Venice Beach, revisited

The empty basketball court.
Not fifty feet from the pot barkers
calling out "we got medical weed"
and asking if you'd like to come in
for an assured and predestinate diagnosis.
Venice Beach is a different planet.
But the exobiology of stoned vendors
and tentative rollerbladers
doesn't change much.
The sand still feels the same
and the seabirds hop closer
as if to challenge you
to an arm wrestling match
for the last bite of the last pretzel
the world will ever see
if the homeless guy
with his apocalyptic cardboard
sandwich sign, smeared with cheese
and ancient ketchup stains
proves to be right.
And the pot barker keeps selling
the modern snake oil
to the kids and the tourists.
While I watch the Leyden jar
in a string bikini
flash by on foot-borne wings
no less synthetic
than her breasts.
But her teeth are perfect.
And there's the approaching thunder
of someone dribbling a basketball.


William F. DeVault

49 degrees in LA

Four twenty five in the morning.
Santa Monica boulevard
looks like the rapture hit last night
and all the painted saints went to heaven.
The pavement wet and dark
like the scar tissue of my soul
that you don't seem to really mind.
You should be here.  You belong here
with the fading Gypsies and seven foot trannies.
Construction blocks my ramp to the 405
but I can always count on Lincoln
to snake me south to the airport
my rental car silent with radio off
because the music of my city is all I need to hear.
You should be here.  You belong here
with the Promenade cellist and the vampire boys
who walk Ventura, never knowing I can see them.
I am their king, scouting a return from exile.
Forty nine degrees in LA.
Boiling point for transfiguration.
Got to get the alchemists lined up.
Got to get the alchemists lined up.
I'm coming home, even if alone.
I'm coming home.


William F. DeVault.  all rights reserved.

Venice Beach July 1996

Digging through the archives...

Venice Beach July 1996

defiled, exiled, reviled, I smiled
for that is what you do to reign
o'er all that falls and calls to stain
the grain of pain and joy, reconciled.


William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.

reading

Something to commemorate last night's reading in Long Beach.

reading

the ragged rage on the dog-eared page
feels fresh between my teeth, the relief
of the release and the peace of the madness
when the roar consumes me and I am irrelevant.
even God said the Word is the eternal,
the infernal cannot stand against the tensed,
sensed and incensed gout of fire and desire
that transfigures and disfigures me.
it was always me, and always me alone,
atoning for thin sins skinned for clothing
for those who didn't know the dance.
self-conscious murmurs like snake-charmer smiles
as the blond in the front row nods
to words that are about someone else,
wasting her desire on a bound satyr.
I echo my prayers until they reverberate
and I am shaken to the sore core that soars
high above the dying to speak in a tongue of
unfeigned pain and a stain of red,
worn as a badge of pride and honor.
and God smiles.


William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.

City of Angels

For his home, Los Angeles, and to all the angels who have held him up when he most needed it.

City of Angels

lost soul.
a city of lights of stimulated
noble gases. it passes
for a faux firmament.
I haven't seen an angel
here.
and probably,
never will.

but I have seen
poor, proud people,
their flannel workshirts
needing repair and a wash,
shuffling through the
immigrant neighborhoods.
the pretty girl, pretty no more,
selling her star power
in condom come-ons
on the street corner.
and I have seen a peaceful
ocean, kissing the sands
of time, worn like
strands of beige pearls
on the neck of a lady too
proud to admit the paste
will wash away in the rain.

love is bought here. sold
in carrying cases with
rouge and eyeliner. t-shirts
filled with silicone brush
the vanity from the wind
as rollerblades run down
bag ladies who never
gave that producer the
blowjob he asked for.

war zone. everyone
sells something. fortunately,
I am wise enough, and studied
well enough in the wars of the
sphere of Venus, I know I have
nothing of any real value.
which makes me the richest man
in the city of angels. until
I give out, give up, give in
to the inevitable.


William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.

Santa Ana Winds

Written when he was living in Venice, despairing of his exile and his lost love, this piece seems strangely apropos to the recent news out of Southern California.

Santa Ana Winds

Like a wave of fire descending in judgement.
Burning me to the quick.
Thick with self-denial,
the trial of the Romantique.
Seeking truth
in the shallows of the rain forest,
poorest of the depths.
Having slept with the demons,
awakened to the silence
and foresworn the violence
in the best Buddheo-Christian traditions
made proof of the truth of a lie accepted with a smile,
while
all the while
knowing that in a medicated haze,
all praise is lies.

Pray for the wind.

Pray it will not be defiled by
this child of my blackened heart,
that my final torment will not be as epic
as the tragedy of false hopes,
fed the bread bought at Borders.
Filling chalices
with the urine of mad marketers
made rich on pain gained at the cost of the children.
And I
will ride the winds,
even if the only vector left is
down.
Down to the foot of the cliffs of the legends.

Pray for the wind.


William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.