Becoming

on the eve of the birth of my book Sea Stones

Oddly classical and formal
A fastidious fellow I
Am definitely not normal
(If such a thing exists these days)
A solitary simple soul
And a little set in my ways

As unrelentingly I try
To achieve whatever my goal
Might be with cunning courtesy
Like getting good at poetry
Perhaps becoming somebody
Before (maybe after) I die

Believing the dream becomes me
Becoming and coming to be

+Steven Curtis Lance



Copyright MMVI

Dear Steven
such a sparkling verse
quite attractive and amazing too
supani

Thank you, my dear friend and fellow poet Supani; I am honored to hear from you, and I apologize that you have heard so little from me of late. I am renovating my old haunted house so that I can rent out rooms to university students, in order to pay the expenses and keep it in the family for the future (if there is a future), which keeps me endlessly busy painting and doing absurd things which I have seldom if ever done, but which I am learning in a hurry. The man who helps me is teaching me to help him, so that we get more work done faster. It is all going pretty well, and is certainly a learning experience. I have never been materialistic, but now I find myself having to do all this just to save the place; it is just that I have no idea where else to be but here, so I am doing what I must to stay. All a bit surreal, actually.

I have been writing a new book, Sea Stones, which should come out today; I am very much looking forward to it, and have not been painting doorframes as I suppose I should out of anticipation. And then lots of proofreading, as always, obsessing over every page, line, and letter. I think it will be a nice book. I hope you like it.

Respect and solidarity to you, dear Supani, and every blessing to the great people of India at a very strange time in a very strange world. If only people would have heeded us when we told them the first time back in the Vietnam days, "make love not war." We really need a lot more love and a lot less war; we always have, but never more than now. And I was tired of this idiot Bush before he was even "elected"--as he claims to have been--in the first place. I just write poetry and work on saving my house, and am friendly to the young when they visit me, reading them my poems and singing them my songs; sometimes I even dance a little too.

I send you my love,

+Stevie