When conservatives speak of uniting They mean we should unite their way Keep still and march in lockstep reciting Whatever they tell us to pray
If they can't legislate morality All at once they still never stop Their march to absolute hegemony
As Supreme Court justices drop
With blinders on they see themselves climbing And they think they are near the top In the distance I hear midnight chiming
I can see the barren valley By the bone-white light of a knowing moon Leading back to the back-alley Where all of us will be united soon
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Jul 9, 2005, 9:49 am
All Roads Lead to Rome
The republic yields to Republicans A four-year-renewable emperor As strong as those ancient ones ever were The winners the sinners and publicans
Watch what you say they don't need a reason To whisk away those who would annoy them Down Gitmo way they say they destroy them Hang on like a flea to your liberty
You'd better pray they don't call it treason Have a nice day just smile and enjoy them They can be funny spending your money
That is to say the money you do not And never will have because they forgot It belongs to you but what can you do?
"Not in my name" was the name of the game But not anymore they say this means war And take down your name as someone to blame
That which we hold dear is worth fighting for Gitmo or get less all roads lead to Rome Divided we stand but stand for our home
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Jul 8, 2005, 2:39 pm
No One No More
I feel myself fading slipping away Perhaps it will not be necessary After all as I thought after the fall For me to commit suicide someday As gradually I slip out of me
The restraint which has kept me here this long The question of my culpability My blood on my own hands becomes less strong As I do and begins to fade with me
On dreadful websites whenever I say Anything about not wanting to live The judgmental mockingbirds come chirping "Just die! Go ahead! You ought to be dead!"
Blindly anonymously usurping Nature and nurture nor will they forgive Me their misperception that I am gay Would that I were had never known her nor The others I once thought I would die for
Forget me I just need to get away And die only for me: no one no more
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Jul 7, 2005, 12:53 pm
We Will Get Through This Somehow
Late the hour and great the power Our world is filled with madness But let us refuse to let Our hearts fail now for sadness Nor let us have one regret We have done the best we could And we are not finished yet We will do the best we can Grim the struggle understood But the best is still to be
Stark the power and dark the hour Solidarity my friends All for one and to a man Me for you and you for me As we grapple toward the good Mind the means and eye the ends Reach relentless toward the light Rising to the challenge now Roll your sleeves up hold on tight Side by side through this long night
We will get through this somehow
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Jul 6, 2005, 11:51 am
Transcendental Sonnet #1407: Midnight
Midnight seems to me to be the juncture The intersecting point of death and birth The spacetime fabric subject to puncture When heaven might intrude upon the earth
Or even soaring earth to heaven climb On ardent wings two lovers in embrace Exceed their limits to attain sublime Transcendence with their passion as their grace
And in those hours which follow silently We see the face of God in you and me The absolute the ultimately real Expressed beyond the realms of dark and light
We cannot speak it but can only feel The intersecting juncture of midnight
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Jul 5, 2005, 2:33 am
Transcendental Sonnet #1406: Almost Midnight on the Fourth of July
Almost midnight on the Fourth of July And all the fireworks blown up and burnt out Leave an acrid tang on the shattered air Men shot from car to car and more will die Out on the freeways still tonight no doubt Brawling driving drunk crashing everywhere
I brought in Grandma's forty-eight star flag
And I could taste it as I replaced it To its safekeeping as troubled thoughts nag Scary people scurry and I worry As they rush to board their flights and hurry Through the smoky night before the red light Awakens us all to reality
Blind justice is dead as we shall soon see
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Jul 4, 2005, 7:38 pm
A/trophy
Some trophy-loves cause atrophy One nearly was the death of me And what a fool I came to be For love
But finding her heart made of stone I now prefer to be alone If unknown now I choose the known
Above All else I choose to remain true To myself and my own and you Could do worse than to do this too
Should she read and get wind of this Then I would feel her stinging kiss I do not care I am not there But free
No trophy but no atrophy
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Jul 4, 2005, 2:57 pm
Checkmate
My son called with a question About chess I made neither suggestion Nor a guess
I never got good Nor quite understood This game Nor one other:
"Life"
By name Rife With possibilities And dread
For questions such as these I said Call your brother Instead
The one who might have known Is dead And better left alone
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Jul 3, 2005, 5:34 pm
Goodbye My Love
If I have offended Whatever I have done To make you hate me so Now that love has ended A new day has begun And now we must let go
Forgive and let me live And may you find someone Who will be better than This brokenhearted man I say the best man won Whoever he may be We know he is not me
Live and let live: forgive Forget and may the best Be yet to come the rest Forgotten in the past We loved each other so But now we must let go Forgive: live and let live And live in peace at last
Embrace the open sky Goodbye my love goodbye
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Jul 3, 2005, 4:06 am
I Ask No More for Love
I ask no more for love only for peace That love turned hate would turn again away From dark obsessive bitterness and cease To torture me and let there dawn a day When I at last am free once more of she Whose love has now been twisted into hate Which drives her to destroy me utterly
Love is not dead but wears a mask of late Of leering sneering anger which consumes One who was once so tender young and fresh But now lurks as a ghoul among the tombs Conspiring to consume my living flesh I only would move on and live and write Yet stalking in the darkness is her ghost Which waits within the shadows of the night
My enemy who loves and hates me most My loved one lost once brightest and once best May you find peace somehow may you find rest May you be found in everlasting light Released from hate's hell and again love-blessed May grace return and grant us both release I ask no more for love only for peace
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Jul 2, 2005, 2:09 pm
And We Will Smile Awhile Before We Go
Fleas very much prefer My cat when he is present They camp within his fur And make a life most pleasant
For them anyway
For him I would say They do not And they ought To just go away
But if he is outside Not on my bed Then all of them decide On me instead
Tonight our fleas are acting strange Sensing an atmospheric change They flee and leave us vacancy
Is it just me Or is it cold To be a flea
Or am I old?
Something is not right And is broken in the weather On this summer night
My cat and I curl together With windows closed tight Against a strangely spreading chill
Or am I ill?
In any case The fleas have gone Withdrawn with grace Until the dawn
But then my face Will be able to feel the sun again When time and space And life and death will be begun again
Whether or not my cat is on my bed The sun will rise To my surprise And by tomorrow the fleas will be dead
But I will thrive As I have before And be alive To live all the more
I am not old I am not ill There is no cold Nor any chill
Nothing to keep dreams from coming true We will make a go of it fleas or no I will make up songs and sing for you And we will smile awhile before we go
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Jul 2, 2005, 2:55 am
Reply to a Left-Handed Compliment
New friend my fellow trafficker in rhyme Tracker and detractor at the same time I thank you for your kindness And I forgive such blindness As I see in you when you look at me
You have knocked at my portal Now I make you immortal The ridiculous now becomes sublime The dumb will speak but the blind will not see Therefore let us agree to disagree
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Jul 2, 2005, 1:01 am
Happy Birthday to the USA
As everyone else is leaving town Leaving it quiet leaving it nice I am settling in and settling down With my cat and my bowl of brown rice
They can have their barbecues and beer Preferably far away from here I will not eat meat but I will greet Independence independently By writing poetry drinking tea And being free out in the sunshine Of my weekend ghost town feeling fine
I would love to shoot off fireworks But they made them illegal (the jerks) Nor will I go to a public show With fellow citizens I don't know Just write a poem or two or three And as they celebrate I agree To say in my own if offbeat way:
(This is not the day to say That the war has come to stay And will never go away)
Happy Birthday to the USA
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Jul 1, 2005, 2:38 pm
As Night Falls Hard
As night falls hard we stumble into dark Hold on white-knuckled to the air and fall Cats running scared cause skittish dogs to bark They say that day might not come back at all
The evil omens grin up mockingly They spook us round the corners seem to laugh Yet in their dead eyes tears burn shockingly Mere pawns like us they see the darker half
All over town we all fall down and try Somehow to find philosophy in this But there is none left just the Judas kiss Of feeling outsmarted by ourselves now
Our children search our eyes for hope somehow
But there is none left nothing left but why And why again and how can such things be And how can this be happening to me And why once more and how can God allow... ?
And still without an answer then we die
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Jun 30, 2005, 3:57 pm
Dharma
Elusive reclusive enigmatic Radical outsider undogmatic Dogma will be run over by karma But for me my poetry is dharma A poet with no axe to grind my mind Would seek to leave all narrowness behind
I have no desire no taste no craving For the cant nor the rant nor the raving Of those to whom such things seem effective Predestined to disdain the elective They have no regard for the collective As if since we seem a minority We are unimportant mere you and me
In fact intact we the majority Could really shake them up and they can see This so they fear our very presence here In their promised land of the hidden hand I am a well-meaning democratic One seen as a threat: am I then? You bet
But for me my poetry is dharma Radical outsider undogmatic Dogma will be run over by karma Elusive reclusive enigmatic
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Jun 30, 2005, 2:32 am
Bicycle Starlight
Riding a bicycle with no brakes Under the stars of a summer sky The heat of the day has gone away And I have forgotten my mistakes As well as yours nor will I ask why Things are as they are and that is all
To ride this bicycle and not fall And to feel the night rush past me fast Is more than enough and all it takes To make life worth living forgiving You and me and this mulberry tree Which very nearly ran into me I turned too soon looking for the moon
But no harm done and it is all one Because what I mean to say is just I love you in the summertime dust Though neither of us can find the moon Tonight we know it is still up there And if not tonight then some night soon That moon will follow us everywhere
Nobody ever looked so pretty As you do tonight here by starlight Keep me here away from the city Here where all the wrong things turn out right
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Jun 29, 2005, 4:50 am
Transcendental Sonnet #1405: Independence Day
What you call Iraq today We used to call Vietnam Nightmares never go away If sometimes you wake up from Them you go to sleep once more And they have been waiting for You and no one else will do
It will never end young friend Sleep and never question why Forward march and Semper Fi Big brother is watching you And his nightmares never end Hear the grateful nation say Happy Independence Day
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Jun 27, 2005, 4:30 pm
While I Was Sleeping
While I was sleeping The world was creeping Away from me on tippy-toes
What went wrong neither of us knows But now we can no longer recognize Ourselves the way we were and realize That somehow over the course Of days and ways a divorce Took place so we might as well finalize This fact and just accept things as they are Keeping our grace and not rolling our eyes
This solar system while no cookie jar Is still not big enough as to allow The luxury of never seeing how The world and I are faring once apart This calls for two sharp cookies which we are And we will have to be urbane and smart A worldly human humane world somehow Sharing the universe better than worse
I wish you well world truly from the heart And I will muddle through as best I can An out-of-this-world otherworldly man
We both turn around but no turning back now
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Jun 26, 2005, 2:31 pm
A Call to Resistance
The people have been torn in two As war wastes life and drains away The future's hope from me and you A stain of blood descends to stay The proud hand which holds suffering And leads but to decline and fall
Proud they sowed but harvest will bring Disgrace unless we soon and all Stand free to see the prophecy Fulfilled in us and turn away From masters dark with cruelty That stalking death no longer slay The young that what could be would be
The path of peace has overgrown Restore the road which leads to light That madmen might be overthrown Before there comes no end of night
Does no one still believe in peace Enough to struggle for release From this cold stranglehold of pain And would we see our womb our tomb? Our last best hope at dusk of doom Is that we find our voice again:
Resist the grasping grip of gloom Speak truth to power and scour the stain
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Jun 25, 2005, 6:54 pm
The Existential Question Shared
Why does it hurt us to exist? Is it like this for everyone? Could it be some better resist The pitfalls of life sun to sun?
Is this the effect of abuse Suffered individually Or the scar-tissue and debris Of all our collective refuse Suffered as a society?
Are these feelings equally real To everyone or do we feel Them all somehow more acutely? Relatively? Absolutely?
Although we might well never know Since we exist let us persist Wander and wonder as we go In this existential question
Others whether by suggestion Or example can help us grow I know it is better to be Together my friend you and me So much unknown not borne alone
And the total is the sum squared The existential question shared
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Jun 25, 2005, 4:35 pm
Transcendental Sonnet #1404: Saturday Sad Smile
My young friends speak of battle Of warfare of the spirit I see they are not cattle And so I smile to hear it
Armed only with my wounds though The passion of poetry They know well I do not know And that is enough for me
I have embraced this and that Through the years and through the tears Now I just embrace my cat With a sad smile face my fears
Only poetry and pain As the world turns round again
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Jun 24, 2005, 11:10 pm
Friends and fellow poets:
Some of you have questions about publishing your work, and I would like to share a little of my own experience with on-demand publishing with you in the hope that it might help you as you explore your options. This is something which has worked for me and for others of us here in our BrainMeta poetry community.
Over many years I have published a lot of music with traditional publishers, both in choral octavo form and gathered into books; I got to be an expert at the traditional music publishing business over the years.
I was working with a small music publisher with which I enjoyed a very close relationship, and we had the idea to do a book just of my poetry as a thing-in-itself, just the words as it were with no music. I had done original texts for my choral motets over the years, and I have always written poetry, so this seemed like a good idea.
Well, the music publisher was an elderly lady who was very, very conservative, and she began to take offense at certain of my poems! She became uneasy about the project, which had been for a book of one hundred poems called Existential Hot Dogs. My sense of humor got a bit past her, and some of it she thought might be at her expense. To make a long story short, she decided to bail out, leaving the book project high and dry.
By now the poems were really piling up, too; in addition to well over the originally agreed-upon hundred, I was well into my series of Transcendental Sonnets. I have 1403 of those so far, but it was the twenty-first one which really made her mad somehow. In any case, she didn't get my jokes.
I was really depressed. I had taken care of first my mother and then my grandmother as they sickened and died, and then when Grandma died I had a two-year legal nightmare with this crazy uncle who tried to steal my inheritance. He got away with everything but the house, and for that I had to fight four lawsuits and win them, which I did. But I was really drained and disappointed to lose the support of my publisher.
I was with Silke at the time, and she undertook to try to find me a publisher in Europe. She was sick, but did her best, and our friend Sander Maltelid shopped the book all over Sweden. He was getting very close, but then, tragically, died under terrible circumstances. He was one of our original forum members here.
So now it looked hopeless. I looked into options in new technology, in "on-demand publishing," or POD. I did a web search and found Lulu.com, one of many such companies which manufacture books on demand, which is to say that the book is printed after the order is received, made to order. This service is free, and the author becomes, actually, the publisher, keeping most of the profits, just as publishers have always done!
But you really have to be techno-savvy, which I am not, and my first attempt to gather all my poems together and upload them to Lulu to create a book had some problems. I found the computer-formatting which the process requires to be really hard, at least for me. Many people find this to be the case, so Lulu connected me with an editing company and an editor who solved my problem and made that first book turn out really nicely in the end.
While the publishing process is free and open, as a happy and tangible result and benefit of the digital revolution, one has to pay for an ISBN number and distribution. But the fees are relatively not that large; about two hundred dollars gets your book out there all over the world on the Internet, on the Amazons, Barnes and Noble, Blackwell's, and so on. Editorial services are more expensive. My fifth book, which should be ready by Tuesday, cost me about five hundred for the formatting and uploading, including the creation of the covers, table of contents and other "front matter," all the things which make a book a book. Lulu--and there are a number of other companies as well--can recommend great providers of editorial services, who will handle all the details of the publishing process.
I am doing my fifth book right now, and others here on BrainMeta have done books through Lulu as well, including Hey Hey, Kevin (Windowmaker), and Megan (Rosediamond), among several of us. I guess I was the Guinea pig! But it turned out well, and others have had good results as well.
I would recommend you do a web search of on-demand publishers. I know Lulu works for me; I am not personally familiar with the others, but there are several.
Love,
+Stevie
Poet in Residence BrainMeta.com
Jun 24, 2005, 5:22 pm
Lonesome Train
Lost and faraway lonesome train I love to listen to your song When I hear you I dream again Of one I knew but do not know The one I lost the one I long To see who is but cannot be Of whom the memory burns strong I feel like you sing just for me A distant echo of my pain We may be lost but we are free To weep together lonesome train
I never knew but I know now That she is just like me tonight I hear you through the clear moonlight And I can hear her sing somehow You may be lost but I have found Her voice again within the sound Of your song as you sing I see Her face again within the moon I know we are together still And always will come very soon I love her and I always will
When I hear you I dream again Lost and faraway lonesome train
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Jun 24, 2005, 9:20 am
How You Haunt
I wonder if you ever Think of me Do you think it was never Meant to be?
We called it fate But that was before Love felt like hate When we were no more
Then love blew away On the wind Of a bitter day At the end
Now I want To kiss you and say I will never forget How you haunt
I miss you today Do you ever regret?
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Jun 24, 2005, 5:15 am
Without
Who was she Who was I Who were we?
Why Why Why?
What does it mean What was what was What might have been?
