Lights and Shadows

Sense for its own sake music on the make
Sound all around beating heart of the earth
Pounding the sounding that all is at stake
Grab hold and hang on for all you are worth

Love for your lives these parallel journeys
All of us are lost but we find the way
We are more than those bodies on gurneys
Soon shrouded and slabbed to silence someday

Inside of us the twinkle of laughter
The tickle of hope the sparkle of love
Twinkles and tickles and sparkles above
The commonday toward the ever-after

Everyone has answers nobody knows
Some have no questions just stick us the hose
Which life soon amputates nor hesitates
As the great wheel turns and time comes and goes

For know-nothing know-it-alls a surprise:
Reality? The universe? The fates?
Unreal! Non-universal! Just your eyes!
To each being its own reality

Manifold truths multifoliate lies
Varying dazzlingly from you to me
To each its unique specificity
Twinkles! Tickles! Sparkles! Lights and shadows

So you had better start having some fun
The wheel never stops once it has begun

+Steven Curtis Lance



Copyright MMVI

DEAR STEVEN
A HAPPY NOTE ON DELIGHT AND DESPAIR
THE TWO SIDES OF A CURRENTLY MARKETABLE COIN
SUPANI

Thank you, my kind and wise friend and fellow poet!

Respect and solidarity, thanks and love,

+Stevie

Reminded me of John Lennon's "Watching The Wheels". For me, that puts it up there with the best!

High praise indeed, and thank you so much for it!

I don't know that one, but I know my namesake son would have it and could share it with me; I'll ask him.

Thank you for always understanding me so perfectly.

The neighbor's cat, of whom I have written, a young fella named Smokey Joe, has decided that he lives here. Fortunately, Freddie Noodles is extraordinarily tolerant and, indeed, seems to be quite fond of him. So they are both eating the best cat food I could find in my cupboard now, tails alive with vigor. If cats ran this country, instead of Condoleezza Rice and other war-criminals, I think we would have a lot more fun and a lot less death. Sorry she's over there, by the way; might there be any way you could keep her, or at least prevent her from returning to these sore-tried shores?

Even if she never came back, we still have far worse... Cheney's running around with his little shotgun still.

Did you know that I am a dangerous and seditious enemy of the state? Well, if that's the only way to get our masters to read poetry, then at least I am doing my part for civilization (as the lamps go out...).

On a lighter note, thanks again for being such a wonderful friend. Let's outlast them all, and laugh last and best; let us share the laughter of the immortals with Mozart in the Magic Theater.

Much love from under the Bush,

+Stevie

+Goofball,

It's good to read you again. After months of agonizing I have a new computer and am up and running again. It's been far too long. Thank you for all of your support. Your poem was refreshing and really forced some introspection. Pretty deep.

Semper Fi,

Kevin

Thanks, Kevin.

I'm sorry it didn't work out with The Poet House. Every time I visited there, trojans, viruses, and manifold cybernasties lay in wait for me, trying to piggyback onto my frantically-flailing computer; my antivirus and other protective software was freaking out every time, and my visits there became unacceptable risks to my system. I don't know what was going on there, but it was pretty bad.

I'm also sorry if I've offended you by being such a radical. But it is this present administration which has radicalized me; if you knew my story you would understand, and you might even change your own mind.

It's good to read you here, and you know I love you as ever and always will, my dear friend of longstanding; we have been through a lot together, and I won't forget. I did my best to help you with The Poet House, but it seemed I found myself alone there with the trojans and the viruses. The site never quite caught on, and was an absolute minefield. I'm sorry it didn't work out.

Respect and solidarity,

+Stevie