The Fifth Song of the Amomancer

Most of the poems he has published in the triskadekian canto form, which he created, have been labelled to "songs of the Amomancer"...very autobiographical, very confessional, very strongly writ.

The Fifth Song of the Amomancer

"non gaudet super iniquitatem congaudet autem veritati"
truth speaks with a tongue that touches sky to horizon,
the sound, atomic, making sense of the silence.

where the ashes have scattered, let the winds have their way.
where the sweat has fallen, let it dry in the sun.
where kisses have lost their savour, let us not favour them with illusion.

love is not a word. not a word mortals coined for mortal concept,
but an abstract refraction of the truth that transcends us all.
an end to complexity. the simplicity of an honest theology.

there are answers to the questions that we fear.
there are dancers in the darkness that draw near.
there are words that will comfort all who hear.

but we are creatures of hard-wired synaptical repetition,
musicians of a handful of stones and sticks, beating time
until the clockwork genes expire like an amnesty for the guilty.

I see no less unobscured than yesterday, but with a willingness
to accept what I see as a part of my heart and marrow,
the taste of bitter kiss on irrelevant saints' feet, sweet only to the faithful.

"non gaudet super iniquitatem congaudet autem veritati"
one miracle per supplicant, the one-eyed genii masks his blindness
by rapid whirlwind turns in the billowing smoke of his grand entrance.

here we are. there we were. and where we shall be when tomorrow
becomes yesterday's mythology I have no notion not yet defiled,
beguiled by a desire to make more of something than the nothing of sand.

yet even in the furnace the sand turns to glass, to be shaped
by the craftsman and artisan into things of great beauty or utility,
but only by the consent of the molten mass, ready from the heat to find purpose.

I pull my hand from the fire, wet with the forge's flow,
I pull my hand from the fire, knowing now what I know,
I pull my hand from the fire, and harden it in the blacksmith's snow.

tempered heart to match the flesh, to bind the mesh
of suet left for the pecking birds and foraging beasts.
a sacrifice for a price a fraction of not learning the lessons in time.

I am well, and the temple folds upon itself, magic and prophecy,
tools for drawing the crowd, not curing the lame and sick and blind,
that is the work of prophets and wanderers and legends of old on newer paths.

"non gaudet super iniquitatem congaudet autem veritati"
and I know what I know, and I feel what I feel, at honest peace.
released to the dandelion winds of a coming spring.


William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.

What are the principles behind this form? I don't recall the full lesson, but I do remember that you are required to build the poem around a quotation, usually in a non-English language. In this case it is from the Vulgate, the Latin Holy Bible, and translates to "(Love)Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth". This is I Corinthians 13:6.

The quote sets off the first, seventh and 13th cantos, which are of three lines each, the 4th and the 10th cantos are hard rhymed triplets...the rest is complicated and built on his internal vision and rhythms.

He originally called this the "Alishan" format, after his muse Alisha (her real first name), as a tribute to her. When she never acknowledged the honor, he just stopped using the name...not to be snide or bitter, it just seemed silly to him to be explaining over and over again the existence of someone who didn't really care that they had been so honored (I'd be happy if someone named a sandwich after me...)

The theme of this particular piece? His divorce from his second wife. I can say no more.