Not saying heavy smoker never wanting to sound heavyset Set in his ways or something for always obsessed with never getting fat Or ever getting anywhere when the only way out is in But then again nowhere getting somewhere through the end about to begin Round and round in a hurry never gaining a pound through worry Losing it all then after all would make many an old cat feel like that But this one never met a cigarette he could say no to yet
That is if someone has an extra one for one old lonely cat That not knowing better might by letter look to be quite a lot like me Learning the hard way losing it all is his only way to win So who only smokes according to the rate of your generosity Only if someone has an extra one for one old cat like that But someone who has an extra one or two or three should save them for he Who though he has no money still can be pretty funny at times
As the clock in the tower chimes out the hour so his poetry rhymes In lonely duty to beauty when the only way out is in
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXII
Feb 13, 2012, 7:35 pm
The Song of the Iron Grandmother
for Darlene
Knowing your rear from a hole in the ground According to Grandma was about what Really was up what goes down where your butt Is and mine when our butts are on the line Is what I mean the common sense between
Yes never tougher ever were than her No nonsense for the Iron Grandmother
And her honor was bound by what she found Then passed to me when she was history Her story when she passed through then past me Into the future now a mystery At least to me how she passed through it all
Yes never tougher ever were than her No nonsense for the Iron Grandmother
Tough but not bitter bighearted nor small And if not deep at least not cheap and good For the Iron Grandmother understood Making it up to the boy honor bound To last from the past as what was the best
Yes never tougher ever were than her No nonsense for the Iron Grandmother
Yes from no even when no one could know What got us through but never mind the rest Making it up to the boy even so Making it up through the boy all around And I am the boy today so I say
Yes never tougher ever were than her No nonsense for the Iron Grandmother
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXII
Feb 7, 2012, 2:17 pm
An Independent Astronaut
I like a shot of vodka in my coffee or two Like to have a drink and think that would be good with you And drugs I never mind indeed they never leave my mind As when I smoke I like to toke medicinally Plain cigarettes the one vice then I ever leave behind Trying to prolong the agony daring to be In ecstasy with Molly or with some nice LSD An independent astronaut doing what I do
I will be as I was because just me being me A wanderer a wonderer a blunderer too But somebody in spite of everybody always free All the days and nights of all the ways this crazy span This shiver of now lights this flash of immortality This sliver of eternity of this crazy man You know as me and whom you see before you on the page Coming to become me now becomes reality
Nor does the light die for I go gentle in my age My life for you to read or me to live high as I can
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXII
Feb 3, 2012, 9:02 am
The Only Way Out
Listening to trance music from France Coming upon it by chance somehow Through my laptop to mon chateau Lance Which is this little room at the top Of the bottom after that steep drop Becoming to my surprise my rise Which took me awhile to realize Then losing this way is when I win
Listening by chance this trance from France Making my neurons fire poetry Beckons me come to become the dance Feeling like a falling leaf in fall Freeing me seeing me being now The best I can without knowing how In the reality of it all That there is no end but to begin
I can see what can become of me Taking it as it comes even though Out of my mind up against the wall Without anything except to be When then somehow becomes now and when With no one but me but free I see Now to be the only how I know Only lonely every now and then
I take it as it comes as I go Whatever it is so I go free Going seeing no reason to stop Freeing the being I know as me Having lost everything now to grow Though shrinking outwardly inwardly Within this little room at the top Without anything except within
Then losing this way is when I win Now when the only way out is in
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXII
Feb 1, 2012, 6:56 pm
Chagrin d'Amour
I thought I was lonely
Alone I forgot Remembering only Together I was not
To my chagrin when Alone together then
Remembering only To my chagrin when I thought I was lonely
Not now and not again
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXII
Jan 30, 2012, 4:36 pm
When We are Poetry
Mad as a hatter but what does that matter When being becomes me? I am poetry As you we two and any of the many Who overcome the limits of the past
We who become the many of the any To come to become then who go free at last From tears to hereafter through laughter somehow Overcoming then by becoming now
Being and becoming and coming to be When we are in tune with the moon in the blue Night bright as noon and with daylight coming soon Being becomes us to be you and me
Two more morning stars who know then what to do When we are poetry and now breaks through The wall of what was to what is me and you As what will be when we are poetry
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXII
Jan 30, 2012, 1:21 pm
Us
We taste each other by the lips Before we take each other by the hips
Out looking for each other where we find We wonder and we blunder but we get there in the end By mindful journey heart to heart Our journey now at hand
Nor blame us you or me when it is not for us to be Together even when apart Then I hope you will always be my friend Looking out for each other by the heart with us in mind
And we will understand Us still in spite of our relationships
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXII
Jan 24, 2012, 6:54 pm
Something Like Love
Madness is making me feel adolescent again A crazy joyride and I bet this is not over yet Were I to bet when I regret to be then I see I bet the house but it won leaving only its regret An afterimage in the negative shadowing me
Now I wish what was was not but that was how it was Because the house does it was not a wager I would win I lost what it cost to be part of the bourgeoisie In a legacy of bitterness the wages of sin Or fear or of at least not love far as our hearts could reach
Too sad to wonder why with arms too short to reach the sky Not my own to own together but alone when in And then out of the house out on my own now still alone On a crazy joyride out to see what I should be A lonely rite of passage only passing time could teach
I might never grow up ever quite but out on my own Expand like the universe for better now from worse I might grow quite alone except when someone visits me A certain someone in particular I can think of Who goes but comes and knows then we will always be like this
Madness is making me feel adolescent again A crazy joyride and I bet this is not over yet Were I to bet when I regret to be then I see A certain something in particular something like love When someone understands me and it feels like my first kiss
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXII
Jan 22, 2012, 12:37 pm
To Someone Rising Far Away
for you
Someone is rising with the light Though I am falling with the night I turn and night returns the day To someone rising far away
And so we are both evening and Morning star in the morning land At evening as below above Round across the brightening sea Someone is enlightening me By love to see the reason of The rising light and falling night As one the way we stars are two The yin and yang of me and you
To someone rising far away Someone rising with the light who Reads this and who will understand Who always does (you always do)
I turn and night returns the day To someone rising far away
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXII
Jan 18, 2012, 3:27 pm
Killer
The deliciousness of viciousness some thrill to The vanity of humanity some kill to Be born again for as more orphans of the war The fatherless like me who had a father who Could not be bothered to have anything to do With orphans of orphans and maybe bastards too
This complication of this implication of Being now seeing how it seems a lot like love Is really all that ever mattered anyway The scent of blood does not arouse my heart to soar When now was then it might have but not anymore Forgetting yesterday I remember today
My father was a killer and will always be But I am not my father and he is not me
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXII
Jan 15, 2012, 11:45 pm
Who
Who would God be if God could Be should God be and I would God were but could not say What it is or he or she That is God and who are we Or who would God be anyway If not for you and me?
Should God be could God be understood
Or could God be what we mean In us with no space between Tomorrow and today None other than our brother Not above us nor below And our sister in none other Than everyone we know?
Should God be God could be who We would be God could be me and you
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXII
Jan 13, 2012, 2:37 pm
Not Just Me
Not very well dressed and my chest is not the best And I might not be what I might have been
A little shorter than I was supposed to be A little older than I thought I was A little disappointed maybe now and then
A little bit of everything just me
Immature as ever though never mind the rest I am what I am why not just because
And happy that I am I am happy to know You come along with me here as I go Nowhere but everywhere and back around again
I turn you return we do as life does And feel the real a wheel within a wheel as we
A little bit of everyone and not just me
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXII
Jan 12, 2012, 1:42 am
Soon
Here they come on their way to go to waste Offering differing flavors of hate All of them bitter all of them fearful
Here they are now though a century late Rough and ready to give us an earful As though it were a sin to have good taste
The Pharisees are back and here they go These are pros God knows and no beginners Who know it all and never knew to grow
But this kind of godly strikes us oddly When we are the publicans and sinners Who lose when Republicans are winners
So darkest before the dawn though till then Soon we will rise from their nightmare again
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXII
Jan 7, 2012, 2:30 pm
The Romneybot
If corporations are people too The Romneybot hardly seems like one For being human like me and you But a bot on a juggernaut gone On to do what corporations do To people who would lose if he won Ever after like never before
Reversible mittens included For all who agree to be deluded
People who might not realize yet Only the people who have will get In a future of the masters of A universe that never knew love A parallel dimension of hate For people not human anymore Who love only money only war
Although only human lonely and small We the people who are real can feel Not a corporation but a nation Having a little spring in the fall Rising now in righteous indignation Since we are the people after all To stop the Romneybot before too late
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXII
Jan 4, 2012, 11:24 am
Between the Lines
Magic shared unspoken As above so below A silence unbroken Though we knew as we know When we have always been Then we will always be
A dream of yours and mine Dreamed to reality Through moonlight and starshine To us through you and me Our transcendental kiss Where we are there between
There are no words for this But we know what we mean
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXII
Jan 2, 2012, 12:51 pm
What to Do on Tuesday Nights
for Generoso
When cows yodel in falsetto as they lift their voices high Is the time for Generoso and for something new to try
The Bovine Ska and Rocksteady is ready on the radio From WMBR at MIT and that is where to go On Tuesday nights to hear the lights and shadows of Jamaican sound
Where by the River Charles in (617) there Steve Lance has found What to do on Tuesday nights who hopes now you will do it too
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXII
Dec 26, 2011, 3:13 pm
Not Too Far to Dream
What was and will be are not too far Apart or not for the heart to recall When we remember then it will be What will be at least to you and to me As the answer to our question how We forget the rest and best of all Something to remind us who we are Or find ourselves at last from then for now
What was and will be are not too far Apart or not for the heart to hope then For what was to be again because Then you are with me still as I will Be there too when you remember me Where it will be spring there although in fall Entering summer from winter when We forget and then there we are again
When we remember then what will be Will be once and future reality for Two hearts having loved once loving once more Not too far apart or not for the heart Our once and future reality Not too far apart to finish what we start Something to remind us who we are Not too far to dream from memory
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXI
Dec 19, 2011, 2:14 pm
Invincible
inventori lucis soli invicto
Seeing the light to the extent Of seeing where it went Knowing nothing but to know As above so love below Comes back when let go
Where hoping enough so despair Though it hurts then even so Remembers it is there Within the shadows to remain Turning to return again
In the dark when the light is gone I believe in dawn
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXI
Dec 17, 2011, 5:28 pm
Immortality
Having sold my lot Out of the family plot Now I never die
My family gave Me my space (it was a grave) But to die was why
Not in holy ground Found laid square there still around I will have the sky
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXI
Dec 16, 2011, 10:20 pm
Remember
Not that I could not forgive But that I would not forget Nor be sat on more like then Not be shat upon again
But would be what I could be Would do better than was done Then should anyone regret Many when we could be one
That was then but now is when Though I die how I should live So you would remember me Nor could I forget (not yet)
Not till who would should be free You and me and everyone We remember now as we Rise the wiser toward the sun
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXI
Dec 9, 2011, 2:07 am
Another Trip Around
a year back home again
What was I when I paid to be a slave For the clever and bought their forever When it was not what they thought but never? Bought then and paid for by what a slave gave Or what was taken by the mistaken What I was then I would not be again
When I went because I was sent away Whatever I was for what could not be Where in their blindness there they were intent Squaring the circle to mean what they meant And where I went there I could never stay I never could say forever their way
So who I am now is one who went free With nothing to lose as an escapee Though having seen their worst to be my best Having been yesterday between today And tomorrow my sorrow sent away If only out of curiosity
Now when I see how my betters were worse Mistakenly taking what was taken Then misunderstanding the universe Making that mistake of the mistaken Squaring the circle not being here now Rejecting love for fear not now nor here
How I am happy here actually When now is how then never mind the rest But as for why that is what no one knows The answer the question would rather not Remember or what I thought I forgot Here now nor none but one for all somehow
Returning I turn to live and to die Though why no one knows who survives who grows Who asks the question who answers the test Who arrives first because already there When being here now then was everywhere Being the answer here now seeing why
Waking a dream a slave was dreaming of Finding one I lost losing all I found Forever is a circle none could square Never mistaken nor ever taken Giving the slip here to fear living love A circle now another trip around
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXI
Dec 3, 2011, 3:44 pm
What Comes After Hokusai
A Students Encyclopedia without an apostrophe Volume Eight beginning with German and ending with Hokusai A porch book at the library for ten cents that I got for free Is the first thing I see this morning where I have come home to die Beside my bed aside my head outside where it went in before And having read it now I wonder if I might go back for more Of what feels right to read by night to better understand my day
Though I need to know new things as I go I never have known why But never mind the why when by the what of curiosity I wonder where Volume Nine is now and know what I need to look for Now that I know how I need to know more I will keep looking to Find where books are left behind some questions answered there in my mind About what comes after Hokusai and what about Volume Ten Could it still be on the porch or has it been recycled again?
And is it too late to take Volume Eight back where I got it and Though with no dime ask the porch to accept my respects paid by rhyme? In lieu of anything better let a penny be a letter Let words have meaning let me be a patron of the library Where I have come home to die as I just make an exchange this time For what comes after Hokusai and hope someone might understand Someday what I do not or I forgot new things I never knew
The universe for better or worse is a thing that is always new To be and do to me and you as the lotus unfolds it holds Lessons I learn the hard way like you do as it becomes my fate To be or not to be by poverty to learn my thing or two Or three or four or five to show for having made it home alive If though to die and not know why except for now or never then When the why of the what of Volume Eight says I am not too late
For Volume Nine a hopeful sign by which I choose to be to see A Students Encyclopedia without an apostrophe
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXI
Nov 29, 2011, 2:03 pm
Transcendental Sonnet #1482: Wiener Dog
for Smokey
His lowdown dogdong prowing forward like the plow that broke the plains The wiener dog has gone home now although his tennis ball remains
And so I think he might be back again where he has been and then If he can stand the friction and can understand addiction to Conviction innocent and guilty by association there In a garret in a rarity of solidarity where Some see between some things unseen by some he might see something too Of poetry by night someday he might delight in his way who Understand we have to die so understandably have to live All we can when we can when all we can is all we have to give What then was taken when mistaken but we looked for everywhere There in the nothing of it all where we have found it all again
And you can have it wiener dog if when you come back for your ball You find that you are one of us then you may stay here after all
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXI
Nov 24, 2011, 5:18 pm
Bohemian
At midnight a manifest madman writing factually- Fashioned manifestos arrived at algorithmically By facts and acts and tactics somewhat strange and subject to change Speaking the heart of his world to be talking to make it tick Dances to the rhythm of his schism with reality Knowing by a growing showing of human propinquity His spark through the dark is answered as his question comes through clear And he looks like he is not alone as he is now and here
He is but not the way some say he may be as he does what Getting it it seems he ought as he gets by by getting what Many forgot if any got in intersecting and not Parallel dimensions not to mention serendipity Through which to each other we become eventuality And as one to say someone should say something if one knows how Open to remember hope through a once-forgotten doorway Having seen hell he might as well be one to say something now
To spark the multiverse by verse to speak its say that he may See it but to free it but to be it now when anyway Then who is this Bohemian when he can only be me And alone together there and then far as the eye can see Is here and now when not where then how I speak my spark to be Bohemian though English and Alsatian actually A mind to leave convention behind a spirit always free And a spark to ask the dark to speak of never less than love
My spark a question answered nevertheless through the dark Then when the dawn breaks free to be Bohemian like me
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXI
Nov 20, 2011, 11:30 pm
Transcendental Sonnet #1481: Hope Breaking Through
Eating just brown rice and lentils I must invest in fundamentals Retreating from incidentals (Dental care say or maybe glasses) Cut by elephants and asses Breaking hope in the hearts of the poor
A pound of flesh! The rich want more Sacrifice for their austerity By which the rich forget you and me But having been done to now we do
And by degrees and day by day Sooner or later the blind may see How revolution now underway Is our hope breaking but breaking through
