The clouds were wearing wedding white when they gossamered grey as day turned night And then after dark they wrapped themselves in softest sable of raven black They were light and then shadow and then they were gone on a day further on Beyond the future present as presented by the wind as it blew past
The clouds passed over and away too fast but I will not forget that way They looked that day that way they would if they would come back again if they could Bearing their whispered witness by the wind in the sky again and again So many clouds and so many more I have not seen but have seen before
The clouds were wearing funeral black when the wind came due and blew them back Blown away the way I know on the breath of the universe I must go But if only I could understand I might not be quite so lonely when The wind carries me inevitably away someday when now is then
Someday to come to comprehend the way the universe borrows to lend Around and around receiving to send and turning and returning where What turns returns where one who learns this way finds the freeing of being there In a heart where love grows when it knows as it comes and goes around the sun
I have to know if I have to go that nobody ever goes anywhere That there is always here as here is always everywhere that all is one And then for when the wind carries me inevitably away someday To come to go but to know the freeing of the being of everywhere
The clouds were wearing wedding white when they gossamered grey as day turned night The clouds passed over and away too fast but I will not forget that way The clouds were wearing funeral black when the wind came due and blew them back Whatever the clouds are wearing we turn returning to eternity
However we look whoever we are we spiral each a rising star If lonely only because we have not met ourselves in each other yet Remembering myself along the way I know the clouds will not forget That way that day which they remember up to down but it is this same way
What turns returns where one who learns this way finds the being of everywhere Though the night is long the journey longer still I know I will find it there In a heart where love grows when it knows as it comes and goes around the sun That there is always here as here is always everywhere that all is one
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Aug 31, 2010, 1:04 pm
Arriving
Fifty-five years alive and older than I ever Dreamed it to be possible for me to be Nor do I feel it somehow I who once said "never Trust anyone over thirty" but never does Not seem now because I am who I was Even though a quarter of a century past: Now is not never now is forever
I have gone on but I have not left me behind Still having my improbable child's body A legacy of my idiot savanthood Still having my still more improbable mind All more or less accepted if not understood And do I trust myself? I believe I do at last: Now is not for striving now is for arriving
Myself and I have been through a lot together It has been very strange and subject to change Encouraging times through discouraging weather Like a red eye flight through a very long night But I can see the sunrise from my window now As arriving I have a good feeling somehow: And here I am world! Are you reading me?
When the world seems it is ending is when it begins For me anyway just to get my attention And the one who knows what goes around comes back around wins A new world a day of intention and invention As the closer I look the further I see: Now is not never now is forever Now is not for striving now is for arriving
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Aug 25, 2010, 7:10 pm
To Be a Star
There was thunder and lightning the night I was born and As a child the adults could never understand How I knew what I knew but I had read ahead And reading behind if not all the way through Some posited that I might be possessed instead Meaning by the devil as if everybody knew Since some are always imagining something
But simply self-possessed and unimaginary Imaginative certainly a dreamer born to be Existing to imagine what else I might find Transcending as it were by curiosity Being on my own alone with what is and what does And tuning to my inner specificity I began to feel how specific I was
I gazed at stars and noticed how some others were Shining around me like stars in the sky Free of credit and of blame of pride and of shame Getting it straight by keeping the point in mind At the point of a point of bright light in the night The point being love above everything That we are love and love is what we do
And my mother was one so I became like her Opting to embrace my opportunity Having had done with the imaginary some Aspiring toward a more perfect propinquity Knowing where I came from and remembering my name I decided that to live by love was worth a try And by loving me and everybody I have overcome
Knowing who you are is the way to be a star Opening your heart to be the star you are To be here free and clear to see the now is how And to be as we were meant to be is why Just as to be content and continent within your own Specificity albeit paradoxically Is when not to be alone then in December
Knowing when young then growing old remembering Who you are remembering that you are a star Knowing now and later in December to remember The star you are the specificity you bring To the universe to never stop discovering And knowing the point and being love above everything Be and do because the thunder and the lightning are for you
Fall and rise again and you will learn to fly Up and down and up until you reach the open air To get up there where you belong or else by trying die But everybody dies so keep on trying and get there Remembering that we are love and love is what we do So go on with the show and play your part with all your heart No matter where it leads you even when it seems too far
Knowing who you are is the way to be a star
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Aug 19, 2010, 11:57 am
Night in the City
It is night in the city and the light is bright But shadowed now and not quite real like how you feel When you have been burning the candle at both ends And what end do you hold on to? Well that depends On if the center holds and what is holding you
Night in the city of the living and the dead Who when living were dying then to get ahead But neither here nor there they found themselves nowhere And having gone too far now wonder where they are But I am living here in the city instead
Night in the city at one time was so pretty But one time looks a lot like another time now When there have been too many times for me to see Witnessing firsthand the unfolding of always And overhearing what the disappointed say
Some of them say the city has gone bad or mad And then some say the city is not what it was As it is what it is and it does what it does While others say the city has seen better days And yet what day is better to see than today?
But other times and other places interpose Memories of other times and places like these Between what was and what will be at what is now Having been and seen too much I remember those Things you might have remembered to forget somehow
And it interferes that some of my heres are there And that some of my nows are then now and again But I suppose remembering those is just what I must do and if not forget then at least not Regret what I cannot forget at least not yet
But when my heart is always I am everywhere And this is the higher me to which I aspire Passing time through space to a sense of place by grace At the center of the universe wherever I find myself to be so I find myself free
When night in the city is pretty forever With its elements of earth air water and fire Reconciled in balance as its seasons revolve Belonging the city belongs to us because We and the city are as one as we evolve
And though the city is a place of belonging We are lonely by nature and lonelier where So many people are with so many needs there Being met and unmet in close propinquity Night in the city and you can feel the longing
I dream back in time to this place and remember The beauty of the duty of the people who Built the city for one another to be in Back in the May I remember in December As what ends in the city brings what to begin
Things I forgot to remember about somehow Since one time looks a lot like another time now But this looks like as good a time as any to Stop dying trying as the living dying do And not try anymore at all but doing be
I want to be the higher me alongside you Because night in the city can still be pretty When we are the living and it is our city Along the way to how between nowhere and now Into the center of the universe and why
Night in the city of the living and the dead Is here now as our time to live and not to die We are living tonight in the city instead It is night in the city and the light is bright Night in the city of the living and the dead
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Aug 13, 2010, 1:00 pm
For Teddy
21 August MMX
Teddy my fellow traveler through time My fellow seeker for the paradigm And for the pattern of reality Trying to figure out what it might mean As we have wondered why but found out how As we have wondered so we wonder still Adventurers alongside all the way
Thank you for being a best friend to me My fellow wanderer wondering why But finding out how these two decades now Of this our connectedness as we find Someone to listen when no one else will Someone to talk to about what to do A partner in the shared life of the mind As well as my son so that I have two And not only one so that I have you
Who though you might not realize it are As transcendental as a rising star Ascending constantly and steadily Rising but remaining in equipoise Lighting the sky for those orbiting by Finding the center in the in between Where I who see you rise know what I see
In a world of people who do not care I see one who does and is always there Alongside me when I have need of you And I see you love me as I love you So that we are alongside everywhere I see humankind in you being kind Humanness informed by humanity
I see balance among the many joys Awaiting those who now discover you To be as fascinating as I knew You to be in your long ago with me In the incunabulum of us as We got off to a good start and we grew In our Lancean specificity
You shot me for the cover of a book Or two just as I look just as you took Care of me as I once took care of you Then when my life was in the in between Suspended like a floating leaf in fall To land in your hand recalled by your call And because of you I return again
As how it is remembers how it was While wondering about how it will be And we turn to return with what we learn We leave but we never leave us behind And always say I love you when we go Turning as we go to learn to return We turn but turning do not turn away Because we turn together through it all Till someday we who have wondered will know
And if someday somebody should bother To ask you something about your father Something of you as something of me too And if you wonder what on earth to say Not that they will ask but in case they do You can tell somebody I was like you And gave you this poem for your birthday
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Aug 10, 2010, 2:41 pm
For Stevie's Birthday
16 August MMX
"Me dearest darlin' boy" where would I start If I were to speak the love in my heart For you? But then again you understand That when all is lost some things remain and As some things become the way they must be Some things become too important to say
Understanding connected hand to hand As though we were links in a living chain From soul to soul through love by circumstance We turn but turning do not turn away Through spacetime in shared synchronicity And both of us are Steven Curtis Lance
Remembering Frank's Hobby Shop and all The adventures we shared before the fall And you with your blue book of poetry Sad old songs with you at the piano Saying too important things anyway And saying them seeing we understand
Those moments like these when both of us know Seeing me in you seeing you in me Seeing from a look in each other's eyes That we are not alone before the rise Of what was and now is rising again Of what is and how what will be will be
In the Santa Ana wind at midnight Is how I first saw the diamonds shine On the blue velvet and knew they were mine Holding the sky by the string of a kite And you hold the sky by the string now too Hold on then my son and never let go
The specificity begins again We turn but to return another day I cannot imagine being my son Or my doing as well as you have done Without even mentioning how you do Or how you will do and how about you?
I want you to know I am proud of you That you are the meaning of life to me Because of you I want to be and stay Here being doing and seeing you grow If only to remind you I love you And if only to say Happy Birthday
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Aug 8, 2010, 2:54 pm
Bogeys
Who is she they dared and called her name three times When we were children waiting to become Like the darkness haunting our nursery rhymes They dared and called who appealed to and appalled Generations of wakeful sleepovers in the bathroom With a little sliver of a shiver of doom? She was under the bed in bed with the bogeyman Waiting to catch the unwary as catch can Though I did not call her and she did not come By the bogeyman she would give birth to some Names in lights who serve the dark through politics The ones who specialize in wakeful sleepover tricks But bogeys only exist as we let them As we remember to forget them
Bloody Mary
She of the extraordinary Darkness at the dawning of our curiosity Who is not but some would like to be The dark lady of our darkening times They dared and called who appealed to and appalled But I never dared and I never called Remembering other voices who Waiting to catch the unwary as catch can Remembered her in their own way too And call it poetic license if you will But she who comes when called is here and waiting still Under the bed in bed with the bogeyman As fear in bed with hate becomes the new reality All night and day in an angry USA on TV
Bloody Mary
If repeating a lie three times will not make it true Her brood of bogeys with their names in lights The only light they ever knew and ever see Bet their billions that thousands of times will do The trick to make us sick the way they are And going too far is not too far For those who turn our summer days to winter nights Lying and trying to control the souls of me and you With their frights and fights against all we hold dear As the bogeymen conquer our country through fear And Bloody Mary you are scary But your brood of bogeys terrifies Living their lies by which our hope of civil discourse dies Waiting to catch the unwary as catch can
But bogeys only exist as we let them As we remember to forget them
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Aug 6, 2010, 2:11 pm
The Man in the Mirror
for Nick Rocz
The man in the mirror is becoming my friend So familiar and so like me in the end That I worry about him when he is away And feel better about him when he is not Off wherever he goes but someone has to stay Behind I suppose or that is what he thought
Or so the man in the mirror got me to agree On this side or so I thought then when he brought It up but now I wonder if that was only me Since for better of worse our images reverse He called me his shadow but would not explain And when I asked him he would only say
"Mirror mirror on the wall As I wonder how Who reflects whom now I wonder if you know Seeing my reflection Which of me is after all"
But being reflection The mirror does not know All it knows is that it goes Without introspection The mirror would be helpful but It says it does not know how only what
In which direction Does reflection go?
The mirror does not know It says (and looks the other way)
I will have to look in the mirror and see Over there where it looks so much clearer to me About this and ask my friend if I might come Across through the mirror the better to see clearer What I have only seen reflected but If there is happiness there I would like to find some
And if it is true that over there is where I become The person he makes it look so easy to be Or come across that way or at least come nearer Through the mirror where my friend seems to be so free Making me ask why I have to remain Here behind the window of opportunity
Wishing I knew which is looking which way I entertain the possibility That the man in the mirror might be me Only to be frightened into turning away To turn back and ask my friend which I might be Who am I / who are we anyway?
Mirror mirror on the wall As we wonder how Who reflects whom now We wonder if you know Seeing our reflection Which of us is after all
In which direction Does reflection go?
The mirror does not know It says (or knows but does not say)
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Aug 4, 2010, 11:36 pm
Diamonds on Blue Velvet
remember me
You wonderful ones who have wondered with me In your youth about truth and what that might be Who have understood me better than I could Having grown up with me and my poetry Remember me now as you venture and go To all of the places I never have been As I adventure in the spaces in the in between
And if peradventure you know what I mean Think of me now and again when you see A ring around the moon in the blue velvet sky Wearing stars like diamonds to remember us by To wonder about wonders beyond what we know And when you see this to receive a kiss Around the corner of the universe from me
You know about stars from my poems before Who know what I mean and who know that I know That you know that I mean that none of us go That is when we go then we go like a ring Around the moon or like the wheel of everything Turning but returning no matter how far Around the corner of the universe to be
Spangling we spill across blue velvet and call To one another each to each the star We are and know we are because of these on this Our history across the sky no mystery to see Like diamonds on blue velvet we flash until we fall To rise again within the memory Of you wonderful ones who have wondered with me
A star though having fallen now rising after all Remembered is thought of all over again A flash and we are in the sky once more Remaining to depart and arriving to remain Like all of us always again and again Like stars though having fallen now rising after all Like diamonds on blue velvet we flash until we fall
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Aug 1, 2010, 3:19 pm
Learning to Let Go
When Grandma was letting go After holding on so long She told me I too must let Go though not of life of what Was killing me and was not Of life were I to remain
It was easy to dismiss Remembering to forget As part of a parting kiss At the time but she was right
And I could not prove her wrong As I finally found out Though it took all day and night In the shadow of a doubt
But I let it all go free When I gave it all away And by letting go became So that you know my name In the way I came to be As I am here today Being and becoming strong
I remember her by this Until I see her again
We only let go so we can embrace Only renounce so we can receive We only say goodbye to say hello Only remember to forget the face Of yesterday to recognize today As we see what is so we can believe In tomorrow as seen from its yesterday Where the promise of today awaits
Today is when what will be will be With yesterday the shadow of today When tomorrow's shadow falls the other way To what will be through what is from what was Creating a future we cannot see When they say tomorrow never comes but For the sake of today just in case it does
Letting go is opening the gates Keeping the line clear for the call when it comes Ready for whatever no matter what Being prepared even while being scared With open arms empty just in case Being becoming what being becomes
Letting go is being becoming strong As the lotus is blooming inside Blooming what is instead of what was Learning to renounce to believe And letting yesterday go to receive Tomorrow as seen from its yesterday
Today may not be much but is all I know This and what I find as I go along From what was through what is to what will be Like the river knows as it flows to the sea And never delayed though often denied Like Grandma today will not turn out wrong
So when tomorrow comes I will be prepared As easy come and easy go I grow Coming and going and come what may Finding the equipoise of faith and doubt Of bitter and sweet of fast and slow Of everything and nothing watching the show
And it was a comedy it turns out As it passes by having learned to let go
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Aug 1, 2010, 10:47 am
Friendship River
for Giancarlo Vega
Up down and all around a world of people of all kinds A river flows of friendship through the meetings of our minds We find ourselves in one another in good company And we like one another like being able to see Another turning and returning as we find us where We need us when we need us who remind us then and there
That then and there is when and where we need us as we learn That as we turn and we return someone is being there With us that we are not alone that someone cares the way Only a friend cares one who shares both time and history With the perspective of the elective and just because Since we have known each other life is better than it was
Some people like to be only but that can be lonely I for one like to have a friend or two or three or four And not only do I like them but I like to make more So if you are only and lonely I hope we find us As we found each other being to find our being where Friendship is flowing between tomorrow and yesterday
The river between when and then before and behind us Laughing with us finding comedy within tragedy Between what goes and never comes and what we have today Asking nothing sharing everything turning to return Up down and all around a world of people of all kinds A river flows of friendship through the meetings of our minds
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Jul 29, 2010, 9:27 pm
Original Sin Survivor
for all the others
Asked to take the fall for the fall of man I have done my best but no longer can Nor longer will because it made me ill Wearing poorly designed depravity Forced on me finding it did not suit me Because the curse of Adam does not fit
I fail to feel depraved whatever I do Because I had nothing to do with it
So crafty preachers trolling for control Find someone else to take advantage of The sin is yours and is not of my soul You shout but I will not listen to you As having escaped you I go my way Understanding your misunderstanding
I spent most of my lifetime suffering Before I realized I could resist
But the God who is love in spite of you The God I remember in November To whom if I should die before I wake I grew up praying for my soul to take Beckoning to me as you turned away Released me from the living death you had For me when he decided I go mad Escaping the hell you defend so well Since you feel you need hell for heaven's sake And for it to exist you must persist That same God you forgot remembered me And did me a favor or that is how I think of it after going mad now
Setting me free to see differently Returning me to the garden today Where I am innocent though you are not Here in November now to remember In the garden of the God you forgot Learning by the tree of knowledge to see My mother did not give me sin but love
And what you gave me was the memory Of your own sin which would not let me go But I had to go when I came to know You as the enemies of love you are
As you controlled by tears so now I win Though bittersweet the right to laugh at last Simply by seeing the absurdity Of your outgrown unoriginal sin And now as I see you a size too small I who believed in the lies you told me See how you believed in nothing at all
So keep your apple I have found a star Inside of me where your sin used to be And free now find that I am of the sky Of the sea of the earth and of the fire
Recovering from growing up too fast And free to pray beyond the games you play My star is rising as I see my way By the light you hid and tried to deny In your perversion of the heart's desire When the sin was yours originally
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Jul 27, 2010, 2:14 pm
For the Rest of Us
In America today The voices we hear are the voices of fear Since these are the loudest and proudest Cowardly and loud about it Ignorant and proud about that too Striving to stem the flow of reality And though failing finding fame and fortune as they do Conniving to control the populace
But fear is not what we were born nor came here for Some never were and some are not afraid anymore
Weary and wary of whining defining us As some resist the universe refining us We tire of hearing the fearmongers crying For blood Ugly being as ugly does As far away from home the brave are dying For good Because they were told for good was what it was But then when they wondered it was just because And the fearmongers said so on the radio
Somebody's children like mine maybe yours Playing with fire and getting burned Fighting old wars A generation on when more is less Sacrifice taken for granted by this Negation of what they were fighting for By goading the fearful into cowardice And all for nothing more nor less than selfishness Conniving to control the populace
In an atmosphere of fear when noon is midnight The light lies low within the lamp today As angry men shout about how being wrong is right Who have forgotten all we ever learned Who neither come nor go who will not grow who just say no Only saying yes when they can take away A freedom or two or keep us out of their sight As they try to erase words like democracy But we do not believe them anymore
I do not fear the fearful nor need you
A nation evolves as the world revolves Our evolution is our revolution now Fear is not our here nor ignorance our how Though the fearmongers say no on the radio Toiling to turn the tide of history Our people know The remote controlled and bought and paid for anger of The sadly exploited but irrelevant Astonishes but is not us is not what we want And our children know that what we lack is love
The time has come now for the rest of us to say If you are not coming get out of our way
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Jul 25, 2010, 11:18 pm
Time Has a Way
for Maria with love for her birthday
Those who think they know the answers do not know The questions or how to ask them we have found It shows and they know we know this even though They conceal it if they can see us around By playing roles they think have been assigned them By something other this might have made sense to At one time but not to them now to find them Becoming angry about what they believe Rattled to realize it might not be true And people get dangerous when what they say Is fear shook to anger but time has a way
Perceptive in spite of themselves they perceive That things are changing in spite of all they do Flailing their futility against the clock They are in a hard place and time is the stone To make them stumble the rock to make them fall Because time has a way of breaking the lock Taking up the unknown shaking up the known Waking up questions and how to ask them too Refusing to leave certain subjects alone But making it all work out right after all On the way to tomorrow from yesterday
Time has a way
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Jul 24, 2010, 1:49 pm
By Which I Mean to Say I Love You
Among the diamonds of the sky I trip through time and space Seeing the universe being by The concept of reality Its own blue velvet darkness first taught me When I came to embrace It as it is and does seeing it being there Being what is and becoming what will be
Doing its be and being its do As I am and wish you were too With me but seeing I am everywhere And you are always with me I am there with you
By which I mean to say hello
The never parted reunited in A place no place but time in space No single point of spacetime but the whole The seamless fabric of reality Where nothing need end nor begin The lack of gravity no lack of grace Where balance plays a leading role
Though we might arrive unbalanced even so To universal laughter Here wisdom learns to wonder is to know Where balance follows after
Here is where never becomes forever When seen from the other side Bringing always out of never As anyone can do but few have tried The way we do as we meet here once more You the choir and I the priest
Where we have met so many times before Out where we change the minds at least Of such curious passersby as may Be ready to open their minds anyway Or maybe crack a tough nut or two If not for tomorrow at least for today
Being our do and doing our be Where it feels so right for me to be with you That you must feel it too with me Doing our be and being our do
Being and doing our destiny And what is that you say? To do our best no matter what Pursuing perfection as its own reward Our very uttermost and come what may To know what is and what is not And what lies in between
Remembering what others forgot Or what they never knew To turn and return with eternity But you know what I mean
You are always with me and that is why As I am with you too You the reader I the writer of This from me to you through love And when we fall remember how we soared Together you and I Doing our be and being our do Among the diamonds of the sky
By which I mean to say I love you
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Jul 22, 2010, 3:09 am
Freefall
A piano missing a few keys maybe A little worse for the wear of the weather Those inevitable effects of being I see and smile to remember not seeing Out looking for trouble and finding it in Unlikely places beginning to begin
But you must have been a beautiful baby Because baby look at you now and yet how Much do we love us or not how but whether At all or not at all through such a hard fall When winter awaits no matter what we do? I have trouble denying discouragement But I have tried to make it better somehow
I used to be able to lift up those who Had fallen and maybe gotten broken too But I went for broke without breaking my fall And ended up with my heart broken instead The person I was died inside of my head Cost what was paid for before I lost the rest And left me like this at all or not at all
It is more than I can do to lift up my Weary self now as like an autumn leaf I Am blown by the wind carried up then drawn down A big deal to me but really pretty small Just another person in another town Like you see from the train as it passes by The people and the town and the suffering When this is not hello when this is goodbye
I will have to go all the way down someday And when I am down now I stay there until The turn of the wheel comes along as it will As it does to bring me back to how it was Returning the wind to keep turning the mill Not forcing the spring since I can force nothing Only myself to be stubborn and to stay
Life is difficult heaven knows (or does it?) It was what I thought that it was (or was it?) But I cannot see how it was because it Is not the way it was then rather the way It is now which is the way it is today And maybe today we are not at our best
We would try tomorrow but it never comes It just glitters there at the end of the road As a future mirage the past overcomes But the hope of it helps us to bear the load Of a promise so big it can never come True all at once so it blooms into pieces
A faraway fragrance blown over the sea A memory like temptation increases Its insidious insistent urgency Of purpose but just what that purpose might be Is not for the many to know but the some
And they are not telling me so I will wait For what never comes but would become my fate If it ever came from today where it hid Within the fabric of spacetime yesterday Not coming and yet never going away
If the some knew that we were not at our best I wonder if they would enlighten the rest Of us who just wonder in general how To find our way out of this amazing maze Where we find ourselves living our nights and days As if this were going to be permanent This matrix and multiverse all about now Which speaking of tomorrow is where it went
Mystic magisterial ancient of days August in July a stranger everywhere Schizophrenic and whip smart and razor thin His belly of iron wherein burns a flame Psychotic and dangerous quite possibly But he dances into the arms of always Coming becoming beginning to begin The process of us remembering his name
And if you remember I wonder if we A piano missing a few keys maybe With you who were once a beautiful baby I wonder if it is not too late to try Though not at our best today making a go Of life now we know to know is not to know Since we never have to explain us at all?
As if we would or if we could explain we Who have embraced both the joys and sorrows of Windblown leaves in autumn floating in freefall Turning returning though falling even so Further and further than we ever dreamed of
And everything makes sense now little and late Past the suffering the people and the town Tomorrow is coming becoming our fate The fall of death becoming the call of love Freefalling further and then all the way down When this is not goodbye when this is hello Though not at our best today making a go Of floating in freefall like falling in love
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Jul 19, 2010, 8:48 pm
Deeper
for anyone who reads this
Our existence is confirmed in one another as we Check ourselves as though in the mirror looking in the eyes Of someone else to see if we are still there if we see And are seen in the in between if you know what I mean Where the deeper the darkness is the brighter is the star
Seeing we recognize each other as we realize That other people hell though they may be are how we know We are by seeing each other our existence agreed Upon seeing the light of you in me and mine in you And we may think we do not but we need us even so
Looking to find ourselves we find we are looking too far We cannot confirm we exist without us even though We think we do and we might want to or we might want to Think we do there is just no helping our need for us now That we exist and know that we exist and this is how
No helping our need for us now but our being indeed Being its own reward in going from and coming toward In the in between where we know what we mean as we lead The lives of stars to shine reflected in each other's eyes Where our being seems visible only reflectively
I do not remember existing until I saw you It took until I saw myself in you to realize In that moment of our mutual reciprocity When we were and when being with you was its own reward When you saw you in me reflecting that I saw it too
That this is how we are and know we are and it was soon Then looking in your eyes that I began to see my own Seeing you seeing me becoming as we are to be Both of us reflecting each other like the sun and moon Seeing myself reflected I saw I was not alone
We are not brains in jars but voyagers among the stars Nor are we alone out here as it is becoming clear When we find what we mean in the space in the in between Where in the deepest darkness there is where the stars appear Where the deeper the darkness the brighter the stars are seen
And the stars in our eyes are all of us becoming clear All we wanted it turns out was just to be somebody The stars we are where we could shine forever and ever Or if not at least for here and now this moment we are Clear in the here and now between forever and never
Where we find space is always now and stars are always here And finding each other reflecting we find us to be Our ground of being way of seeing and the meaning of All we have looked for all this time as we have looked too far For us reflected in our coexistent company
Being reflections of each other as the stars we are Who can never see us as we are until we can see Not in our backwards mirrors but our shared humanity The image of us in the eyes of others finding love Where the deeper the darkness is the brighter is the star
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Jul 17, 2010, 3:10 pm
Watching Shooting Stars Fall
My roommate in the lockdown psych ward was an amputee In a wheelchair and he always wore his hospital gown While I wore what I wore before to look more like outside He was inside everywhere and did not know did not care
So it came as no surprise he was as crazy as me With his troubling little stump below one knee waggling down That he was mad the other way though he was justified His fat face up in mine until I got it out of there
He dreamed what was and was not of him had a reunion His leg came back but came back black the rest white and angry His long lost limb had come too late his madness was his hate The lockdown psych ward was a mad and angry place to be
My Grandma was a woman toughened by disappointment And I the only one who never disappointed her Which is to say I did not die nor someway else go where She did not want to as I drove her where she wanted to
And I always gave her a laugh as I gave her a lift In her fifty year old Chrysler land yacht just as haunted Then as now and when I lost her I wondered where she went At first but now I find her in myself a given gift
The Reverend Reavis wept whenever he tried to pray His sobbing filled his church especially at communion I was a child and could not yet understand what this was Since time had not yet taught me some sad things I know today
He gave himself as offering and wept like that because While wanting badly to do good he found that he could not Remember who he was and was not and so he forgot When we want to do good badly this is what good it does
He sacrificed himself and found that he was not enough Unlike my Grandma disappointment could not make him tough Neither one went mad like me nor my roommate amputee Who learned the hard way that was just what we would have to do
And as we regard each other in the mirror we see Ourselves as we create us making our reality Reflected in reverse we are being and becoming And we want to do good badly for all the good it does
As at half past my long lifetime watching shooting stars fall How when they fall they just keep falling until they fall through Lessons we are here to learn which take a lifetime coming I see how going mad is not so crazy after all
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Jul 15, 2010, 11:12 am
And Life Goes On
In this my seeming afterlife persisting Longer than I had intended to Alternately accepting and resisting Remaining I wonder what to do
Since death is a crisis I could ill afford Betting it all one shot letting go An agonizing stop to what is moving A stop to the suffering even so
Stalling here I polish every word In case someone reads what I leave behind As my testimony to a dream deferred Waiting for the time when I will know
Noting absurdly my body improving Going to waste with my mind never mind That Lutheran practicality Noting all the exercise was not in vain
That promise of perfectibility Toward which I could aspire to wait it out although That could take awhile Asks me what remains to be should I remain
I could stand to stall more if I waited in style Alternately accepting and resisting But fear goes out of fashion When it comes to being gone
In this my seeming afterlife persisting I am equally afraid to die as live but still Death is a one time act of the will But life goes on and on and on
And life goes on
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Jul 14, 2010, 3:09 pm
Hot
for my friend and fellow poet Alexander de Juan and his Facebook Anthology #17: Comedy
It is hot today In the canyons of LA
Summer is a bummer When the beach is out of reach But I have to work hard The car is in a storage yard I gave it to my youngest anyway And I never really liked to drive the freeway
I have a choice today Of being roasted or fried By choosing being inside or being outside And so I lift my voice to say I never knew that I could be this hot Or did but did not want to and forgot
If this is how it has to be The rest of the summer then let me Be as hot as I am now in other ways That I might be distracted through these melting days Maybe see a little action as I Roast or fry
Then maybe I could be OK In the canyons of LA
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Jul 11, 2010, 2:22 pm
Perspective of the Sky
for Teddy and Jihye
I always used to try To see things from the sky Until it became my habit And how it is that now it is that I A hawk on the fly Can look down and find the rabbit Of what I need to become a part of me And it does now because I know how to see
It took awhile to learn Taking my time to earn First my respect and then my trust But having been patient I take my turn If I must return Like hawks and rabbits to the dust Knowing I have been having seen from the sky And from that perspective having learned to fly
I have seen how it is from up there Having learned to embrace My specificities of time and space Embracing to transcend them Rising toward immortality Riding tide and wind but not in vain Rising and falling and rising again Because that is what I do But what I do is worth doing right Having learned I am happy just to be Who I am as I am and I become
I want to hold close and enjoy The things those without perspective destroy When their rabbit of need becomes greed To be my best today before tonight To have principles and defend them But never defensively To answer simply and not explain Because I do not need to And having learned to see to be True to myself by daring to care Enough to insist as I am and do Learning to see as I become To know who I am and where I came from
The point of it all is that I learn Now as a creature of the air I came from the sky where I return And if you look up you might find me there Where I belong there where I am free To be where being I have learned to see Being now and seeing how who Learns to see is free indeed As I am and as I see what is true Being and seeing and freeing me Remembering what I forgot I knew As a hawk on the fly From the perspective of the sky
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Jul 8, 2010, 4:00 pm
The Lovers
To be everywhere is to be nowhere Without somewhere but To be somewhere is to be everywhere Which is how when we are here we are there With somewhere with someone the ideal Which would seem like what We ought to know before we go Though still we have to try Looking elsewhere for everywhere And going too far
Since going too far is only coming near Going around and coming the long way Wherever we are on this blue ball Nowhere everywhere or somewhere between All of us turn around the same small star As even by night it makes its light seen A pretty big trick for a star so small Bringing in soon by the light of the moon As something for us to remember it by Wherever we are
Which is how when the sun is there it is here Reflecting on itself to make the moon appear From out of the shadows of space to be Something to reflect on for you and for me Returning what will be to what has been Light after light reflecting on the sea Being the pitch to which the lovers tune Being the music of what is real When open hearts are singing to the sky Around this small star
And going too far wherever we are Around this small star as we are as we are Day follows night as night follows day As going we come and leaving we return Wherever we are on this blue ball Where none of us may leave here anyway Where two are one and somewhere is everywhere Which is how when we are here we are there The trick of it being to learn as we turn On this blue ball around this small star
A pretty big trick for a star so small Reflecting on us here to make the moon appear Everywhere is here and we are as we are Where somewhere with someone is everywhere And both of us know what no one need say Light after light reflecting on the sea Light after night after light to be Something to reflect on for you and for me As something for us to remember us by We are the lovers as we come near
As we were the lovers who went too far Around this small star as we are as we are
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Jul 6, 2010, 11:17 am
The Thing About Love
The thing about love is when we give it We get it because love grows when we live it
Giving love away is how we get more Because loving is what we are living for The meaning of life and reason we live Who would be lost unless we found Ourselves in the selves of those around As we do so we can see our way through As through each other we know what to do
Love is the way we care as much For others as us and talk by touch Why we dare to care and how we forgive In the process receiving more than we give As by being better than we are We overextend ourselves but not too far And dare to care enough to try To not be alone before we die Reaching each other by reaching for the sky
Fear resists love but we feel no regret When we find we get it as the it we get Our nights can be long with nightmares and yet Love is why we dream and how our dreams come true And love is why I wrote this for you
If there is nothing more than this And all we have is love We find all we need in a kiss To know the meaning of The infinite embraced within the small The ultimate in an intimate action The riddle and the wonder of it all Explained to our satisfaction
Love is the courage to call As well as the hope to respond And in the end love is all In all continuing beyond What we can see to be what we will be Love is the who we are of you and me Everything we have ever been As well as all we are We overextend ourselves but not too far And those who love know what I mean
However we fall love is how we rise Love lifts to create what fear destroys Of its beautiful openly secret joys Spinning to music the wool of noise Causing reality to realize Now and spring from then to bring another day To find God reflected in each other's eyes And to see love is why we are anyway
The thing about love is when we give it We get it because love grows when we live it
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Jul 5, 2010, 1:06 pm
If You Are Lonely Reading This
for Behnaz
If you are lonely reading this I want you to know As I blow a transcendental kiss By way of hello
Still staying though not staying still Refraining from complaining so Remaining without explaining As the only way to go
With the spacetime fabric in between What was and what is As I go I come to be If you know what I mean
Wondering about destiny Looking for the rest of me Knowing it will be the best of me Doing what I do
Drinking at the breast of the universe my mother Being and becoming and taking my fill Seeing you and I exist as one to another Freeing ourselves as we go to come to be
Each confronted by and encountering the other Wanting to know you wanting to be known Wanting you not wanting to be alone Wanting you to know that if you will I will
Having been alive a long time now Belatedly beginning to Make sense of life somehow At least to the extent of my intent
Unlimited but for what time will allow When unless space knows Only time knows where it goes Or where it went
With the spacetime fabric in between What is and will be To come to be as we go Since you know what I mean
If you are lonely reading this I want you to know That I am only lonely until I remember you
And I do
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Jul 1, 2010, 3:40 pm
I Want to Dream Again
on the Fourth of July in the Year 2010
The way it is has never seemed right And why it has to be this way Is something I have never understood
Some say it is all a conspiracy But probably it is more random Than that as the general tendency For use to come with abuse in tandem As yin and yang in unsound equipoise
The weeds grow with the grain And stronger it seems
When what is bad does well with what is good And we no longer sing together Our music in common becomes common noise
Our eyes narrow and as they do lose sight Of now uncommon common joys And dangerous changes in the weather As we lose the light
So I keep to myself a lot now Remembering what some forgot how Love is what casts out fear What we listen for All we need to hear What all of us are wondering about
Wondering like me again What happened to our dreams
Our muddied waters have made clear We could hate a lot less and love a lot more Who hear a whisper clearer than a shout Love is what we listen for
To speak love and to listen empathy Transcending fear and vanity And with respect between To mean what we say a more meaningful way To know what we mean without being mean Love is all we need to hear
A long way to go but not too far
Boys will be and girls will too But we are better than we do On this tomorrow of our yesterday
We dreamed it would be better when We dreamed of it before That now would be along in time by then That we would all drive flying cars by now By the way
I wanted to soar But then we stopped reaching for stars somehow
Stars to aspire to and stars to attain A long way to go but not too far For the somehow of now and for who we are At the time to wake up to dream some more
Time to reach for stars again
I can wait awhile for my flying car When only weeds remain Or so it seems So to say
But once I dreamed of catching a star And about you catching one too Wondering like me again About our dreams Delay has denied
We feel it in our hearts we know Our love like our time is tough Because of the dreams we hold inside And we have waited long enough Now to bring in the grain
Time for love to be and do A long way coming and a long way to go A long way to go but not too far To make our dreams come true And catch a star
