We are like clotheshangers Since we are more Or less the cliffhangers Of what we wore
Life is killing us thrillingly We strut through stiff dangers Chopping the chore Willingly and unwillingly
So determined so dutiful As plain as day as beautiful
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMVIII
Nov 11, 2008, 4:10 am
Keep
stars over Studio Lance
I fall back to the keep Of my castle to sleep
With love to all the homes within this house I fought for and won while losing my mind In the fight but that seemed part of the plan When lions were silenced by the roar of a mouse
A solitary yet a lonely man Determined to leave it intact behind As it was set before me long ago When nobody knew they would come to know That I was more stubborn than all of them Together and whether or not I knew This is my Zion never mind Jerusalem
This is my somewhat worldly paradise My home and that of many very nice Somewhat worldly paradisians like you And I will see you again tomorrow my friends As another mouse-roaringly mindful day ends
I fall back to the keep Of my castle to sleep
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMVIII
Nov 8, 2008, 1:21 pm
All Right with Me
Somehow everything is going to be Though going through these many twists and turns Now as it always is: all right with me Since this is just one of those things one learns In the course of this turning and twisting
Like we learn it is pointless resisting This twisting and turning of what some call Fate in winter yet destiny in spring Like love in summer cools to hope in fall What is it then but the name we give it?
But it is nothing less than everything My life is what I name it after all And it is mine to embrace and live it With all my heart believing it to be Now as it always is: all right with me
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMVIII
Nov 6, 2008, 11:42 am
Your Other
can you handle the truth?
That erstwhile ecstasy of being me Makes present life worth present agony And births the hope my former happiness Having gone could come back nevertheless And that presently something might go right
But something has always been right I guess Rising in the dark while sinking from sight Just as the sun has always come and gone From day through night to day from dusk to dawn The vessel overflows its emptiness
I live as me so you can be The star which you believe you are My old makes possible your new But I knew how to be a star Before you ever met you And I will not forget you
I may be an extra in your movie But I am a star in mine An image beyond your reality But yours is no heaven mine is no hell I enjoy how I can see I rock your world a little: I can tell
Yours is flashy mine is fine Unseen therefore underestimated And those who will not see will find it strange This is my movie released unrated In which I smile my silent threat of change
From day through night to day from dusk to dawn The vessel overflows its emptiness I may be an extra in your movie But I am a star in mine I live as me so you can be The star which you believe you are
I will not be your mother But you seem to have that covered just now So I will be your Other And you just have to deal with me somehow So be mindful what you do
This is my movie released unrated In which I smile my silent threat of change
The vessel overflows its emptiness
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMVIII
Nov 1, 2008, 12:41 pm
Tragic Magic
The path of life is tragic Endured by weed and wine But its process is magic Diabolical or divine As muddy waters settle and come clear Death everywhere with life nowhere but here
So forward then I stumble Though I aspire to dance As trouble keeps me humble I know I get just this one chance To see the light and get it right somehow Since all is lost with nothing left but now
The path of life is tragic But its process is magic
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMVIII
Oct 30, 2008, 2:42 pm
This
for my family
Some leaves as they fall turn around and spin On the free flight of death they get to be So beautiful that as they lose they win This is how I want it to be with me
A leaf which though falling still seems to rise And spinning sails on silently away So beautiful it makes me realize That today is as good as any day
No time like the present to give the slip To gravity on a spiraling trip And if the direction is downward then Make this count since this will not come again
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMVIII
Oct 30, 2008, 12:33 am
For Now
These leaves turn red before they fall The redder leaves the colder days Now in this time of turning To turn to soil then that is all Or else they flame out in a blaze And slip decay through burning
I turn but do not turn away I want so much to stay with you But I am just a dying leaf No matter how I want to stay Whatever I might try to do And fall seems something like relief Somehow
So I will celebrate today For now
I wish that you could be with me Before I have to go But what I know of destiny Is what I do not know I turn but do not turn away I want to be with you
But shadows lengthen as today Admits tonight as true And it is over after all The red the turning and the fall And fall seems something like relief Somehow
So I will celebrate today For now
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMVIII
Oct 29, 2008, 3:50 pm
Paradise
When I hold you I can hear your body sing So I give you myself as my offering And hope and trust that I will be enough for You since it is you yourself which you give me Nothing less than everything no less no more Than the real meaning of that word "reality"
The only thing I know about things like this Is I love how you drive me mad with your hair How you blast me off into space with your kiss To search the night between the stars and find you there
Born once although I want to be born twice I want to go back where I came from within The universe of you beyond pain and sin Where I make love to Eve in paradise
Woman oh woman oh sister of my soul Take me break me make me the mirror of you Defeat me complete me in shared victory I need you since only you can make me whole You it is inspires me to do what I do Woman sweet woman sweet sister of my soul
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMVIII
Oct 28, 2008, 4:54 pm
Like Birds
I am dreaming about you my faraway friend Can you feel me? The only cure for loneliness comes at the end Can you heal me?
If only you would I know how you could And yet We remain unknown Both of us alone With only Regret Too lonely For words Like birds Of a feather Not together
I am singing about you my faraway friend Can you hear me? The only cure for loneliness comes at the end With you near me
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMVIII
Oct 26, 2008, 12:43 pm
To Journey Mindfully
for Kyle Gaulke
You might as well be headless as be heedless For all the good a heedless head could do Unseemly haste scorns mindfulness as needless But heedlessness would have you hasten to No-one-knows-where including heedlessness
A heedless head forgets it ever knew And this is how you know when you get there Where getting ahead is getting behind Ahead of your body out of your mind And no-one-knows-where can be anywhere Except the place you are supposed to be
A heedless head could be the death of you As it has nearly been the death of me But whatever happens to us passing through This passage in which we find ourselves now The passing through makes us better somehow If we embrace the passage after all
The mindful pass the place the heedless fall Reminded as they pass to journey mindfully
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMVIII
Oct 24, 2008, 2:36 pm
Throughout the Velvet Universe
Throughout the velvet universe tonight Infinite alien worlds wink awake Multifoliate stars bloom cold and bright And if by accident not by mistake
Or maybe this is all inside of me What is outside might be just what is in This simulacrum of reality Might only be what I have mistaken For something unapproachable and high When it was just the I and not the sky
Since I am unable to leave my head To see what is unshadowed by the skull I will live this life like a dream instead Where bright stars bloom so nights are never dull And tomorrow never comes anyway Where moons on oceans and emotions pull But never pull away and so I stay My half empty glass soon to be half full
And if by accident not by mistake Multifoliate stars bloom cold and bright Infinite alien worlds wink awake Throughout the velvet universe tonight
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMVIII
Oct 21, 2008, 11:06 am
Somebody
That I mean something to someone Means everything to me But for me to mean something to A person such as you Makes it a joy to live to see My moment in the sun And see it before I am dead
If it goes to my head It only goes as champagne does Or the ganja I toke But it keeps me humble because Before my life goes up in smoke I am able to be Someone to someone: somebody
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMVIII
Oct 20, 2008, 11:14 pm
How it Hurts to Heal
My body is broken and yet I breathe The pain reminds me how it hurts to heal My mind is shattered and yet I believe In what I lived and learned which I bequeath To you in love now that you might receive Me at my uttermost as we reveal The brokenness which makes us who we are (Shyly at first because it hurts so much)
I would be healed if you could be with me Our healing comes through fitting from afar Our jagged edges trembling at the touch Each of the other to combine to be The spark which gives birth to a double star Where nothing lasts except eternity
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMVIII
Oct 18, 2008, 11:55 pm
Be
I want my love to be the means of grace By which you are gifted to spark a smile
I want to be the one to see your face When you come to see life not as a trial But a process of joy in journeying
I want my love to be what you embrace When you realize you are not alone And then I would hope you could embrace me
I want to love you more than anything You have ever seen or have ever known
Eight limbs like branches entwine into one Root into now: the one eternity
Which unlike time may not be measured nor Anticipated cannot be planned for Because the only thing now does is be
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMVIII
Oct 16, 2008, 2:58 pm
Just a Little Dream Away
for Franziska
I dream of you at night (Of course) but also during the day And though far from my sight You are just a little dream away
Wherever you go here you remain Tucked snug inside my heart To spark my dreams again and again Together though apart
And when you come to me To comfort me in my loneliness You are reality The flesh of my dreams and nothing less Than all of everything The dream and the song the dreamers sing
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMVIII
Oct 14, 2008, 4:26 pm
Platinum Diamonds on Black Velvet Sky
for Franziska
My chosen one we have begun at last As we have begun enjoying as one Living love here between future and past Two sudden starbursts to flash through the now Platinum diamonds on black velvet sky As farflung as forever might allow
I am free when I am embraced by you To ride time and space like waves of the sea With space for time as much to be as do I know we have always been together Golden goddess eastern promise of sun Just as we are neither when nor whether
My chosen one we have begun somehow And what has begun (may it never end) Insists I be with you no matter what As chosen one as lover as best friend The other half of me which time forgot Now rediscovered to be timelessly Aswirl in the whirlpool of destiny
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMVIII
Oct 10, 2008, 7:45 pm
When I Awaken
for Franziska
The pain in my side when I awaken At first surprising then remembered for The rib by which my lover was taken The missing part of me which makes me more Asks if pain and pleasure are mistaken For each other in my sojourning here Or if they are in fact one and the same If the always far is the always near And if Franziska might just be her name
My heart is broken but my soul can fly And soar on love over above it all My broken wings bandaged embrace the sky To rise again the autumn of my fall Where lost paradise beckons to believe At last I am ready to love again To share with Franziska pleasure and pain To be with her as Adam to her Eve With love at my side when I awaken
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMVIII
Oct 8, 2008, 9:00 am
At Present
The past does not exist and memory Is reconstructive as we come to see That what is supposed to come never does When how it should be should be how it was And how it could be would be just because The past does not exist but memory Reconstructs how it was supposedly
I see the future but choose to believe It must not exist and my eyes deceive My mind into thinking of what is not Of what might have happened that I forgot Because it simply has not happened yet
So I will just stay where I am right now At present in the best place to forget To remember if I remembered how If to remember reconstructively And if you remember I hope that you Remember too because I know I do Though it be only how it was for me
We can only remember how it seems But what are memories if not our dreams?
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMVIII
Oct 6, 2008, 1:07 am
Pink Pets and Pills
That distinctive Pink Pet eraser smell The flag halfway down when Kennedy died That instinctive rush at the final bell When insiders finally got outside To find the world spun out of our control A sense of unease and not feeling well But going through the motions anyway While asking hard questions about the soul: If ours could speak what should it have to say Of life thought as heaven but felt as hell?
I grew up under duck-and-cover drills And the influence of Ritalin pills
I suppose it was propaganda when They taught us as they did tendentiously I felt it if did not quite know it then And it sounded good about being free But there is no national holiday For me then or now here or anywhere And if God knows I wonder does he care Or even if there could be somebody Who might prefer not that I leave but stay And if I do I wish I knew how to
Here at the threshold of my age I wait To approach the moment I meet my fate
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMVIII
Oct 2, 2008, 4:15 pm
Fall
Looking up into this green of these trees And watching green turn red and yellow now I am happy to be on days like these No matter why and no matter why not
And I will do what I have to somehow To remember all those things I forgot From a long time ago I ought to know But I always thought I knew better then
I will remember them all someday when The time is right for looking back ahead Watching green turn red and yellow then dead Like things I know from a long time ago Watching dead turn yellow and red then green Those who have fallen will know what I mean
Fall is the motion of dying season But is only spring in another light The heartbeat of life itself the reason Birth and death dance: to keep the balance right
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMVIII
Sep 30, 2008, 10:33 pm
A Lot Like Being Born
Death seems a lot like being born to me To stand on this side of the veil withdrawn From the birth canal of mortality By the banks of dusk to embrace the dawn Of what an unknown day might hold in store Or an unknown night like this only more
Either way it seems a passage through pain When we leave or stay as we come and go After it happens no one can explain The second time and the first time we know What all of us do twice each in our way At dusk as at dawn as night follows day
I stand on this side of the veil withdrawn From the birth canal of mortality By the banks of dusk I embrace the dawn Of what an unknown day might hold in store On an unknown night like this even more Death seems a lot like being born to me
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMVIII
Sep 29, 2008, 3:44 pm
E is for Empathy
Empathy is something I believe in: Nothing feels better than to receive in Giving by living mindfully in touch The love we need to give and take so much
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMVIII
Sep 25, 2008, 3:39 pm
The Other
Struggling with my sanity I have to wait Distracted by these deep waters below me For the outcome of an internal debate As to might I know God or might God know me
Yet cannot help but perceive and yes believe That there is something other in the dark there And the other is none other than me where The line disappears between give and receive
Because this is the highway nobody knows This byway I travel wherever it goes Into the unknown and always alone except For the other who knows where the secrets are kept
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMVIII
Sep 23, 2008, 4:09 pm
To the One I Love
No one has ever understood me but For you the exception no matter what Which proves the rule that I would be a fool Not to love you all these years as I do
All I ever wanted I find in you But where do I find you when you are gone When you are as far away as a star And not our eastern visitor at dawn?
I feel inside of me and there you are As enigmatic as ever and yet No one has ever understood me but For you the exception no matter what
Which proves the rule if only by regret Our eastern visitor knows what I mean Who visits me here in my loneliness Departing westward with what might have been
And a sunset here is a sunrise there Tomorrow is already yesterday But now is the sunrise of everywhere What you give me no one can take away
So I give you myself and nothing less You have already done the same for me And would a thousand times just as I would If not this then what is reality?
I feel the real in you and it feels good
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMVIII
Sep 22, 2008, 10:09 am
These Steps of My Own
My eyes are still good enough I can see That the lotus unfolds if not for me Then some other brother of history And if it unfolds for him then it must For me before it enfolds me in dust To embrace the ultimate mystery
There are things I feel like I need to know Like the holiness of humility And how meaning is found in mindfulness Forgetting goes fast as learning comes slow And it all comes out in the wash I guess But I want to be within deity I would like to go with God as I go Keep my eyes open and see what I see
Religion has disappointed my heart I like what it says but not what it does It seems to have forgotten about God And if I were part of something which part? An uneven part left out with the odd Yet I am still out here waiting around As disappointed as all of us are
But I tread a path wise wanderers trod Whose steps combine to make this holy ground With these steps of my own beneath this star As far away now as it ever was
