are the poisons that drain us subtly. I will, with saddened purpose, recall every hypocrisy, every lie, every patronizing tear along the road. Not with vengeance and anger, but with sorrow, regret, and a prayer for the fallen and falling angels.

a creature of inspiration

Well, it's evening. The sun has just set, and the cold, wintry air seems to transmit the brittle sound sof the world around me so much more crisply.

I have been remiss in updating the lyrics to my new piece, so I am going to slip on my headphones, fire up the music and see what flows as I undam that channel.

Hmmmm....nothing. I think I am in overload. Lots going on around me, with my friends and my loved ones. The chaos is creating the creative equivalent of a thermal barrier, trapping the inner sounds from echoing across the thin gap between birth and revelation.

Regardless.

I will step away, and hope that one of the sparks that can pierce the clouds about me returns to me. For I am a creature of inspiration. In the absence of it, I wither, I fade, I pale.

words to a stricken, worthy heart

I spent my evening yesterday, speaking at length with a friend who is going through a rough patch, a busted relationship and broken heart. Some people sometimes view these times as not such a big deal, but those are the ones with shallow or hollow hearts.

I wish for this friend all the joy and love and peace in the world. They are a worthy heart, more worthy than most, but there is no justice in nature. I can promise them this: They will heal, there will be more pain, and there will be moments of joy. Depending on the moments you choose to hold close, your life will feel like a great success or a miserable failure. You get to choose.

I have instructed E.J. to post my poem "My Life" on his blog at amomancer.blogspot.com. It is a poem that saw me through a period of absolute desolation in my life, a chant, a mantra to drag me from the cesspool of self-pity that one can so easily wish to drown in at those moments.

In the end, you cannot save anyone, they can only save themselves. The currency of hope you may offer is meaningless if they do not value it, but that is not a statement of who you are or what you are worth, but of their limitations.

You are a good person, worthy of joy and love and hope. I wish you nothing less than paradise, and if it is in my power and your whim to allow me to help you get there, in whatever capacity, just let me know.

100 Things That Make Life Worth Living

This is my list, yours would undoubtably be different.

1. Sunshine.
2. First kisses.
3. The ticklish texture of a woman's hair against my face.
4. Lemons.
5. The smell of cinnamon.
6. The scent of honeyscukle.
7. The colour red.
8. Birthmarks.
9. The satisfaction when a well-turned phrase emerges on its own.
10. The sound a puppy makes when she's hungry.
11. Laughter.
12. "The Great Gates of Kiev".
13. Touching cool marble.
14. A salad, fresh and zested with lemon juice.
15. Lovemaking.
16. Discovering an old friend.
17. Making a new friend.
18. The smell of chicken livers, frying.
19. The taste of friend chicken livers.
20. Walking barefoot in the snow.
21. Having someone say "thank you".
22. Eyelashes.
23. Baby powder.
24. A hot shower, first thing in the morning.
25. The Pacfic Ocean, at first light.
26. The skin of a properly baked potato.
27. Thunder.
28. Flirting.
29. Holding someone when they need held.
30. Memory.
31. Old photographs of people you know.
32. An unexpected phone call from a lover.
33. A tall woman who still wears heels.
34. Found coins.
35. The piano at the end of "Layla".
36. Caramels.
37. A beautiful woman, uncertain of her beauty.
38. Being beaten at chess by someone really better at it than me.
39. New shoes.
40. A lump of banana in a milkshake.
41. The smell and sound of a pine bonfire.
42. Rediscovered faith.
43. Fingertips.
44. Warm breath on my neck.
45. The sound of rain on the roof.
46. Vivid dreams.
47. The small of a woman's back.
48. My daughter, Peri.
49. My son, Dante.
50. My son, Elric.
51. A promise kept, made only to myself.
52. Truth.
53. Waking in a lover's arms.
54. Liquid soap.
55. An old, old book.
56. An apology.
57. "All That Jazz"
58. Night blooming jasmine.
59. Jaz.
60. Pink tea roses.
61. The feeling of sand between my toes on the beach.
62. Fish and chips at the Pierview in Malibu.
63. Poetry.
64. Learning something that changes my worldview.
65. Starlight.
66. The desert at Joshua Tree.
67. Signing autographs.
68. Seeing someone fall in love.
69. Telling the truth when I gain nothing from it.
70. A manual 5-speed.
71. Ice.
72. A baby's giggle.
73. A woman's breathing as she sleeps.
74. Bamboo.
75. Doing the right thing, even if no one can ever know.
76. Repaying a debt.
77. The taste of a woman.
78. Giving a dog a bath.
79. Disneyland
80. A good playlist on iTunes.
81. Nailing a read.
82. People watching.
83. Helping someone else surpass me.
84. Answering an unexpected question without hesitation or doubt.
85. Being the "go to guy" for a friend in need.
86. Watching a film for the 100th time.
87. Peter O'Toole.
88. Pilot Precise Grip Extra Fine Point pens.
89. The next generation of Macs.
90. Not having to have anyone mourn me that you love.
91. Penetration.
92. Sore muscles after a good workout.
93. Hard Times Cafe chili
94. Watching Peri eat pancakes.
95. Doing something better than I did it last time.
96. Having someone else say "I love you" first.
97. Jon Stewart.
98. Halloween.
99. Remembering how...
100. Making lists.

The Redemptive Arc of Nothingness

I have always been struck by the reliance of the media on judging an individual by a "defining moment".

The concept is big, in news reporting, in history and in literature. Paul had his blinding flash on the road to Damascus. Lincoln had his Gettysburg Address. We want our judgements to be based on an easily encapsulated soundbite or video.

So we get a lot of attention on a President's "State of the Union Address", which is supposed to be the time when the person in the driver's seat tells us where we are. Note that it is not the "Where to, Boss?" speech.

But, invariably, Presidents use it as a public relations gimmick to present their plans, however vague and ill-defined, for improving the view from the ditch where they have left us.

By your fruits...

That's right. We tend to say "Hey, nice speech" when we are more impacted by the day to day actions of the Chief Executive. If there's a bold, new idea in the speech to get us going, why was it held until a prime time speech and not implemented as soon as it was identified? If a firefighter waited until the local film crews showed up to give CPR to your grandmother, I hope they'd show him for what he is: A phony and a scoundrel, who let Granny, if not die, at least suffer irreperable brain damage.

The fact that a man who came to his office by deceit and has taken the non-mandate of a contested, even stolen, election to destroy the economy, rape the environment and send thousands of our sons and daughters to their deaths to defend an indefensible and ultimately destructive foreign policy of cultural and economic elitism feels he can salvage his legacy with a speech rather than real and penitent action, speaks badly for him.

And, if we allow it, speaks badly for us. Badly for us, and our sons and daughters who are still dying, while this coward asks for more to die for a cause no greater than his reputation.

Saying "I'm sorry" the morning after a rape doesn't end the victim's pain. Or the rapist's culpability.

the new age

I've been working some long hours these last few days, taking care of some real-life issues, and prepping a new musical/poetry fusion. I don't believe in doing things halfway, half-assed. It has never been my style.

There are mistakes I have made along the road, mistakes I have tried mightily to make amends for. In the end, all I can say is that I am trying harder to do better. It's funny, as most would say I have done miraculous things with my life, but there are many who would criticize some of the decisions I have made along the road to where I stand now, kicking a stray pebble or two as I prepare the next steps.

A dear friend today told me they thought I was still in love with an ex-lover. I had to correct them. I never stop loving, it is inconceivable to me to do so. But to trust someone enough to let them into the inner holies of my soul...well, right now, only one person has been given that key, and until she surrenders it, that's how it must be. That is who I am. That is who I choose to be.

In the moments when I wrote key poems throughout my career as an author and poet, I have been fortunate enough to love some pretty remarkable women, many of whom brought out the marrow in me, so that I could see what was good and bad.

Psyche brought out my talent and my self-awareness.
Valkyrie, my determination and sacrifice.
The Panther, my cunning and eloquence.
Brigit, my passion and my fire.
The Mad Gypsy, my faith and surrender.
The Leopard, my will and durability.

But these loves, these influences, flowed like rain water into the sea of my essence and enriched me, surrendering their claim of a separate fate. The women who birthed these affections and passions have moved on with their lives, always with my best wishes, always with my prayers for their joys, peace and safety.

What elements within me will the new age, the age of Jaz, see born into my soul or honed from the raw material from which I was spat out by the fates? I wait with anxious joy to see. Perhaps she is the one. Perhaps she will change her mind and cast me out and aside.

In any case, I wish for nothing less than peace, and joy and love for the woman who inspires me.

I can do, I can be, no less.

the wine

I was just reviewing my FreeFind report for the past week. A few things jumped out.

First of, some of you read my blog, then head to the website. Right after the Mad Gypsy was referenced on my blog, people were looking her up on The City of Legends. I would love to do a joint reading with her, again, when I tour in June...Karla? You're up.

Secondly, we need to work on spelling. Someone was looking for the long form (heh heh) of my poem from the Goldenheart Cycles (isn't it about time I standardized "Goldenheart" as to how to punctuate it?) titled "Impalement". Except they spelt it "impalment", which I think means the act of becoming friends. Of course, so does "impalement" in the context of that poem, just a very different kind of friends. Sigh.

I'm tired. Life is so much hard work. There are times I wonder how the Salieris of the world get through their days without killing themselves.

Me? I have my poetry and my muse. Yeah, my muse is 2500 miles away and unlikely to get much closer anytime soon (and there is a sizable chance this will be, like so many before her, an unconsummated relationship). But, for the moments of the wine, we plant the vinyard, eternally optimistic that the chances we take, the faith we place and the work we do will all bear fruit.

For we recall the taste of the wine, when it does so honor us.

Tour ruminations

The key word is mobility. I love the fact that I can post to my blog from anyplace in the world, via email. This will make my next few book tours, being designed as multi-city, bone-crushing marathons, to meld with the blogging.

Albuquerque is shaping up as Sunday, June 10th, with Phoenix or Las Vegas the night of June 11th. If both get into the mix, one would be the 11th, the other the 12th and the Los Angeles return home party would be the 13th, one day ahead of my hard-and-fast goal of the 14th, for personal and obscure reasons to all but those who have actually been around me for some time or who have read extensively.

I've been criticized for stating my preference is for chain bookstores for the venues. I understand the criticism, and let me just say that any venue, coffee house or independent bookstore that will invest in my appearance through either the advance purchase of sufficient books and/or an appearance fee can have me as well. As Harlan Ellison says "I'm not for sale, but I am for rent".

My plan is to keep it cheap, staying with friends and acquaintances, driving from city to city. It will be a brutal schedule, designed to, not break me, but to burn away the rust. I'm not expecting to be in stride the first few venues, although you never know. By Amarillo I plan to be roaring at levels I haven't touched in a decade.

There is a madness to my method.

a message from beyond

The Poet apologizes, but he is so wrapped up in his new musical projects, he does not have time to do a worthy podcast tonight. And he won't sully his rep with something second rate.

He shared some of the new piece. Unbelievable. I can't even tell you the name, as he's renamed it about six times already.

Peace. Out.

(And Jaz? He said sweet dreams.)

examining the ideal route

Working to refine the tour "perfect storm"...the path I'd most like to take in my march to the Pacific.

Here's my current dream path:

Pittsburgh
Cleveland
South Bend, IN
Memphis
Mobile
New Orleans
Dallas
Amarillo
Albuquerque
Phoenix or Las Vegas
Los Angeles

This excludes an earlier, mini-tour of East Coast venues. It will all come down to sponsorship and fan support. Would I like to include both Phoenix and Las Vegas? Yes. Would I like to include Warrensburg, Missouri? Yes. Boston? Check. New York? Amen. Tampa, even? Of course.

Snow and...Andy Williams?

I'll post some photos later...we have about 5 inches of snow on the ground. It is right now being seasoned by a misty rain-sleet combo.

In other news...I am of a surly mood towards a certain person, a mood like unto someone who can't understand why the dog doesn't understand the difference between outside and the middle of the kitchen tile.

Do I have to get unpleasant?

The singer, Andy Williams, used to tell a tale of coming home one day to find a family of tourists in his backyard pool, having located his house on a map and invited themselves for a swim. He angrily ordered them out, to which the father of the family replied "Gee, you're not as nice of a guy as you seem on TV".

My Spanish is poor, not even marginal. I speak Spanish with one person, who is teaching me some more, at my request. Certainly the use of an online translation page is marginal, they lack the conversational nuance of a native speaker.

Anyone else using Spanish on this site is either: a) A Spanish speaking individual who does not speak English but is desperately trying to communicate, b) Someone who feels they need to be a party to my private conversations for my own good, or c) A counterfeit. (a) or (b) are most likely when the person signs a name, not wishing to present themelves as some ominous, anonymous threat. (c) is the reason I can say with some certainty that, barring a promise of personal protection of my privacy, an entire region of this country can do without any possibility of my presence during the tour this year.

a small, still voice

Estas bien chula nena.

Gracias.

all that Jaz

Crazy days and nights. Do I worry more about this or that? Do I deal with this problem or that problem? aigh.

As usual, in private discussion of my attitudes on physical attraction and the role it plays in romance, I said everything all wrong. Most people who have read my writings on the topic count me one of the more enlightened men they have met, but somehow, somehow, I just manage to make a mangle of it when I don't do the whole dog and pony show. As a writer, my goal is to be understood. When I am not, I blame myself, brutally.

I have been composing a musical spine to go with the meander of a poem, tentatively titled "bright and deadly" that I have been composing live to the blog...we shall see how that fusion works out. It is, quite honestly, the most complex bit of composition that I have done, to date.

After getting the latest anonymous gossip on Barack Obama, I decided to see if Snopes yet had a piece on it, they did, and here it is. I am so unsurprised, yet still disappointed, that people who would wear the tag of American or Christian would stoop to rumour-mongering and name-calling to win their position. What sort of lesson does this teach the kiddies?

The great debate of muse-ology erupted last night. Specifically, why does Jaz not have a totem?

My answer? Because she doesn't need one. She neither has the exposure problems of Brigt or the Panther or the one-dimensionality of many of the other muses that forced me to come up with a thematic construct to make them interesting. Jaz is interesting of her own accord. If she wants a totem, she can have one, much as Karla Sasser, the Mad Gypsy, invoked her own, but I do not need it to write mountains of magic to her charm.

I have contacted George Lies, with the MWG (Morgantown Writers Group), to see if they have any poets of thematic synchronicity and quality interested in joining me at the Valentine's Day reading at Barnes and Noble. He has responded he knows of some and will get my information out to them.

new cities for the tour?

Okay, peoples. Some new cities have been added to the wish list for the tour this June...and here they are...some are whimsy, some have strong following, some...well, there's a reason to even my suicide missions.

Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, Indianapolis, Independence (MO), Warrensburg (MO) (wow, that would be an emotional implosion of Biblical scale), Mishawaka (IN), Chicago, St. Louis. Again, the fulcrum point remains Amarillo, TX, on June 8-9th.

If I had 1,000% control and if itineraries and finacing was in place (these things are actually quite cheap, but still some reality does intrude)...the ten cities I'd hit would be:

Monterey
Warrensburg
New York
Boston
Cleveland
Atlanta
Amarillo
Mishawaka (Maybe not, but...)
Mobile
Los Angeles

Note that this plan would involve a lot of wasted miles. The whole concept is to cut the trip into 1/2 day ot 1 day drives so that I can stay over, move on, get set up, do the read...rinse and repeat. The ideal situation is to pick up a sponsor or sponsors and to have a read in each target city with a chain bookstore (perfect solution: Barnes & Noble).

To be honest, if I was told I could do just writing, editing and poetry the rest of my days (okay, some eating, sleeping and lovemaking, as well) but would have to go town to town, reading and moving on, I'd probably take the offer.

This is who I am. Nancy, I made the right choice. You would have been miserable, I would have been miserable. Love you like sunshine, but it is true. There are days I feel like Uther in "Excalibur" when he asks if all there is to his life is to "kill and be king" and Merlin replies that it is perhaps not even that.

bright and deadly, the next few stanzas

It is too late for alarm
as I kiss your pouting lips
as my hands lay on your hips
that I ride to make the charm.

To embrace you and to taste
the cleft esssence of your need
to find someone who will feed
on your shame, so long misplaced.

I will enter you when bidden
and let loose to pierce your veil,
find your flesh, a text in braille
marked with all your passions, hidden.

Do you truly wish me end
in my suit to seize your soul
to perfect you in your role,
inamorata, bended friend?

(...and yet more...the vision comes in splinters of obsidian and jet...wet with blood and kisses)

William F. DeVault. all rights reserved

a visitor from El Salvador

I always like pleasant surprises. Who doesn't?

This afternoon, whilst checking my site logs, lo and behold there was a visitor who looked slightly anomalous; they were coming in from another country, off of the Spanish-language version of Google, and they spent nearly half an hour on my site, reading poetry.

What was remarkable, at least to me, was that this individual was searching poem by poem, by title, as if they were already familiar with specific works. And they were definitely targeting some of my better erotic and eromantic works. So, nice to see that I am a known quantity in at least some part of Central America.

Considering the fact that I am current courting a woman of Hispanic blood, rather nice. I started checking things out...I do seem to have something of a following, despite the language barrier. Jaz, I need more lessons...now.

Que pasa, El Salvador?

Christian politics

The political season kicks off a bit early this time around, with Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Bill Richardson having just entered the fray, or about to.

In the past few days I have received numerous slanderous and malicious mailings regrading Sen. Obama's background. The funny thing is, most of the people I see sending them out claim to be Christians. These people confuse me.

The current regime in Washington confuses me. Christians don't wage war. It is against primary teachings of Jesus Christ. If you want to be a Christian, you either lay down your arms or quit the faith until such times as you can follow the teachings without setting a truly poor example of a witness. I hate having to explain you to those who see your hypocrisy.

I'll keep it simple. You can follow along in your Bible, whatever translation you prefer.

Romans I, 28-30:

"Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them."

These are the words of Saul of Tarsus, known as St. Paul. The Christian martyr who did not go to Rome with a sword in his plan and a black-ops escape route, but to die for his faith. You dishonor him when you do not heed his words and still wear the tag of "Christian". When you boast of going to see a movie about the death of Jesus, but wouldn't spend the same as the ticket cost you to give a scarf to a homeless man or a hot meal to a hungry family.

I keep hearing people say that if we do not send more people's sons and daughters and wives and husbands and brothers and sisters to die for a false and failed policy in Iraq, ordained by leaders who would not put their own children or spouses in harms way, we are not honoring them. I grieve for those who have lost loved ones over there, and I understand their sense of justification, their need to believe that their sacrifice was not in vain.

But neither was Jesus' or Paul's, or the tens of thousands of Christian martyrs put to death because they believed differently than the mainstream at the time and would not rise up, would not violate their faith in their Saviour, in the name of a violent expediency. The Christian faith is not practical to this life, it is evidence of our worthiness for the next, if you believe the words of Jesus and his followers, not the guys on television with the suits and the Mercedes collections.

We have lost our way. Our hatespeak, our willingness to lie and propagate lies, merely shows us for what we are.

Senator Obama is not my first choice for President, but I believe him to be a good man and someone who can certainly do better at the job than those who have destroyed our economy and sacrificed our children, neighbors and friends for political and financial gain.

Hillary Clinton is not my first choice, but I believe her to be an able and intelligent person, fully capable of running this country with a strong hand and a clear vision.

Bill Richardson, I do not yet know him well enough to speak of him, and I am sure we'll hear all sorts of half-truths and lies in the next few weeks about him, sent out by people we thought we knew, we thought we trusted, we thought were Christians.

We were wrong.

bright and deadly, part III

I want to penetrate your soul
to find the sweet meats deep inside
you shelter now, with virtue's pride,
in pensive wait for dark control.

bright and deadly is the word
you thought you caught in whispered plea
from paramour on bended knee
who fled your bed once he was cured.

desire, disease, in twain, are blent
to make a potion of delight
from pierce'd flesh and cooling night
and sins we wish we could repent.

I would share what yet remains
in tortured frame and crack'd heart
I've welded shut to heal, in part.
until you call for fragrant stains.

(more to yet come)

William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.

bright and deadly, segment II

bright and deadly came the thought
immersed in pain and memory
that tore the sore like emery
until I learned what I had taught.

repenting not the penanced prayers
that dropped me to my bruis'd knees
to touch me with a new disease
acquired in the liars' lairs.

(yet more to come)

William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.

the first few lines...

bright and deadly came the dream
upon the face once blessed with shade
and all the withered thoughts then played
to lay the path of new regime.

birthing black, the skies rolled back
to find a key in lock-blocked souls
that gave us pause to ponder roles
assigned to us at dayspring's crack.

...

(to be continued)

William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.

a lonely tale is bound to wind around a spindled point

We are, in my sphere, about to come to a litmus test moment, a Rubicon. It will demonstrate the character of many people near to my life and undoubtably have a profound impact on me. I have no illusions that I have total control over the situation. Indeed, I am going to be very much at the whims and will of several people, many of whom have expressed the desire to see me suffer and to (precise and public quote) "make your life a living hell".

We shall discover what is rhetoric, to both sides of the theological and character scales, and what is truth. Barring a last minute benefactor of pretty grand scale, it looks to be, now, a fait accompli. The wheels are turning, with intent to grind.

If all goes well, everybody benefits, in the long term. If all goes poorly, no one benefits, in any real sense.

A part of me has already stepped back to watch and wait and listen and see what happens.

This Valentine's Day, say it...

The celebration of Valentine's Day is almost upon us, less than a month to go, and I am often asked about this time of year as to which of my books I would recommend as a romantic gift.

Well, that's tough, as I don't wish to judge the depth and scale of your lovelife. But, in order to not seem oblivious to the question, I will rate the books I have in print, here, for you.

RONIN IN THE TEMPLE OF APHRODITE: A solid work, well packaged. The poems reflect the dimension of love that is most often found in lost love, fighting to stay positive. A good book for a disillusioned romantic, or to show you understand pain and loss.

THE COMPLEAT PANTHER CYCLES: If you want to give the literary equivalent of a small thermonuclear blast, not a bad choice. Almot seven hundred poems, revealing the truths behind a blistering and ultimately self-destructive love affair that caught the imaginations and attentions of readers the world over.

LOVE GODS OF A FORGOTTEN RELIGION: This book is going out of print very soon...if you want it, I'd say get it now. Nice book, with some truly sharp romantic and erotic moments.

101 GREAT LOVE POEMS: If you are going to get this book as a gift for a lover on Valentine's Day, at least show the style to get the hardcover edition. If you really want to impress her or him, get the autographed copy currently on sale on eBay.

FROM AN UNEXPECTED QUARTER: A pretty package, with some good moments, but ultimately uneven. This book is also scheduled to go unavailable momentarily. I'd get it now.

Those are the romantic volumes still in print...you can order any of these from Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble (BN.com) or any other online retailer or brick and mortar store. Or even from me at the store at my website at City of Legends.com.

tributing the tributes of the tribute

So many people responded to my tribute to The Mad Gypsy, I shall have to post more of those, to some of my other Muses. It seems to always startle people that I have such fond recall, often of women who have played me badly, but what their motives or actions were must take backseat to my motives or actions in my recall, otherwise I would be damned to blame others for mistakes that may have been mine own, or to spend my days hating, an emotion I am as alien to as I can strive to be.

The tour is slowly building steam, I have heard from some friends around the country, wanting me to add their area to the trip, and it is possible...the itinerary I have on my screen right now is extremely tentative. I want to have it solidified by COB, April 30th. This gives us 5-6 weeks of total ramp up promo time and me a chance to plan for the madness. I will bring the madness, I can assure you. Just make sure the sound system, the stage and the human sacrifices are all prepped, specific requirements on request.

Okay, guys, just two days left on the special Valentine's Day 2007 copy of 101 GREAT LOVE POEMS. If you're waiting for the last moment to avoid getting outbid, you may want to at least get a token bid in now. I'm not offering another one this year.

Jaz, thanks for the call last night. And I enjoyed the privilege of reading some of your material. Very nice.

tupelo honey, an appreciation

One of my favourite songs of all time is "Tupelo Honey" by Van Morrison...the damn thing crushes me whenever I hear it. In part because it was "our song" between myself and the Mad Gypsy. Everytime I hear it, I think of her with reverent and passionate nostalgia.

I looked up the lyrics, finding them many places, with various different versions printed. Even found them in the program for a memorial service, misprinted and misinterpreted. Will I be thus misrepresented one day? Hold it, I know I already am in some quarters and corners.

"Men with insight, men in granite. Knights in armor, intent on chivalry." Every time I hear those words, I see a strange tomorrow, built on a present made past.

Perhaps I need to include Tupelo, Mississippi, on my tour, for sentimental reasons, despite many a blasphemous oath to never return to that state of so many grave disappointments. Plans had been made, once upon an ancient day, for I and the Gypsy to be reunited there, but hearts change and fires blow with strange winds and she thought better of it, concerned I would not desert my beloved Los Angeles. I left it for lesser passions than mine for her, saving the lives and dreams of others as I immolated mine own. Sad, but irrevocable.

But, as it crushes me, it reminds me of the colour of kisses made regent in thoughts and dreams and actions. It floods me with a sense of purpose, of hope. She was one of the unexpected muses, unsought but beautiful and my soul rested a season in her arms. I would not have survived, not as anything approaching myself, were it not for her, cushioning me from the fiery needles of my loneliness and memory.

I am many things to many people. Some are truth. Some are illusion. Some are riddle inexplicable and ridiculous in their complexity. I know who I am. I know what I am. And, although sometimes I fail in my purpose, I still recall it well.

In the end, I'm just looking for something as sweet as tupelo honey and my angel of the first degree, and damned to my own song of remorse, sung in solitude.

But still intent on chivalry.

bright and deadly tour

This June, the tour of tours. We have begun the amomancies, bright and deadly.

Cities under evaluation include Amarillo (a mortal lock), Raliegh-Durham (NC), Mobile, Birmingham, Houston, New Orleans, Phoenix, Greenville (SC), Tucson, Washington (DC), Louisville, Baltimore, Manassas, San Diego, Birmingham, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Salinas (CA), Monterey, Tampa, Austin, Las Vegas.

Criteria: Venue, compensation, accomodations, connection.

Want to get involved? Ideas, assistance, connections, all appreciated. Input on ideas, sponsorships, etc. The fulcrum point will be Amarillo, TX, the weekend of June 8-9.

Prince and the New Putrid Generation

Ah, Wednesday morning. Why did the freak show that is American Idol leave a bad taste in my mouth by trading on the name and home city of Prince? Dunno. It seemed almost sacrilegious, though. And yes, they had many, many contestants that truly brought the bad.

Have much to do today. Much to do. Several people to follow up with regarding ome freelance opportunities while I am waiting for the next glass slipper.

Thanks to everyone who is (are?) being so helpful and supportive. Curious dreams last night. Curious dreams.

the open microphone...is closed

Well, I'm back. Er. The open microphone event...it was a bust. Totally.

I think I'll hang that up now. I gave it a shot, but the market for open microphone events locally just isn't there, even when sponsored by a major bookstore chain. Thanks to Barnes & Noble for their efforts, I was glad to partner with them.

I think I'll go back to feature readings.

Had a moment earlier, went and visited with old friends who are moving. Sadness. The world hollows and I fall into the sky. I hate losing friends, although I know they are not truly leaving my life, just the immediate corner of it.

I've let it be known that I am shopping around to do some freelance work, grant and proposal development, mostly. Not many people have my level of experience in those areas, I've been the lead or member on teams for more than a billion dollars worth of awards. Process improvement is my specialty, but I can craft an executive summary or a business case that would make the Donald give up his comb over. And the money is nice, something I'll need if I am to go West.

Things to do, people to see, dreams to dream and to fulfill.

Tuesday is named for the One-Handed Norse God of War

It's cold here...the temperature dropped nearly thirty degrees in the last twenty-four hours. Brrr.

I have a busy day before me, so I am up and rolling early. Long day. Think I'll survive. It's topped by my hosting duties at tonight's open microphone event at Barnes & Noble. I've promised myself to not host them in the future if we can't get a better turnout than we have in the past. Considering the weather forecast (snow) and the television competition (American Idol starts) and the fact that even Tag can't make it, owing to a scheduling conflict, it doesn't look good.

Have a great day, I'll try to check in later.

Good morning, Milady.

The New Podcast is...

The new podcast is up...Daniel S. McTaggart and myself discussing our book "Psalms of the Monster River Cult". No mention of Jaz, anywhere in the show, for you who are sick of me talking about her 24/7 (I think I even talk about her in my sleep).

From Out of the City for January 15, 2007

Enjoi.

(You know I adore you Jaz...but I do have a life of my own...)

on the migratory patterns of poets

I woke up this morning. Not from a dream, like I had so many times recently, but into one.

Being a severe practitioner of lucid dreaming, I often do not know or care where the line between reality and dreams begins and ends. I try to comport myself in my dreams as I would in real life, and in real life take nothing for granted. You never know.

This morning it came. I knew it would. The call. No, not some ex-lover asking for forgiveness for their lies. Not the spouse of an ex-lover, telling me I'm a dead man walking. Not a bill collector. It didn't come over a metallic box of circuits.

It was the call of home. Not home as most define it, but home. Home. Like a vague remembrance of the smell of cinnamon in the kitchen when your mother is baking. Home. Home. Like the strange stirring when you smell a familiar old perfume...Beautiful, Emeraude, Seven Powers. Home. Home. Home. Your cells know it before you realize it in your head, before your mind registers it, your heart is already quickening. Home.

I got up and looked at my bank account. Just enough money, if I left this morning, to make it to Los Angeles, on fumes. I could take everything I have left after two divorces and three cross-country moves, pile it into my car and go. I'd be kissing the Pacific on Wednesday. Home.

The Santa Ana Winds have passed for this year. I caught their edge when I went to my daughter's wedding. Home. I won't miss them next year, I'll stand at the edge of the high desert and feel my skin being blasted by the sand in the wind as I listen to the creaking windmills. Home.

I am being called home. Home. Home to live? Home. Home to die? Home. Home to love?

I do not know, but the call is unmistakeable and profound and powerful and will only grow in strength until it becomes a constant distraction as long a I face anyway but West. Home. Home. Home.

Just two more vows to keep before I can go.

Home.

MLK Day

Ah, Monday morning. Martin Luther King, Jr., Day. I remember hearing the word when he was killed. Killed, ironically, for asking people to stop hurting each other. Killed in a small window of time that also saw the assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy, the brother of slain President John F. Kennedy and a rising candidate for the Presidency in and of his own right.

I still hear people occasionally jeering the decision to mark King's life and death. Sad people. People for whom hate and anger come easy and often. For whom racial epithets are joking codewords for real prejudice, burned into their hearts and minds and souls.

Dr. King had his flaws, but he was a good man. No, not elected to any governmental position. Not a military leader. But seeing how killing is wrong, in Christian ethics, and the world seems to accept with a shrug that all politicians lie, neither of these disqualify him from being, on the balance, a good man. A man that mattered, who worked to undo the evil around him.

What have you, or even I, done of such merit that we should have room to criticize him? When you have done as much to advance Christian values in the world as Dr. King did, you can criticize him.

Of course, if you are that sort of person, to have done so much good in the world, criticizing another person would not be on your mind or in your heart.

Thank you Dr. King, for sharing your dream with us. We're working on it, still.

podcast tomorrow

No podcast...yet. That's tomorrow, because Tag and I need to finish it up.

Funny. I just wrote a long dissertation that basic gave away every secret to what makes me tick.

Then, I deleted it.

Why? Even my ex-wives never got that information. I'm still waiting for the ultimate muse to surrender that. Maybe then, one day, I can relax.

Until then, I'll keep my crypt under lock and key. I forged the lock. I own the only key.

by Milady's request

Milady Jaz hath requested I post a fresh headshot. So, I grabbed the diigital camera and squeezed off a shot. It's not artistic, my hair looks like hell, and I didn't airbrush it or anything, but it is honest and real and me.

Re-evaluating the Muses

I sat down with the poet the other day and was working on updating my matrix of the muses. He was forthcoming, but suggested that instead of worrying so much about the details of the muses, just up to the point they may think I'm revealing their identities, I may wish to focus on their emotional and spiritual attributes.

Interesting notion, sez I.

So I made a list of the muses that seem to be the most interesting, to me and his readers, and set to analyzing his poetry for cues and clues. Here's my rundown. I limited myself to five adjectives, and they had to be non-physically descriptive. Some received negative descriptors, but remember this is from the poet's writings, and even he admits that what he writes is reactive not only to the actions and words of the people, but also to his own prejudices. I culled the really, really bad words.

ALABASTER: Innocent, standoffish, sweet, mercurial, confused.
PSYCHE: Brilliant, passionate, fierce, clever, betrayed.
VALKYRIE: Playful, responsible, defensive, angry, vengeful.
PANTHER: Confused, flirtatious, mercurial, capricious, sad.
GOLDENHEART: Gentle, dark, wistful, hopeful, sweet.
THE TRUTH: Bright, clever, curious, tempting, flighty.
BRIGIT: Dominant, conflicted, disloyal, talented, lost.
THE MAD GYPSY: Kind, passionate, questing, reserved, complicated.
LEOPARD: Needy, untamed, passive, meandering, caring.
JAZ: Passionate, independent, intense, guarded, funny.

There are other muses to work up, but I thought I'd work from this pose on a handful of the key ones, based purely on his public (and private) writings. what do you think? There were a few descriptors I had to jettison (without telling you whom they were applied to): Cruel, amoral, cowardly, promiscuous, parasitic, vicious, bitter, self-destructive, incompetent, slanderous, unforgiving, unrepentant, dishonest, pathetic, sociopathic and unworthy. I won't say who those were to (but they applied to only 5 of the 10....ouch to be them when his memoirs surface).

Hey, Jaz...liked the pajama party. I wish he'd had a camera with him.

Jaz and the Alien Pajama Party

Some of you may have noted my absence a few days ago, and I owe you all an honest explanation.

Truth is, last weekend, Jaz was kidnapped by space aliens. It was rough for a few days, but I had posted an offer to exchange Venus Butterfly lessons for aliens in exchange for passage on a UFO and got lucky pretty quickly.

It took a few hours, but we eventually tracked down the Andromedans who'd jacked Jaz...but by the time I caught up with them, it was too late. She'd got them to throw an intergalactic pajama party and they were all having a great time.

I entered the zero-gee chamber to find a chaos of dozens of female gendered aliens of various races, as well as my own Jaz, floating around a tri-v system, watching "The Notebook", "Love Actually" and a Tau Ceti 6 soft core comedy about three Glarks in love with the same Fnarg.

They were eating massive amounts of ice cream, especially rocky road and gloackoberry ripple. There was a pillow fight in constant effect that had filled the air with the tufted nad feathers of the red-toothed bohabba bird. And there was a terrarium filled with Northern California crabcakes, barking at the action in their peculiar lisping bark, immortalized in my poem "Northern California Crabcakes and their Peculiar Lisping Bark".

Jaz saw me right away and launched a sporkful of the rocky road ice cream in my general direction to get my attention. There were a lot of others in the room, so I launched myself off of one of the pillars and did a pretty good three-carom shot off various walls and fixtures to land near her.

We spoke briefly and she wanted to hang out and chill with the aliens, who were having a spontaneous burping contest later that Jaz felt she had an excellent chance to win since the only real competition was a Pluvian snossbinder named Leah, who was halfway into her bluffbeer and thus would probably not be able to get sufficient volume without wetting herself, which amongst snossbinders can cause spontaneous combustion.

So I caught a freighter back via Proxima Centauri, trading tissue samples for spacefare and made it back by Wednesday (thank you, timelords). I heard from Jaz earlier today and the party is still going on. She didn't promise she'd be back right away or even soon, but I promised her I'd hang out and wait. She did encourage me to let you all know the true story (which is actually much longer and more complicated than all of this, but what can I say?)

So, there you have it, the full and true story of most of what was wrong with this week. Oh, and Jaz looked great in the black silk pajama pants and the hnakra-skin camisole. Yum.

Warm Breath...

I was going over some of my catalog today and hit the classic erotic poem "Warm Breath Stirs Soft Flesh". The history of that poem is complicated, and probably best not stated in so family oriented of a forum as this. For this listing of it, I dedicate it to Jaz, which is how it should be.

Damn...when I get it right, I get it right.

Warm Breath Stirs Soft Flesh

warm breath stirs soft flesh and feathery hairs
disused to such sensations, embers stirred
from a fire long forgotten
or never caught.
kindling left untempted
by the tongues of flame and sparks
in darkness, begging.

wordless words that commune a tune
noted more for harmony than melody,
tempo'd tempting in fingertip concussions,
soft and subtle subtext for the next
thunder under a heaven obscured
to eyes closed to feel the storm,
warm and sudden.

cleansing memory of emotions
misplaced for the moment as we taste
a feast released in senses
awakened in the depths of the plutonic.
an irony of purity and hasted chastity
in unworn corners of hearts parted
by the sheen of the unseen silence.

they are more to explorations than explanations
of the purpose of our propositions.
fair and feral you are, a scar
upon many hearts that misplayed their part
in bidding with copper for gold and mithral.
here, here is the familiar stranger, danger
only if the door is left open for dreams.

the room will not recall your name.
the sheets will fold away your holy oils,
raised to a new alchemy by a fusion
in which confusion and illusion played roles
rolled out in soft surrenders and vague victories
against the horded hoards of passions.
we will be but memories of uncertain times.

you will leave within me a shadow.
a shadow which does not fade in light
for I own my own dark corners and I will feed it
and seed it and bleed it for my own blood when
the thin skin no longer holds high the horizon
like Atlas falling to one knee with a groan.
and it is my duty to your beauty to recall.


William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.

Damn, I miss the fire. It calls me, nightly. And one day, soon, I will answer to it, for it is my native wind. I pray that the limbs on which I lay my trust will be worthy to the journey, for I am weary.

the victory of this life

I'm working on a new piece for release tomorrow, as well as a new podcast. Keep your eyes and ears open, the spirit is upon me.

Thanks again to everyone who was so patient when I was distracted. Special thanks to K and R, who helped me keep things sane. Your payment is in the mail.

I had a dream the other night, a sort of sequel to The Nosferatu's Dream. As I recall, I once again faced that malevolence, and I heard a mocking voice inside my head say "You don't know when to quit, do you?" and I replied, somewhat under my own breath,

"Yes. Once you accept the fact that I've won."

I've had some reverses in this life, made some bad choices, listened to the wrong voices and accepted people into my sphere I would've been better served calling the cops the first time they knocked on my door. But, on the whole, it has been and remains a good life. One of purpose, of love, of hope. One day I will die, but not by my own hand. One day I will stop loving, but that will be when the worms eat the very flesh from my bones and I am not of this life anymore, and I will be part of a different sphere, a different love.

That I have chosen, wisely or not, to lose my heart is a marvel to me, on the intellectual side of it all. It is an invitation to lies, betrayal, disillusionment and loss.

But it is also an evocation of hope, of truth, of faith and of completion of a them my life exists to demonstrate. I love my children, I love my friends and family, and I am quite capable of loving again a woman willing to step into my sphere when she feels the willingness to join me. This is not defeat. This is a victory. That I can believe in someone who is not yet ready to believe in themselves is a beautiful thing, for I am seeing them with eyes a bit wider and wiser than they have allowed themselves.

yard sale at the Sapphire Palace?

Hey, looking for the perfect Valentine's Day gift?

101 Great Love Poems at eBay

I am selling an autographed, uncirculated 1st edition of my 2002 collection of love poems. The hardback. Yeah, that one. So, go buy it. I could use the cash, and you could use the thoughtfulness points with your lover. Despite my own, personal ineptitude in my personal life, I am great at getting other people laid.

More V-Day presents to come this season...

Back later...have a planet to conquer, a destiny to fulfill and a love to immortalize.

All in all, a busy day. (Sorry I missed your message last night, Jaz, (pout))

in response to a question

I do not want anyone, in any way, to interpret my mood or situation to be reflective of my respect, affection or passion for Jaz. We are neither at a point geographically or in the evolution of our relationship where I would ask for or expect her emotional support in these times. Former lovers know that my moods when in the eye of the storm surpass the ability of anyone to ride alongside into these winds of fire.

Jaz remains my angel, my goddess, my muse. You should read and hear all she is inspiring, you have seen not even the tip of the iceberg. There is magic in my soul for the first time in years, and I fight my battles alone, but with a resolve of a man remembering that there are purposes to my survival.

Kittens Fall

It's been a jungle of a week. Well, actually, a jungle of a year. Make that a decade, and to a lesser degeree, a lifetime.

There are times I lay aside the stripes that make survival of a greater ease, attempting to rise above the state of my environment, my surroundings. It is not an elitist thing, it is a sentience thing. I believe in things greater than the day to day.

That makes me a dichotomy and a conundrum, even to myself, on occasion. It also complicates my life in ways you can't imagine if your worst problem is mired in the day to day or, rather, in your day to day.

Memory is the curse of those who care. Good line. Glad I wrote it. In the quotable works of the Romantic Poet of the Internet (some days I am effing tired of that sobriquet) it has a place. But memory is not the only curse of sentience. We live in a graceless age. But, having not lived in other times, how are you or I to know that it has not always been so. Again, the issue of the now comes forward, the now might always have been thus.

Having a larger brain, perhaps Neanderthal Man achieved true self-swareness before Cro-Magnon and that's why the latter survived...sentience is not a good survival tool, if the necessity of actions for survival are rooted in the here and now, in an hostile environment. A sentient being is less likely to win a barfight, but more likely to build a society or plan for a future catastrophe on a global scale.

The sentient beings advance the environment in which the non-sentients fight to survive, making (ideally) the environment less hostile (and by environment I am not referring to it in an ecological sense, but as the world around them).

A lot of people who are friends and loved one have taken it on the chin this week (I, as well, actually), and I have been busy diverting all resource I can to solving problems, from my children to my past proteges, these are all people who need (yes, need) an outside force to help make their environment more conducive to survival, to ease of life, and I am not so cynical to believe the line I sometimes quote from a song about the kitten managing to get down out of the tree whether or not you ever show up.

Sometimes, the kitten dies. And I am not so debased of a soul to just shrug and say "well, kittens die". It would be easier to do so. Simpler, less stressful, to be sure. But morally vacant, and certainly not the act of a sentient being with an ounce of empathy remaining. I'll rescue who I can, ease those who can't avoid their problems and be available as empathetic ear to those I can do naught for.

There are times I feel like a human battery, like the poor souls in "The Matrix", turned into energy sources for a conqueror. But this is a place in the universe I have chosen to put myself in, and if you think a decade (or a lifetime) of venom does anything more than make my eyes water, you have severely misjudged the value of sentience.

Plug me in and point me to the nearest kitten in a tree.

The Amomancer Regrets

The poet is a bit under the weather and has asked me to extend his regrets that he will not be posting this morning.

He wishes all his regular readers well, and suggests they take the time to review favorite posts and comments and to leave their own comment.

-E.J.

goodbye, WFDV

It's not up there with the demolition of a national landmark or the death of a beloved cultural icon, but it is time to lay a legacy to rest.

wfdv@aol.com has reached the end of the road.

I took up that name, my monogram, more than a decade ago. It has seen my image, my fortunes and my careers flare and wane and flare again. It was there for many of my best and worst moments. Some of my closest frinds I met through the old AOL Writers Club, where I was a columnist and a daily presence.

Now, it is just another piece of virtual litter. I don't keep up with it, I check the mail in it every few weeks, and there is rarely anything of interest, except from the brother who hasn't figured it out that I haven't really used that account in forever.

So. The end of this month, I'm cancelling the account that once held the email accounts of myself, both ex-wives, all of my children. I'm moving on, and away. Finding new angles and angels. And getting on with it.

Someone will probably pick it up, some really deranged fan, some online predator looking to trade on that monogram. That's part of the reason I've kept it so long. But it's not really worth it anymore. I've grown up, and so has the world around me.

Time to move along.

eros in the house of the amomancer

For those of you who missed it, today's posting on the amomancer blog (http://amomancer.blogspot.com) is my previously unreleased work "feeling you cry out" which has been the source of much reader speculation and curiosity.

I am considering an offer to do a CD entirely of erotic poetry. Anyone want to comment on this idea?

There are certain works, such as "feeling you cry out", that would be a lock to be on such a CD. My vaults include some test versions of both naked reads and musically enhanced versions of several pieces. (What else does a romantique do in exile?)

a little venting is good for the soul

For about the tenth time in the last week, I have heard someone express concern about making me mad (the ironic thing, was in least two of these cases it was people who had thought it odd that I had asked them if I had angered them).

Human dynamics are a problem. I suck at them. We all suck at them. No matter what some television huckster tells you, there is no absolute solution to the problem, no magic book or videotape that will cure the condition human. Feedback, face to face, is problematic. Feedback over the telephone or online is often disastrous. People read things in your voice or your choice of words in an email that just are not there. If you write two emails over a week's time to the same person, and they only check their emails once a week, it looks like you are neurotic for having written twice, if you do the same thing and they check their emails twice a day, you look neglectful or off in a snit.

McCroskey teaches that feedback is an essential part of the communications dynamic. In a para-communicative world (emails, text messages and even telephone conversations lack the feedback levels of personal communication) we often have to read our own meaning into the rosetta stones we pick up in our in boxes.

To clarify matters, anger is a fairly foreign emotion to me, reserved for only truly egregious sins. I get angry over a guy who hits his girlfriend or wife. I get angry over politicians sending other people's kids to die in order to protect their own stupidity or perfidy. I get angry over betrayal. Real betrayal. I trust most people to act to form (Joe Gideon in "All That Jazz" speaks of looking for the worst in people, a little bit of himself, and usually finding it). I don't think I'm a bad person, but I know I have flaws, everyone has them. I accept that.

When I say I trust people to act to form, that means I create a mental model of them and trust them only as far and in matters I know them to be trustworthy, otherwise I would feel betrayed all the time, as I have yet to meet a truly kind hearted person in this life. Some more gentle than others, some more honest than others, none red-lining the perfection meter, and that's how people are. I accept that. It doesn't mean I have given up on caring what happens to a friend who is going through a rough spot, or just sigh and shrug when someone says they'll be somewhere at a certain time and never shows up, but it means I have to forgive them, it's part of my theology, part of my self-definition, to all you DSM-IV fans out there.

Even E.J., whom I know to be devoted to my legacy, will turn on me when the situation calls for it. I have been at one time or another, abandoned or betrayed by almost everyone I have ever trusted. It is part of human nature. I accept it without judgement, without cynicism. People have their agendae, accepting that is part of growing up. When I have tried to rise above that, to be of a truly charitable heart, I most often encounter perplexed souls who want to know what I am up to.

Those are the people I feel sorry for, but not angry with. But then, they get angry because you feel sorry for them. Sigh. Everyone wants to live life on their own terms, but no one wants to accept that you can't control everything, including the hearts and minds of others.

I know there will be friends who will read this and think it is about them, never imagining that I actually have other friends besides them (what do they think I do with the other 23-1/2 hours of the day, sit in a closet and wait for them?). As I write this, I am actually smiling a knowing smile, because I have been on all sides of that equation, more than once.

I love you all, in my own way, accept you all for what you are and think you want to be, and believ that all people have some good int hem. Argue if you must, but you're wrong. And that's part of what, as my friend Twist would say, makes me who I am.

a rare late day comment.

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe...

We're resetting the bar, the Gods and I, the Gods of Love. Yeah, I'm going to continue the podcast for poetry, probably even stabilize it, but we're going into the studio to begin work on something...big. The recent successes with the new stuff have been heady and we want to try something even grander, even more extreme.

Just a warning, the Gods came down to play and they plan to stay. In the absence of certain elements in my life, the music is the "morsels and mould" of "Horizon", to sustain me...I gather strength from it as I bleed out into it, a very strange dynamic...it actual seems to be making me...different. Feral, darker, more eloquent, and more in connection with my creative center.

Thanks to all for their unquestioning support. Perhaps Joe Gideon was right, to believe that a creative artist can be admired, but not loved, but we shall see, when the final penstrokes fall like crimson petals on a bed of white silk, what was the blossom and what was the seed.

dreams and seductions

Having some technical problems with my connection this morning...but I am alive.

Reminding everyone that next Tueday I will be appearing at Barnes & Noble in Morgantown, WV, as host of an open microphone.

Also, for those of you who procrastinated, I have word from my publisher that it will take up to a month to completely de-distribute LOVE GODS OF A FORGOTTEN RELIGION and FROM AN UNEXPECTED QUARTER. Ironic: They won't be off the distribution list until just about Valentine's Day...

But, if you haven't yet bought an archive copy of either volume...head to Amazon or Barnes & Noble or wherever you get your dreams and seductions and get one.

Me, I'm already laying the foundations for the next half-dozen volumes, including INAMORATA.

Jaz, best wishes and an encouraging, soft word in your ear for this morning. Glad to see you writing again. I hope you and K liked the trinkets.

the dark side peers out

Ladies, ladies, ladies. Let's comport ourselves as grownups around here. Cattiness, while it has a certain inherent sexiness whilst at least theoretically being done over me (K being J's second in the word duels) might lead people to think I live in a virtual biker bar. No blasters!

Actually, I have learned to stay out of it. As long as there are no fatalities or lawsuits, I'm content to keep to my creative outlets. It is actually a little bracing to feel so beloved that otherwise well-behaved young women would shadowbox over me, or at least my turf. Hmm, it is all so virtual, not quite the same as a sweaty, real-life catfight on a waterbed in teddies, is it?

I am pleased with the visceral response to "Cut Me"...it is nice to let the dark lord within me run loose for four minutes or so...normally the only room I let him out in does not have a microphone. Maybe I need to explore this element in my work more.

Do you like the reference to Lord Byron? He was a horny, predatory monster in his youth. And his adulthood. Hey, I guess he never grew out of it. Me, I am less Byron than Vicomte de Valmont when the mood is upon me; that I have successfully banked my fires now for these past few years is nothing short of miraculous to me, knowing me as I do. I should be elected Pope.

But that would never do, now, would it. Better to be the Amomancer. Not so many rules. And my bodyguards are much, much prettier.

To the crimson and black walls of the royal bedchamber in the Sapphire Palace!

The New Podcast (2007/01/07) is Up

The new podcast, featuring "Skyscraper Ambition" and "Cut Me", is up...

From Out of the City, 2007/01/07

Enjoy. You may find it a little intense and dark. Thanks, Jaz. And thanks, to the guys in the band.

My friend, K

My friend K is fantastic.  While we may disagree politically, she is bright, vivacious and a loyal and true friend.  She has kept me positive at times when it was easy to go negative, encouraged my interest in Jaz (although I think she thinks I'm nuts) and plays a blistering game of Literati on Yahoo Games. 

I trust her, and that says a lot.  I know she has my back when the chips are down. She's one of the key reasons why I miss California. And she's incredibly, edibly hot. If I was not completely, blindingly devoted to my Jaz, and K was available...who knows? And she's a redhead.

I owed her the kind truth comments for having made fun of her the other day. I may screw up, but I at least try to make amends.

lyric: Cut Me

Okay, we laid down the bassline and the high end guitar. And I listened. I listened. Like H.R. Giger, who sprays his canvas with his airbrush and looks to see the monsters emerge. I won't say who or what i meditated on, but the lyric emerged, aggressively. Darkly, and with a strange violent sexuality to it.

It is subject to slight changes as we tailor the vocals, but I think this is sufficiently dark for the challange made. I am actually pleased with the integration of the lyric and the music. If we have it ready by tonight it may find its way into tonight's podcast, along with "Skyscraper Ambition", which came out quite nicely (although my friend Theo, in Hungary, says there's too much reverb).

Here it is:

Cut Me

cut me
cut me in my sleep
not too deep
just enough to see the welling red
bow your head
and drink my life
in tender sips
through tainted lips
and with gentle laps
of your soft warm tongue

cut me
cut me deep
in my sleep
so you can taste my iron
like a fantasy of Byron
dark you kiss
as you lick me dry
and then you try
to wake my cooling frame
so I might hold you in your pain

cut me
cut me with your blade
for memory made
when I have made you bleed
in feral need
to plunge my seed
deep inside your shell
my passions swell
when I feel you drink
and know your darkest lust


William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.

Now I know why I have slipped into the shadows. It was necessary to write this. Thanks again to my preconscious, which always seems to know what is needed to create, even if it is not the most comfortable fit for streetwear.

Sunday Morning, and All That Jazz

Okay...enough. I've caught up on my sleep, forced myself to re-read my most recent scribblings and listen to my recordings, and feel a bit better. Probably just another classic case of over-extension (you have no idea how many irons I keep in the fire from moment to moment...I recently joked that Jaz leads a double or triple life...then I lead the life of the faceted sphere of my old series of poems (Know how many facets a diamond has? 58 in the "modern round brilliant cut. Slacker.)).

I'm working with a new protege (she knows who she is) and her work is extremely evocative. It reads like much of my work from about a decade ago. Which of course creates an emotional time warp in my head. Add to that the nakedly emotional and somewhat erotic aspect of some of her work and it is like running an obstacle course: Exhilarating but still exhausting.

But if you don't get tired, you aren't doing anything.

I sat down an re-watched "All That Jazz" the other evening, which also tunnels inside my psyche. I mentioned the film the other day as my favourite and someone asked me to talk about the film, so I will, in brief, right here.

Bob Fosse, for those of you unfamiliar with the man, was a director and choreographer who is considered one of the giants of broadway. Seen "Chicago"? That was the musical he was working on when he had a heart attack and the modern version of it still bears many of his stylistic earmarks. Paula Abdul's video "Cold Hearted Snake" is an homage to a scene from this movie entitled "Air-rotica". He directed "Cabaret" and "Lenny" as well as several other films. The list goes on and on and on.

This film is Fosse's self-indictment of the creative artist as a self-destructive asshole. His lead character Joe Gideon, played to an Academy Award (the film won 5 Oscars) nomination by Roy Scheider, is a choreographer and director who can't keep himself out of trouble with his womanizing, his drinking and his pills. He's flirting with death, literally (played by Jessica Lange in the role that brought her back from the career disaster that was "King Kong") and running out of time. The only thing in this life he cares about, besides his art, is his 12 year old daughter Michelle (Coincidentally, my daughter's middle name. No, not coincidentally.).

We watch him editing a new movie he directed (based on his experiences editing the film "Lenny), organizing a new Broadway show and being an ass to his girlfriend Katie, played by actress/dancer and all-around lust-object Ann Reinking, who was Fosse's girlfriend at the time the events this movie is based on actually occurred. It must have been strange for her to go through on screen some of the same things she went through in real life.

The musical numbers in this film serve two functions: First, many of them are necessary to show us his work and creative process (the "Air-rotica" sequence is a cathartic moment for him, where he can depict on stage the futility of his libido. The second function is to provide us with elaborately staged hallucinations when he is struck down by a heart attack, depicting his own awareness of his own failings as a person, a husband and a father.

In real life, Fosse survived the heart attack, and Chicago made it to the stage. Although Fosse's original vision of the song "Razzle Dazzle" being an orgy on the courthouse steps was changed (yes, kids, "Air-rotica" was for real). The finale to the film features a near-death Joe Gideon being joined by Ben Vereen for a recap of his miserable life, in an elaborate staged version of "Bye Bye Love" renamed "Bye Bye Life". I have asked the song to be played at my funeral.

So there it is...

A malefic ennui?

The poet sent me an email earlier that said simply

"A malefic ennui descends and I am going back into my cage for the time being."

Okay, who has been aggravating him this time? I welcome his more epic moods, he writes well (just look at all that his adoration of Jaz has wrought) from them. Just wanting to see who to blame or credit for the next wave of existential angst.

I have been working on an update to the page of his website that analyzes his muses, especially now that we have a new one (Will he just pick one and stick with her for the rest of his life? I hate editing the damn page.) I'm trying to get him to submit to an interview on the topic of his current a-muse-ment, but he is being coy. I think she is another who accepts the crown but then doesn't know what to do with it and that makes him undesirous of commenting too much (remember the Panther? she had two gears: overdrive and reverse...I am amazed he's alive).

LA will be good for him. The sooner he is back "home" the better. He'll relax, he'll find himself a nice loft weasel and get laid. A lot. Then write wonderfully overwrought poetry about the pain of giving up on love for the necessity of the comfort of sex (see Luscher, Max).

Nah. The first woman he sleeps with, having gone this far, he'll fall in love with, that's why he's being so cautious. He's only really opened up to one woman in what, three years? He's set himself up for a disaster to rival Brigit (the crimson panther), who saved him from his addiction to the Panther (the black panther), then immediately started screwing around on him (it is a lot more complicated than that, but why go into it all?). We won't even go into the cluster that was his marriage to the Leopard (the golden panther?). Maybe he should rename his new muse the Tiger, or the Jaguar, or the Tabby? Maybe the purple panther? Or maybe the Leopard was not the golden panther of his dream, just a convenient illusion (he said as much in one long email he wrote me, once, on that topic). My head hurts, and I didn't know hardly any of these players, imagine what it must be like to live in the brainsoup of remembering every word and action and moment.

God love him, he's fulfilled his poem "TESTAMENT": He's the last of his breed, the first of his species. That has to be a painful and lonely perch, on the cliffs above Kyrienar. He's earned his "malefic ennui" (I had to look it up).

finding yourself in a fresh bed

It is curious to note how different women approach me. Some bearing gifts (or gifs). Some with great opening lines, some with earnest expressions of interest in my work or my person. Some with questions, some with rules. Some thanking me for pasts that never were, some challenging me to futures not to be. Some only reaching out when they want a handout, some only when they know they are welcome, some passing through to lob a few stray kisses and leave behind their attar, like a scar on a lonely heart. One forbidding me buying her gifts. Another only talks to me when she needs a favour.

It's a complicated universe. Mostly because we are all so busy hiding behind illusions and constructions that we forget who we are. If you tell yourself a lie often enough, you start to believe it. When you sit still and ask yourself some honest questions, sometimes reality comes into focus and it doesn't look a lot like what you thought it was a minute, an hour, a year, a decade, a lifetime ago.

And, believe it or not, that is exciting. A close friend recently said she was trying to find herself. I understand that, I know so many people who have invoked those very words (I try to avoid them, as they are very cliche and I try to avoid cliches like the plague). I wish her well on the journey, but it is the acres of diamonds journey. Usually we already have who we are, we just didn't believe it, and start our search by journeying as far away from ourselves as possible, thinking this will cleanse the emotional palate and revitalize our tired eyes. I know most who I am when I shut down the outside world and meditate (yes, Lauri, I meditate) on the essence of who I am. It's funny, I can;t recall an interview where an interviewer really asked who I am...they usually open with "Who did you write this poem about?" or "Did you ever sleep with anyone famous?" (I chide them that anyone I sleep with becomes famous...)

I just got through wrenching out another song (yes, I've dropped the pretense, even though my vocals are closer to dramatic spoken word readings than singing, these one-eyed humpbacked crossbreeds of music and poetry are songs...) I used the new poem "Skyscraper Ambition" (one metaphoric hint: Jaz is very tall) and found the right guitar riff and bass line and drums to impart the sexual malevolence implicit in what I wrote (kids, this poem is not about visiting the big city...unless there's someone waiting for you in your hotel room there with lustful intentions).

I'll share it later, after I am through futzing around with the final mix. Again, thanks for the inspiration...I know you have trouble sometimes figuring out what to do with the crown you accepted, but just relax...no one here means you any harm. Unless, of course, that's something you'd like. (grin)

a quick tour of the soundfield

I was going over the files resident at archive.org that I have recorded, and thought I should share my list of what I think are the cream:

Centaur A sweet piece of electronica, romantic and simple. Inspired by Jaz. (02:34)

Beasts of Legend A melodic arc of several pieces, "My Electric Lady", "Brisant Revelations", "Shards of Light", "Radiant Tigers", "aureate", "Pellinore, watching from across the room" and "glass roses". The build is incredible, the guitar makes the hair on the back of my neck still stand up after a hundred listenings, I put the damn thing together and admit...the drum to guitar lead-in to "Radiant Tigers" may be the best intro I'll ever do. Inspired by Psyche, the Leopard, Brigit, the Panther, The Mad Gypsy, Alisha and Abstra. Beasts of legend, you bet. (15:29)

DARFUR (Jesus Wept) Whatever your politics, if you do not accept our complicity and the necessity of Western intervention in this humanitarian crisis, you should be ashamed of yourself. (04:10)

Bragi to Freya, on his deathbed Beatnik style read with intro. A little hazy on the engineering side, but that's part of the organic nature of it. (03:11)

Kisses for Karma Despite the horns that jump out from behind the sofa at the 01:35 mark, I think it is a solid read with nice music. Plus, it is a meaningful piece to me, the eternal self-questioning when courting. (03:15)

Chrysalis From the "Pink Jade" works...a piece about an earnest lover's oath to do what is best for his intended. (01:54)

Mood Romantique Minimalist music (if a touch too loud) to a surprisingly eloquent and testosterone-laced reading of "Soubrette", "The Patchwork Skirt of My Love", "Damascus III", "From Out of the City" and "Cithara Song, strummed lightly as the sun leaps the horizon". Pieces inspired by the Leopard, the Goldenheart, the Leopard, Abstra and Alisha. (06:40)

Valentine's Day 2006: Romantic Mood A nice swirl of jazz-tinged recitation of several works: "The Unicorns", "Sacred Smile", "Monument", "Damascus III", "The Patchwork Skirt of My Love", "Tread Softly", "Love Gods of a Forgotten Religion", "We Owe Debt to Memory", "A Kiss is an Act of Bravery" and "Soubrette". Inspired by Psyche, the Leopard, Psyche, the Leopard, the Goldenheart, Psyche, Brigit, Abstra, Selke and the Leopard. (20:24)

All in all, just under an hour worth of listening. There's a few other pieces I might suggest, and a lot of the stuff I host there is podcasts, which started very raw and thus I am kinda/sorta embarrassed whn they are listened to, but ts part of this history and the mystery.