Under the open skies of this clear night Sweet incense burns rice is almost ready Out my back window the stars shine so bright They seem to pin the universe steady Life can be crazy but it is all right
I stay away from striving people and Only bother with souls who understand This truth my friend my foe you must let go When will you learn to play it as it lies? Stop asking me these things I cannot know
Think for yourself and you will realize This is no competition not a race Nothing matters but love and learning here Forget your bitterness forget your fear Live all you can and do it with some grace
Then when your life is over all is done Under the open skies of this clear night I hope that you can say you had some fun That what you could not know you just let go Life can be crazy but it is all right
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Apr 6, 2005, 8:54 pm
Transcendental Sonnet #1335: Change
Life is dynamic it is organic And the only thing unchanging is change In feast or famine depressed or manic The universe conspires to rearrange Deck chairs on the deck of the Titanic
It often seems overwhelmingly strange But it is a voyage to be enjoyed And we need strike no icebergs after all Unsinkable we need not be destroyed We can if we will rise after a fall
Accepting change prevents a lot of pain Just let it go you never know what lies Around the corner in happy surprise The sun always comes back after the rain
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Apr 6, 2005, 7:18 am
Transcendental Sonnet #1334: White Butterflies
I don't know much about butterflies Wish I did but I'm not that clever But I got a butterfly surprise Yesterday which I thought I'd never Receive and it was hard to believe
Out in my front yard in sparkling weather Two butterflies wings folded together Joined in unmistakable embrace To be as one there under the sun Right there in front of my startled face
Surprised by life embracing the spring My heart bloomed within me to behold This most fantastic most fragile thing White butterflies wreathed in rays of gold
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Apr 6, 2005, 2:52 am
Digicam Digeridoo
Don't know a digicam from a digeridoo But if I had one I'd take a picture for you Of my sentimental smile as I dream awhile Ready for my close-up with a new tattoo
Digeridoo-dah digicam hey My oh my what a digital day
Technology is way ahead of me you see Don't even have a camera of any kind But if I get caught up you'll see the rest of me I'll leave the twentieth century behind
Wanga-langa ding-dong did you say? Digeridoo-dah digicam hey
As soon as I fast-forward through the nineteenth one And then the next one to the present I should be Ready to join you in the present century In virtual reality and find it fun To learn to play the digeridoo just for you And then I'd take a picture and I'd send that too To represent a pleasant propinquity
Digeridoo-dah digicam hey My oh my what a digital day Wanga-langa ding-dong did you say? Digeridoo-dah digicam hey
Hey ho hey have a digital day
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Apr 5, 2005, 6:26 pm
Transcendental Sonnet #1333: No More Drama Queens
No more drama queens Who make life hell I know what it means Only too well To live trapped in a bubble And always be in trouble
If you knew You would agree If you too Could only see And gone through It all with me
You'd say no more drama queens Because you'd know what it means
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Apr 5, 2005, 3:23 pm
Midmorning Meditation
The dining room lace tablecloth is soaking in the sink As sun slants through the front room window spring is blooming now The tea in my Union Jack mug now cools enough to drink Just as the noisy trash truck comes as if on cue somehow But passes on and it is gone I drink my tea alone This morning in this only home which I have ever known They say it may be eighty today but I am still cold A couple more cups of tea and a hot shower for me My youth progresses and I will be born when I am old
As big as life I mean to wrestle down my destiny
A dog is barking mindlessly to me to him sincere Across the street as other dogs pause listening to hear Whatever he is saying I am praying anyway Thy kingdom come thy will be done Lord thank you for this day On earth as it is in heaven at nine forty-seven Now and ever only always as in my heart I feel There is a pretty girl who loves me that is all I need Whatever is reality some things are right and real At midmorning I can see this is a good day indeed
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Apr 4, 2005, 10:19 pm
Transcendental Sonnet #1332: With You / With Me
I have to open up my heart And let all these feelings pour out I can no longer live apart Alone like this I want to shout That I need you to rescue me
I know that I would rather be With you
You dream of me I know you do I can feel you from far away I want to be with you someday When my dream will at last come true Only time reveals destiny
I wonder if you want to be With me
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Apr 4, 2005, 6:43 pm
Transcendental Sonnet #1331: How Spirit Can Soar When Flesh is Not Wasted
The ideal of transcendence beckons me To rise above the petty and commonday Actions and distractions of humanity Yet I ought not must not cannot turn away From my brothers and sisters of humankind
Denying my flesh is not good for my mind Inasmuch as I am human I have needs Which although long denied are destined to be Pieces of my puzzle of thoughts words and deeds
A being not only of spirit am I Nor is it natural for my flesh to die Unfulfilled without ever having tasted What it is like to be in love and to see How spirit can soar when flesh is not wasted
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Apr 4, 2005, 6:49 am
Letting Go
+Deus meus et omnia
Letting go of what has been Open to what is to be Only saying what I mean Attempting to take care of me
Since there is no one else who Has my interests at heart Cares or shares my point of view At least not quite the way I do
Together with all apart With God in a quiet place One star in one galaxy In one shining moment of grace
Lord open my eyes and be The sunrise by which I see The understanding smile on your face Lord open my lips to sing Love songs brought in offering To the secret place of your embrace
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Apr 3, 2005, 5:24 pm
Transcendental Sonnet #1330: Now Ready to Transcend
Mortally rejected By one who never was Divinely elected To fulfillment because Now ready to transcend Now silly follies end
I need everyone But not anyone In particular I stand on my feet Perpendicular One and all I greet
With all my love with all my heart I come together now apart
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Apr 3, 2005, 4:02 am
Transcendental Sonnet #1329: Together As We Go
Lacking logical explanation I remain In spite of everything I have come all this way
I pick myself up from the dust and start again With no idea of what to expect today But I need no idea nor explanation
I have learned there is no point in my asking "why?" So the question becomes "am I willing to try?" Right or wrong there is no room for rumination
I want to be with you I want to be and do My best and pass the test this life would seem to be And that is all I can do it would seem to me
So let us walk together toward that end my friend By faith and not by sight through every day and night Since this is all we know together as we go
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Apr 2, 2005, 6:11 am
A Spring Worth Waiting For
A winter of extraordinary rain Months of flood and mud and cold and trouble My furnace out from beginning to end Those short days with long nights now down the drain Therefore the rising spring is a double Blessing for me as I see light again
As I make a new and find an old friend As one I thought was lost was not somehow And life itself seems friendlier to me I find myself open to others now A part of humankind's community As I feel the sun on my face and dream
Lemon blossoms and jasmine scent the breeze Yellow butterflies flutter by and seem To greet me and I think God sent me these Small messengers of light to say to me Tune in turn on drop out drop in stay strong I rub my eyes and see that I can see
Although there is a worm in the apple Although there is a snake in the garden And we wonder as we grasp and grapple Soft spring warms hearts winter freezes harden And all will be all right somehow will be A spring worth waiting for all winter long
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Mar 31, 2005, 2:42 pm
Transcendental Sonnet #1328: Wind Kiss
The wind blows in as a freshening breath A gift from the desert scented with sage The whole of the night is animated Dynamic respiration sweeps out death Encouraging me on my pilgrimage Caresses me whispers I am fated To be surprised by joy and to embrace This priceless gift which has been given me
I breathe the wind as it kisses my face The beat of ultimate reality Echoes within my chest my open hands Receive the touch of other in the night There is intelligence which understands Behind the veil withdrawn a glorious light
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Mar 29, 2005, 10:55 pm
Transcendental Sonnet #1327: Everything Can Get Better Suddenly
Having finally found a place of grace A point of repose and some happiness Through empty time and space a friendly face
I wish there were some way for me to bless Everyone else with all the good they seek Give them some love to share along the way
Encourage the strong and support the weak Ask them to give life one more chance and stay No matter how far down they think they are
Everything can get better suddenly Having journeyed so long so hard so far I know it can because it did for me
So I will do my best to pass along Whatever good I find like in this song
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Mar 29, 2005, 10:35 am
For Franziska
Take me into your golden lair Let me keep you company And we will hide nowhere but there Nowhere would I rather be Swathed in the shadows of your hair
Let the whole of the wide world see And say what they will for all we care That we are together you and me We two at last have outsmarted the past Now knocks at the door and we let it in With you a new beginning is begun With nothing but now so now we begin
Franziska flaming tiger burning sun Melting the ice which imprisoned me Saving from suicide freeing my mind Freeing us both to see we are free To leave the muddling and middling behind
We kick aside the rubble as we rise Now I will never feel frozen again But find myself lost in your deep dark eyes Feel your golden flesh like tropical rain A velvet volcano between firm thighs Drink deep your kiss of life deep golden one Franziska flaming tiger burning sun
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Mar 29, 2005, 12:14 am
Transcendental Sonnet #1326: Living and Forgiving
Everything is resolving The nightmare past the earth Rotating and revolving I went to pieces now I come to peace somehow I see this life is worth Living and forgiving after all
They can cheat me but cannot beat me I have survived a very hard fall Some betrayed me but some repayed me For my love with true love of their own I know now and I am better known That which is good is better understood Rejected but free I am not alone
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Mar 28, 2005, 10:50 pm
Transcendental Sonnet #1325: New Songs
Here in this thick darkness word has reached me that Out there in the sunshine people care for me Hanging upside down like a cave-dwelling bat What goes on outside is hard for me to see
Life goes on or so they say live for today Yesterday is lost tomorrow may not come Reality sounds good to me anyway I have had more than enough of fantasy If anyone will share real love I want some
I am not bad-looking if no longer young My curiosity inspires me always To find such new songs as have not yet been sung I would like to do new wonders all my days My life ever new to sing new songs for you
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Mar 28, 2005, 9:58 pm
Easter Epiphany: Now Only Now
The greatest poem is silence so the Spirit said Work it out scream and shout then retire renounce desire And still instead of stir the violence of the dread But also the lure of death within your very breath
And what is real? Is what I feel reality then? It may have been reality then but is not now You are so determined to have an answer somehow! Stop and be content within the question in the fire
For the only way for you to mend is to transcend As you transcend so you ascend and those who offend Will destroy each other in sterile stupidity Consume one another by their crass cupidity
Now you will laugh last and you will laugh best The past is the lie now you passed the test Now only now and never mind the rest
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Mar 28, 2005, 8:58 pm
Real
Once blind with folly now I see That criminals in foreign lands Who would destroy me utterly And preyed upon my innocence Can never take myself from me Though bloodied by their brutal hands My faith in God is my defense Survival is my victory
The sun is going to shine again Along with spring I came through the rain I am going to be fine again Refined by fire purified by pain The life God gave me is mine again I still live and what is mine retain Nor cast my pearls before swine again They destroy themselves yet I remain
My love turns into hate and hardens into steel From now on I will only feel that which is real
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Mar 28, 2005, 6:19 pm
Now
So many poems are passing me by Standing silent and hopeless watching an Endless parade of ideas which die As they melt like snowflakes before I can Gather myself to touch them to taste them To grasp them grieving I watch and waste them
Four books and all of them filled with the name Of one who betrayed me for another How can I endure and live down the shame Of criminals laughing with each other About what a stupid old fool I was?
Yet I have to get through this now because If this is the end of me then their game Will be made perfect all at the expense Of my good name lost with myself to blame Transcendence now my only recompense
I have certainly found who my friends were And found I had but precious few in fact My calls for help ignored by him by her Only the bitter truth remains intact That which I once was lies in ruins now My only hope is transcendence somehow
No longer having one for whom to write I feel no reason to write poetry Since the brief day of my love turned to night It no longer matters nor can I see My star has fallen I have lost the light I am my own and only company And yet that love which seemed to burn so bright Was only a lie and a joke on me
So nothing has changed I am still alone Just that my aloneness was once unknown At least to me but now I see no need For poetry without someone to read But since my beautiful muse was a lie Perhaps in my aloneness I should try To wrestle with reality this way
This might well be the only way to say What is left here in the burned-out rubble Of me the pay of life for my trouble Still I wonder if there is enough left Of me to glean here in this field bereft Of hope to harvest among the stubble Cut by the sharp scythe of reality
I hope to write because I hope to see Who knows? I might even write better now Disentangled from the lie somehow I might more clearly see what is to be What ultimately will become of me And of you and of all the rest of us Behind the worst before the best of us
I made it out alive though I feel dead Survived the most monstrous madness somehow I resolve therefore to live in the now To never look back nor even ahead I will write new poems for you instead Of the one who will no longer allow Herself to love me if ever indeed She did who at the end refused to read
I will and I must emerge from this night From then to now with myself and some friends In now I will trust and now I will write New poems now because now never ends
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Mar 28, 2005, 6:16 pm
Fallen Star
Back from that unknown I called love To this known of being alone Back to what I have known above All else since all else was a dream And I was alone all along Seems things are never what they seem To be to me reality Is an elusive quality
The one I sang of never was How ridiculous a love song Or if she was she was because I wished and dreamed and hoped that she Might be but I see I was wrong
Too old too poor too far away She just got tired of me one day Rejecting me electing he Who purchased her propinquity
Destined for ashes without graves And doomed as I am just the same They bought no freedom they are slaves But she is his that is if she Is at all whatever her name
Back from that unknown I called love I have never been this alone As dream turns nightmare push to shove And soft sweet flesh to hard sour stone As cornered now the mind gives way Yet stings with folly sharp and stark Nothing but sorry left to say As stars fall and the world grows dark
A tattoo has been born again Which once marked my not being free Even as one once loved once slain Transformed in its symbology The star is fallen from the sky
A trail of fire rains in its wake Where once it bore her name so high Forsaken now thus I forsake As she lies in the arms of he Who kept his word that he would take The one I dreamed I loved from me
She broke my heart and thus I break The spell the hold of hell which she Held me within her web of lies As falls the star so would I be Deceived no longer as I rise
Now ripen fruits of bitterness Ever more bitter never less When will this rock to gold refine This vinegar ferment to wine?
I hate but will I hate them still As spring warms sink beneath the chill Of lost love never found again Or is there yet an end of pain If only by the trembling hand Of one who failed to understand That life is not fair after all After the fall after the fall?
Calling on the phone alone Holding only a phone No one wants propinquity To madness nor to me
Only answering machines
I understand now what this means In darkness here I sense the fear Of those who were once near and dear As they all back away from me And as I feel myself alone On the lonely end of the phone
How empty now to realize They wish that I would go away Behind civility's disguise I wish I had their strength today
Their machines are chirping hello I am calling to say goodbye But I am the last to know To face the lie and die
So life was not fair after all What does my life mean? It means I face the lie and die Fallen so far my fallen star Chirping answering machines After all chirp after the fall Hello! Hello! Goodbye My fallen star fallen so far!
What does my life mean after all After the fall after the fall?
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Mar 28, 2005, 6:12 pm
Easter Vigil
Through a time of testing and of trial When madness had become my daily bread Drama on her part on mine denial The dead alive the living nearly dead From bad to worse there must have been a curse Deliver me from the idolatry Of she would control me utterly
The creature displaced the creator to Become my god my Lord instead of you And so I fell to false idolatry But my idol proved unworthy of me Offending divine sensibility
As dawns your rising day I ask you Lord Forgive and may you only be adored The impostor was not even a real Person as I am with a heart to feel But only a conspiracy of lies
Lord Jesus rise in me too as you rise
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Mar 16, 2005, 9:53 pm
Transcendental Sonnet #1324: Heavy Metal Thunder
My '65 Chrysler is being repaired I know she will make it I'm not even scared I felt like I left her in good hands down there When I looked back over my shoulder and saw This morning at the Quality Auto Care Them diving with wonder into her great maw Where that enormous 383 V8 Has roared and wrestled with forty years of fate
She will rise to roar and wrestle forty more I may not be fancy and I might be poor But I have the only car I would ever Want and she is a part of my family Has been these forty years and I could never Bear to hear her roar for anyone but me
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Mar 16, 2005, 6:05 pm
Hosed
I got hosed by a crazy girl Doo-dah doo-dah Took me for an Internet whirl Oh doo-dah day
I rode that insane carousel Until my nerves were shot to hell Oh double doo-dah doo-dah day Always in trouble anyway No matter what I said nor did
But I searched and finally found the lid Of Pandora's box and screwed it back on Now all my troubles are corked-up and gone Zippity doo-dah ding dong derry day Men in white coats came and took her away
A thousand days of life and love went poof And this is the end of my silly song So double dog doo-dah and oof oof oof I pick up my pieces and move along
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Mar 15, 2005, 10:05 pm
She Winks at Me and I Suspect the Best
for she who is hope to me
Though at the darkest hour more wide awake As here at midnight I keep watch alone Than any blazing noon which I have known Is this a dream? A nightmare? A mistake? I ask with but the moon to answer me Alone at midnight only destiny With me and she seems fickle company Yet here she is albeit in disguise
I have been young and jaded old and wise Now only lonely I face and embrace This only woman who still understands Me as I was and am and in her hands Is what remains of that which I will be
She keeps the future secret locked with bands Of steel and she is sworn not to reveal The mystery of what will be but she Is smiling as she draws me to her breast She winks at me and I suspect the best
