Recanticle

The poet has shared with me, along the way, some extraordinary archives, including both his current "black catalog" (poems that will not be published until after his death) and his old version of the same, most of the poems in which were destroyed during a moment of temperament.

It is interesting on several levels, dating back to the "Eight Panther Cycle" which was written when he discovered an infidelity on the part of that muse, then destroyed in what he initially thought was an act of protecting the world from his anger and wrath, but in retrospect may have just been denial, refusing to accept the nature of the person he was having an affair with. This has happened repeatedly in his life, from Arachne to the panther to even his second wife, whom he christened "The Leopard" (prophetically, as leopards cannot change their spots, eerie, eh?).

Anyway, I digress, here we have a poem that almost was consigned to the darkness for a spell, but he relented.

Recanticle

you speak to me a mockery of words that cloak your will
of evil done and webs you've spun with me your witless shill.
epiphany was not for me in early acts you staged,
a servant led, your throne a bed, a knight errant encaged.


William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.

He will not tell me when and for whom he wrote this, though I have my theories. He says it is part of a larger composition that he may release when he feels it appropriate.