final sunday

I am cast out.
orphaned.
left for dead by the side of a wide road
so that others can swerve
to miss my fading form.
nothing warm
comes from this.
another legacy of ashes
left on my tongue
the taste of dung
and vinegar
from an apple orchard
I had once considered
a sanctuary.

the colding feat.
I am incomplete
and competing for sustenance
is not in my nature.
I will drag myself
into the dark
that I may not offend
those for whom
pain
is too intimate.
and I will find
myself.  unbroken
once I fit 
all the pieces.

drinking stagnation.
the hunger unabated.
but I will bind my wounds.
plant fists to earth and roar.
sore in a thousand places.
it is good you do not 
have to see me like this,
the tattered, battered man,
the orphan of Aphrodite.
but I will not change
my coat of arms.
I will still be a priest to your divinity.
and I will love you
every time I feel my hollow soul.


William F. DeVault.  all rights reserved.

the edits are done

and "Selected Poems and Passions:  1996-2004" is slotted for release sometime next month...either August 16th (my birthday) or August 12th (the first day of the apple harvest, consistent with my poem "matrimony" from "The Sacraments" within the White Sunday poems).

it all gets so complicated.

some poems got cut by my editor, M.K., as did the use of the faux pen-and-ink drawings I have included in a few of my past books.  Her position...was disappointing, but I accept her taste and judgement.  she even made a few minor structural changes to a few pieces that needed them.

she solved the issue of the line-wraps for "aureate" in an elegant manner that I would not have accepted had it not been so well executed, so she out smarted me.  I may have to re-evaluate my generic loathing of all editors.  Dammit.

The MonArts Reading...and some news

First off, let me thank Ro Brooks of the Monongalia Arts Center and Scott Emerson of the Morgantown Poets for hosting me last Friday.  Also, to WBOY-TV Channel 12 for sending someone down to interview me.  I had fun.  Made a few bucks for the Morgantown Poets.  Saw a few familiar faces, and many new ones.

If you weren't there, or were there and not paying attention, you missed a few news items:

First off, my book "Orphan" will keep its name when it comes out next year. I had pushed for a title change, but my all-powerful and all-wise editor vetoed the change to "Orpheus' Orphans".  I will have my revenge.

Secondly, the great Larry Jaffe, founder of Poets for Human Rights, is writing the foreword to "Selected Poems and Passions:  1996-2004".  It is due out August 16th of this year.

Finally, I enjoyed getting back out on the road so much that I am now looking to finally put together my comeback tour.  More news in the next few days.

30 hours and a handful of minutes

Yes, in just a trifle over thirty hours, I come out of semi-retirement as a road poet.  That is to say, I am doing a reading.  Well, sort of a reading-slash-speaking-slash-performing sort of thing.  6:30 pm, on Friday, July 6th, 2012, at the Monongalia Arts Center in Morgantown, West Virginia, I open my mouth again.

A few years ago, this would be un-noteworthy, but considering my low profile in the last several, it is remarkable.  I haven't really laid it out since my divorce from she-who-will-not-be-named (her request that her name not be used.  A shame, too, as I had said almost universally praiseworthy things about her.).

Now I stand ready to see what's left.  A lot has happened since 2002, which is really the last year I really took it out of the garage and revved the engine.  A divorce.  Pink Jade.  Aubergine.  White Sunday (whom I have also publicly declared as my "final muse".)  Some books, a podcast, some CDs.

Creatively, an exeptional decade.  "Howling Beast", "The Sacraments", "The White Sunday Poems" and so many other stars in my firmament. 

It will be a difficult read for me.  I am more self-conscious than I once was, more self-judging.  The bitterness than Psyche had predicted would come with age didn't show up, yet.  But there is a set to my jaw that indicates some exasperation and disappointment experienced.  But not surrendered to.

I have a read book for this show.  Approximately 30 poems.  I plan to, at this time, open with "Walsingham in Padua" and end with "Radiant Tigers".  Logic and emotions say I have that backwards, but I want it that way, I want to fight the stone that I seem to be habitually pushing up that hill.

I want to thank the nice people at Morgantown Poets for supporting me in this endeavor, and any and all of you who show up to hear my words and buy my books and CDs (profits going to the aforementioned Morgantown Poets).

I'll let you know how it goes.

I'm back...and in the flesh

July 6th, 2012, a precognizant sighting of me at the MonArts Center in Morgantown, WV has been reported.

That's right, campers, I will be reading, speaking and generally making an ass of myself, in public, for the first time in a while, for the honor and benefit of the Morgantown Poets, at 6:30 pm at the MonArts Center in Morgantown, WV.  I shall be joined by "Diner" Dan McTaggart and we will do a few pieces from our co-authored book from a few years back "Psalms of the Monster River Cult".  I will alos be doing pieces largely from "Selected Poems and Passions:  2004-2011" and "The Morgantown Suite Poems".

Admission is free, confession is good for the soul and emissions should be below 50 ppm for CO2.  Books and CDs will be available for your purchase and my signature.

Lock up your sisters, your wives and your really cute cousins and come on down.

Selected Poems and Passions: 2004-2011

Select your poems and passion from the era of Nightblooming Jasmine, the Southern Star and White Sunday
Order your signed copy of William F. DeVault's "Selected Poems and Passions: 2004-2011" here, now. Seventy four poems, edited by M.K. Brake, with cover by Ti and internal illustrations featuring Mariya Andriichuk. Works include
strange...but beautiful
Love is an Howling Beast
Bragi to Freya, on his deathbed
I will come for tea
...and 70 more!
Free shipping!

The new book is out!

Selected Poems and Passions: 2004-2011 is now available through Amazon! Special thanks to my amazing editor, M. K. Brake, my cover model, Ti, and the inner illustrations from Mariya Andriichuk. 74 poems, evoking the period in my life from the dissolution of my second marriage to the rise of the White Sunday works.

Epithets and Sobriquets

there has been a trace of controversy over this poem, so let me clarify. it is about how people say one thing to you, and another to others. I hadn't really thought much about that until a few years ago, when I discovered that a woman I had been involved with, had sacrificed much for, was telling blatant lies about me in an attempt to garner sympathy ahead of our breakup. it was emotionally brutal, realizing that perhaps worse that someone lying to you is when they lie about you.

Epithets and sobriquets.
So many I have carried,
Like a married woman's name,
Reshaped to drape a new image
When the old one was fine.
I would love to know the words
And tone of voice you use
When you choose to speak of me.


William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.

Padparadscha

you alone will know where to find me
you alone I will not refuse

the path broadens, then narrows.
stone to clay to dust to grass to stone again.
when the sun is at the right angle
I can see the long neglected spires.

home.

you alone will know where to find me
you alone I will not refuse

when the wind blows, it is from the South.
when the rain falls, it is down from the skies.
when the sun rises, I can see the edge
of a world I have never comprehended.

you alone will know where to find me
you alone I will not refuse

vacant streets save for the occasional ghost
of seasons and reasons long past and cast aside.
a bride of dust. the pride of trust, forgotten.
I am home now, and there is much to be done.

home.

you alone will know where to find me
you alone I will not refuse

the trivialities of other, lesser cities.
pale purgatories to one who has lived
where the gemstones pierce the night
and shed their light on the dreams of lovers.

you alone will know where to find me
you alone I will not refuse

find your way to me, when you can and will.
I will clear out the upper levels of the palace
and lay new stone by my hands, black marble
for the bare feet of acolytes who have fled.

home.

you alone will know where to find me
you alone I will not refuse

I hide in the open, so only the blind miss me.
the tumbling weeds and hungry hornets pass by
and acknowledge me not, for I am not relevant
in the green waves of prairie grass they inhabit.

you alone will know where to find me
you alone I will not refuse

my voice echoes in the violent silence until...
until the echoes find synergy and it sounds
like a multitude, a host of fair heirs, chanting.
and all my words are of you. all my words are true.

home.

you alone will know where to find me
you alone I will not refuse

the dust slides on the smooth stone in the wind
as the moon illuminates without heat
and I shiver like a frightened child, alone
to face the morning with renewed vigor.

you alone will know where to find me
you alone I will not refuse

trouvere. priest. worshipping one of seven.
penetration without flesh or even sound.
the riddle of scrimshaw on jigsaw people.
the towers shift in spectrum, but retain strength.

home.

you alone will know where to find me
you alone I will not refuse

two hundred and twenty three stairs, gently curving,
and I am undeserving to ascend them, empty handed
but for yet another sack of words, awaiting worms
to feed upon me as I lay, sightless, forgotten.

you alone will know where to find me
you alone I will not refuse

the lotus blossom minarets whistle in the wind
and I watch the dance of the stars, forgetting years
and vows I had made, without malice or regret
for I am caught up in the universe and the sky.

home.

you alone will know where to find me
you alone I will not refuse

my padparadscha prison was smoothed by hand and sand
and now stands, neglected. too long. too long.
and I am not an agent of rebirth, my muscles
will be dust and rust before you find your way here.

home.


William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.

and the city was struck

but did not fall.

Four years ago, I entrusted a friend to convert this blog to WordPress, a decision I almost immediately regretted, as it is much easier to change to WP than from it.

Now, four years, almost to the day, I stand before you and explain. I was notified yesterday by my web hosting company that someone had planted malware, through a security hole in WP, on my City of Legends site. A bomb, shall we say, by a terrorist or criminal, in my city.

I tore the city down. I revived this surviving antiquity, and am endeavoring to salvage what I can of the last four years of the City of Legends blog to add to it. I don't know how long that might take.

But the City stands, still. I will be tweaking it heavily in the next few days and weeks to clean up the mess and improve, I ask your patience.