amomancies™  Issue 1 volume 1  August 2014

I have been asked by many people over the years to comment on the source and inspiration of specific works of mine, or of the body in general.  So for this inaugural issue of amomancies, I thought I’d go over the 28 poems appearing, the wonderful photography, and give you a bit of back story. 

Cover  Photo:  Mariya Andriichuk

Mariya and I have known each other for about 7 years, and during that time I have seen some amazing work in her portfolio.  This self-portrait, originally called “Flora”, impressed me on first viewing. I told her when I first saw it that, one day, I would convince her to let me use it for a book cover.  It was my first, best choice for this first issue of amomancies.

Page 4:  the philosophy of dreams  Photo:  Mariya Andriichuk

The poem itself is a very dark, introspective, and intensely romantic piece. I wrote it  a few years back to my muse Brigit, who had betrayed me, both sexually and in business.  It was my statement that I still loved her and that I do not expect anyone to be perfect.  The photo is one that Mariya did as a self-portrait a couple years ago, and it still sticks in the mind.  Nude, but nothing showing.  One note: Facebook refused to let me use it in an advertisement for the magazine, as it contained “implied nudity”.

Page 5:  Sweep  Photo:  Cristina Otero

The poem itself was written to my muse White Sunday, about whom there is some debate as to her identity.  I won’t clear that up. She had a great darkness to her, and when I saw this photo by Spanish photographer and model Cristina Otero, it just clicked with me.

Page 6:  Monument  Photo:  Vmp Selene

One of the oldest poems still in my catalog, written when I was just 18 years old.  Written for my first major muse, Psyche. It expresses an early sense of the immortalization process in art. And, as my art is derived from my affections and my passions, the immortality to be derived from a single night, a single kiss, even.  The photo of Selene drew me with its rumpled sexuality and playful eroticism.

Page 7:  wake the night in crimson  Photo:  Mariya Andriichuk

This is one of the newer poems in the collection. One of several I would dedicate to my non-muse Abstra.  Abstra is an abstraction, an amalgam of women I have known or dreamt of, usually right after a romantic disappointment.  I find the belief that there is someone still out there, wonderful and waiting, far more healthy than mourning what is often just a misread of another’s whim.  The photo by Mariya adds a certain night-time solitude to the whole instance.

Page 8:  dram  Photo:  Georgiana Saunders

This poem was written to a poetry protégé of mine with whom I shared a brief  flirtation.  It was both invitation and warning.  She flitted nearby for a short time, then wandered off.  The photo, by Georgina Saunders, to me read as a young woman contemplating a decision, which I thought apropos to this piece.

Page 9:  pretty pretty soul  Photo:  Mariya Andriichuk

Being the author of so many romantic poems, I sometimes find myself targeted by women who want to be immortalized in my words as a muse.  It is not so simple, as I have great passions and the poetry is a by-product of those passions.  I wrote this poem several years ago, as a warning, to a young woman who made overtures about becoming the next muse.  I have always liked the flirtatious nature of this self-portrait by Mariya, and it just seemed to fit.

Page 10:  strange, but beautiful  Photo:  Cristina Otero

A few years back, I was intrigued by a woman who was quite eccentric. I christened her in my works as The Faerie.  This poem was partially inspired by her and partially inspired by a sculpture I saw by the brilliant Swiss surrealist H.R. Giger, inspired by his late wife, actress Li Tobler.  It was not even recognizably human, but decidedly beautiful and loving.  When I was looking through Cristina’s portfolio I chanced across this picture and I smiled.  There is exquisite and eccentric beauty in the pose, the expression, even the makeup and props.

Page 11:  love is an howling beast  Photo:  Mariya Andriichuk

Written in the aftermath of my divorce from my second wife, it is an expression of how love can tear you apart from the inside, but also make you insane with the pain.  This photo, which is the lone shot of Mariya’s in this issue not a self-portrait, shows the maddened, possessive sense in a man’s soul.

Page 12:  soubrette  Photo:  Cristina Otero

I wrote this during my second marriage.  My wife was substantially younger than me and so when I ran across the word “soubrette” (which means young girl) I wrote this of and to her.  The photo, by Cristina, features two images of her which provide a haunting and strange woman/girl energy to it that struck me as good for this work.

Page 13:  cithara song...  Photo:  Vmp Selene

Well, there was this young woman with whom I carried on a flirtation for a time, and then she vanished.  Months later she called me up and asked me to lunch.  This is literally the poem I wrote in my heard as I saw her approach.    The photo of Vmp Selene just felt like a mysterious, beautiful woman. Present, but perhaps unreachable.

Page 14:  vodka and condoms  Photo:  Mariya Andriichuk

I have a very dear friend, Jazz, who can be a bit of a flirt.  Especially back before she got married.  One day we were talking on the phone and I told her I might be out in her area soon. She told me to “bring vodka and condoms”.  It was a jest, but the poem sprang from that line and resonated with a lot of my readers.  The photo is one I have previously used for one of my book covers. It has that wild-eyed “one more time” sexuality that makes it quite seductive.

Page 15:  goddess  Photo:  Cristina Otero

A couple of years ago I wrote this, just as an expression of the sense of awe a lover must feel to truly love someone.  You must think of them as a deity, something far greater than you. Never take them for granted.  When I stumbled upon the photo by Cristina, I immediately knew I had to use it with this poem. There is a simple, classical expression here. Something out of Greek mythology.

Page 16:  I dreamed you dancing  Photo:  Mariya Andriichuk

Aubergine was and is a powerful muse in my pantheon of muses. One morning I woke up from a dream where I saw her dancing in a club and just watched, mesmerized.  The photo was one of Mariya’s that I had seen before and always liked. Although I admit we had to crop out a few of the images of her due to page constraints.

Page 17:  Waiting for the Pentecost  Photo:  Mariya Andriichuk

This poem came from the same space as “love is an howling beast”, the grief over the dissolution of my second marriage.  The photo is one of many that Mariya has done over the years invoking religious imagery.

Page 18:  in the arms of the dragon  Photo:  Mariya Andriichuk

This poem has a great story behind it.  It came to me one day as I was driving in traffic in Los Angeles, and I realized it was a good piece.  I reached for my pocket recorder to capture it, then realized I had left it at home.  So I began to chant the poem to myself as I composed it, writing it down as I ran through the door of my apartment.  The inspiration of the poem was the muse known as the Panther, with whom I had an on again-off again relationship for about 18 months.  One of the issues was a real problem with lack of self-esteem on her part, and I wanted to reassure her that she was everything in my eyes and heart.  The photo, again by Mariya, is one where she tries to invoke that we are all in God’s hands.

Page 19:  for the right set of lips  Photo:  Cristina Otero

This poem was written to Abstra, meant to invoke the sense that love was the most wonderful of things, worth risking much, if not all, for.  The photo by Cristina was chosen for the expression, the eyes, and the beautiful lips, just begging for a kiss.  A kiss one might die for.

Page 20:  glass roses  Photo:  Mariya Andriichuk

The poem arose while I was in conversation with my former editor, Jan Innes, and I composed it live in a chat window on AOL, exactly as it reads today.  It is a wistful meander about how we cannot say love and beauty is not out there, we may just have missed it.  The photo by Mariya is the same as on the front cover.  I just love this shot so much and couldn’t resist forcing it into double duty.

Page 21:  The Unicorns  Photo:  Vmp Selene

This is another poem from when I was 18, expressing a wistful yearning for a romantic and sexual loss of innocence, but still wrapped in such sentiment that it is not so much a loss of innocence as an acceptance of it.  The photo I used, featuring Selene, just expressed such a classical romanticism I couldn’t not match these two up.

Page 22:  The Patchwork Skirt of My Love  Photo:  Vmp Selene

The poem is a whimsical vision of a reverie of love, sometimes referred to as the 50^th poem of my Goldenheart Cycles.  It has had its days, not only garnering awards, but also being accused of by some editors of being “obscurantist” owing to the non-modern imagery.  The photo?  Selene, but not in a patchwork skirt, but in modern dress as a young woman might wear in a relaxed state.  I just loved the energy of the photo and it expressed the notion that romanticism does not require elaborate and period clothing, but a frame of mind.

Page 23:  bare feet on a wooden floor  Photo:  Marlita Polner

The poem itself is the capstone of the Goldenheart Cycles, written to my muse Kristina, expressing a vision of domestic peace and emotion.  The photo is by my friend Marlita Polner, a dancer, who makes going barefoot look as glamorous as Christian Leboutin shoes.

Page 24:  the ancient brain  Photo:  Ann Michelle Costilow

The poem was written to my second wife, Ann, sometimes referred to as The Leopard in my pantheon of muses.  The photo was taken by NY glamour and fashion photographer Greg Fabian of…my second wife.  Yes, that is my ex-wife, illustrating a poem she inspired back when things were still being kept together.  I was delighted that she allowed this shot from her modeling portfolio to be used.

Page 25:  the priest of passion serves the sacrament  Photo:  Vmp Selene

Wallace Stevens once said that poets are the “high priests of the invisible”, and those words inspired the frame of this poem, about the sacraments of passion (yes, fluids being involved).  The photo, from Vmp Selene, enchanted me completely at first glance, giving a mystical, gothic sensibility.

Page 26:  the taste of remembrance  Photo:  Mariya Andriichuk

The poem was written quite a few years ago, taking memory and turning it inside out, beyond déjà vu or love at first sight and comparing the actual nature of memory to the effect a beautiful woman can have on you.  I knew, with the peanut butter on the roof of the mouth image, that this picture of Mariya Andriichuk would be perfect for it.

Page 27:  Damascus, Movement 3  Photo:  Mariya Andriichuk

The poem is one of a series of poems about the revelatory nature of my relationship with my second wife, Ann.  The notion like, as with Saul of Tarsus, I was transformed on the road by a powerful experience.  The photo I chose from Mariya was used to create a sense of both movement and mystery.  Mariya has such lovely hair and it flows like smoke, sometimes.

Page 28:  a summoned fire  Photo:  Cristina Otero

I was, for a time, in orbit about a young poet whom I named Pink Jade.  She inspired some lovely works, not the least of which was this one, emphasizing both the heat of passion and the barter nature of affection.  The picture, from Cristina Otero, was the first of hers that I knew I had to use.  The red hair, the red lips.  The expression radiates fierce beauty.

Page 29:  Walsingham in Padua  Photo:  Cristina Otero

The poem is expressing the patience of a lover for a requite, and a summons from the person they are drawn to, using the story of Sir Francis Walsingham as he awaited his return to the courts of England with the ascension of Elizabeth to the throne.  The photo by Cristina gave me the sense of regal distance, a beautiful woman deciding whether to allow herself to love.

Page 30:  swerve(flirt)  Photo:  Mariya Andriichuk

A often plagiarized poem, which I take as a compliment, but one I must be stern with the thieves from time to time.  It is not to or about any one person, but about the rakish intent one must sometime express, finding the confidence to flirt with intention.  The photo is one of Mariya’s that I have admired for some time, a self-portrait that could easily be the first sight one has of a young woman that steals their heart and attention.

Page 31:  my passion, my cathedral  Photo:  Mariya Andriichuk

Another Abstra piece, which I got playful with the classic sonnet form, and expressed the sacramental nature of passion and desire.  For me poetry is religion, as is love in all its forms.  The photo by Mariya presents beauty and mystery, introspection and a natural eroticism.

Back cover  Photo:  Ifigenia Tsitsa

Ifigenia is a model I have worked with before and everything she touches is magic.  Not finding the right fit of a poem or a few in this issue was disappointing, so I decided to give her much deserved exposure on the rear cover to reflect the beauty and desire embodied in this issue, and the quote from Shakespeare was just icing on the cake.