Two-for-a-Dollar and One Free Song

to honor my friend Sarah

I

I have not become what I am to be
(I mean to be better moments from now)
But I am becoming gradually
Such as the limits of spacetime allow
Unto those of human mortality
Which limits I have embraced as somehow
That individual sufficiency
Of what I need and what I would ask for

So I will become what I am to be
Beyond which limits I may ask no more

II

Hot dogs seem made of such horrible things
That two-for-a-dollar or not it brings
Me to eat something else for lunch instead
(They are grey where they once used to be red!)

In my heart I am not a carnivore
But in the most basic necessity
Two-for-a-dollar has worked out for me
I will eat less even as I pay more
If you will forgive me those moments of
Life interfering with the law of love

III

I am starting to look like Howard Hughes
Not the young daredevil nor the old boss
But how you hear about him at the end

Looking like that thanks for being my friend
Sharing your victory with me (in loss)
Shown openminded by the friends you choose

But what am I going to do when all
Of the money has been burned through at last
So that I have to fall hard when I fall
As I cling with all my strength to the past?

IV

Mere strength does not matter anymore now
We have become so sophisticated
Our strength sublimated to style somehow
By fashion we are fated and mated
Two-by-two as we dance aboard the ark

Not quite as we had anticipated
In our curiosity (in the dark)
But these are shining moments of our days
The ones we live to remember always
As only now forever undated

V

This is that which can never be rated
When we come together to strike a spark
And feel something nobody could deny
Some think they know life although they do not
(Especially if they need to ask why)

I remember some magic some forgot
Or which perhaps some never really knew
How life should be heaven before we die
If you feel unloved (too?) I could love you
(There is no answer to that question why)

We have forever right now for as long
As two-for-a-dollar and one free song

+Steven Curtis Lance



Copyright MMVIII