Who the Hell is +SCL? Well...

Finding Myself at Fifty



The sign of the seagoat of Capricorn
Soared in the sky on the night I was born
A curse upon the world some still believe
A night to wonder and a night to warn
A bitter night for many to receive
My advent on that stormy New Year's Eve

Born in the lightning alighting in fire
Born in the thunder and under the ire
Of those who took it as an evil sign
Dark advent of a dangerous desire
But one young mother took it as divine
That I should come to her and she was mine

She held me as her destiny her chance
She cried "His name is +Steven Curtis Lance! "



I stand just under six feet tall and weigh one twenty five
I have my ups and downs but I am glad to be alive
Described as "willowy" I am flexible and youthful
My eyebrows tweezed nor am I diseased and to be truthful
I am just an innocent at dawn and dusk I repent
My every sin be it of commission or omission
If life had gone as planned I would assume the position
Of senior pastor of some German Lutheran parish

But that along with all the a cappella I cherish
Is water over the dam approaching fifty I am
A graceful and balletic metrosexual poet
I present myself clean-shaven tinted strawberry-blonde
A sonneteer who knows no fear of Silke madly fond
Asperity austerity but some prosperity
A company called Silke LLC you may know it
Google me and you will see my unfolding destiny

I was raised by my mother who taught me to be gentle
Courtesy and civility would seem fundamental
Much more elegant than the Taliban morality
Of that scary quite disturbing red-state plurality
With Bush and push and shove above well-mannered decency
While you might not agree I find it charming to be me



This book of my life written page by page
And forming link by link a single chain
From youth through experience into age
Is that by which I rise and live again
Beyond my days into a time unknown
Unto me now as I write here alone

Into my future and out of your past
As I become a present after all
And now you hold me in your hands at last

The only paradise beyond the fall
For sinful mortals and poets like me
Who live but little time and then must die
Is to become a part of destiny
And leave you this to remember me by



To those who have suffered bitterness can
Prove to be the stone by which we stumble
Undoing all we work for taking all
We have loved and built however humble
The rock by which we ultimately fall
It has destroyed many a stronger man
Than me to see it suck the life away
From those whom I have loved the light of day
Gone out from their eyes the sun from their skies
Bitterness their undoing in the end
Has spoken to me that this must not be
The ruin of the rising of our dreams

There must be hope in sorrow though it seems
These wings are broken now yet we must rise

Suicide has taken many a friend
This horror would not have happened unless
We had been overpowered in the dark
Alone at the crossroads of bitterness
Where shadows of grief are so sharp so stark
Burning alone in the crucible of
Suffering with no light no hope no love
Turning to stone there with no one to care
Where it is always night and never day
Alone on the telephone it has been there
Waiting in the silence to bear us away
At the existential moment of despair

Therefore now as I mark a half a century
I resolve I must leave bitterness behind
I dare not let it hollow out my trust
I care not for corrosion nor for rust
By which bitterness would eat away my mind
To rot out from the inside is no destiny



Poets make words take wing and fly but why?
We can we do we must yet still we die
But every day we save the world this way

I only do this only come to say
Look up and see the sun smile above you
And feel this warming kiss upon your skin

I only want to tell you I love you
To invite you to watch the dance begin
As the moon embraces the clouds tonight

The world is singing right before our eyes
A play of shadow of darkness and light
Of waxing waning morning noon and night
Of that which is born and of that which dies

Poets sing giving voice to everything



The morning star is burning so intense
No other light can be seen in the sky

This is the moment this is the suspense
Between the dark and light the night and day
The light by which I write by which I live

Day has yet to be born night yet to die
That I am here to see this here to give
Myself completely give myself away
To this contention of the elements
This yin and yang of time to see it turn
Floods me with exclamations with laments

I am this moment! I transform I learn
I turn I burn I earn the recompense
The pay of the poet: intense suspense!



I mean to say just what I mean
Not to be silenced nor ashamed
Seeing I might as well be seen

Being myself and being named
Better to mean just what I say
Than to regret what might have been

Being credited being blamed
Is better than fading away
The memory that I was here
These words I write for you today

I do not mean to disappear
I would not be forgotten by
This world and when my time to die
Comes you will know that I was here



Copyright MMIV Silke LLC

Dear Steven

You have a heart of art.

Hey Hey

You too, Hey; thanks.

You think I should pin this bad boy?

I was just updating my profile at AuthorsDen and wondered if anybody here might be interested in seeing this...

Sorta looks like I'm back now, too.

Hope nobody minds too much...

I'll try to be good.

Ah, what the hell; I'll pin it. Maybe I can draw fire away from you, like in the good ol' days!

You and me together +Sundance! But you and I are jumping over no cliff! Pinning was a good idea.

"When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall..." --Eliot

wiggling sounds nicer - like children, like fun. I see you wiggling on the wall, old 49er!

Very nice.
Presenting yourself in a poem as the poet you are.

I posted the reply before, not realizing I wasn't signed in. But I hold by it, you are obviously a deep and inspiring person.

Thank you Hey Hey and Mandy.

You are both cool, and you are both my friends and fellow poets.

That my work means anything to you means everything to me.

STILL ALIVE IN 2005

I'm back, baby; get used to it.

Revolution Resolution

This is a New Year's revolution
New Year's Eve birthday resolution:

To say and do exactly what I please
Nor crawl to the unworthy on my knees
To never kiss another stupid ass
But wait for the stupidity to pass
And I will still be here
Of that I have no fear

Because I am going to live forever
You ask how I know? Because there has never
Been anyone like me
And I intend to be
Myself in all my specificity

And those who do not like me may go straight to hell
To fool with fools no longer is a lesson well
Learned well earned well burned and all of it the hard way
Today is my birthday and today I can say
And can do whatever I damn well please
Today I rise to get up off my knees

The struggle has taught me again and again
To live with what is and not what might have been



+Steven Curtis Lance

Copyright MMIV Silke LLC

very inspiring

Thank you, my unknown but not unappreciated friend.

Here's a new one:

Transcendental Sonnet #1208:
They Tell Me Things Are Back to Normal Now

While everyone else was holidaying
As they were somewhere giving and getting
I was nowhere freezing and dismaying
Working on forgiving and forgetting

The forgiving did not go very well
The forgetting might come more easily
When they are safely tucked away in hell
You could forgive me for not displaying
Holiday cheer or you could forget me

They never fixed my furnace nor
Brought my Christmas packages or
Any holly-jolly thing
I did not mean anything

Forgotten but not gone I just move on



+Steven Curtis Lance

Copyright MMV Silke LLC

'The struggle has taught me again and again
To live with what is and not what might have been'

i like these twolines thumpingly

live the life pleasntly
life the divine, presently
your poem a nice bliss really
to make us humans on earth notably

supani123@yahoo.com

Thank you, new friend and fellow poet, with all my heart.

Respect and love and solidarity from far away...