That half empty glass looks half full to me Of love and of the possibility Of more of what I came here for to see In love and out of curiosity To see not only what is but around The corner of reality to be
Where love is free there the lost will be found To be not half empty but half full then Because of love now hoping how it does What is then will be better than what was Surprising my half empty eyes again Around the corner of reality
Of love and of the possibility That half empty glass looks half full to me
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXI
Nov 14, 2011, 7:26 am
Transcendental Sonnet #1479: Maybe
I was somebody's baby Somebody who thought maybe I could become somebody now who Would become somebody how to Be what could and would should be Done well by doing good
Though I may doubt I will be Now maybe I may still be Even Steven even though I should have understood When not yesterday then someday Tomorrow anyway
Nobody's baby now I know Maybe not today but maybe so
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXI
Nov 13, 2011, 5:46 pm
A Catecheticality
a cat and I agree
I once had a cat named Fiona Then got divorced was not the owner Of that cat when that was that for then To remember her now then again Though she like Emily before her Let me pet and feed and adore her As to her owner she was her own
Fiona never had an owner No cat ever does that ever was When that was that then as now because Only the lonely way of a cat And that is that then for now as when A cat once had me named Fiona But in the end a cat is alone
A catecheticality a cat and I agree To be only but not lonely in our own propinquity
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXI
Nov 11, 2011, 10:26 pm
My Bong Wears a Necklace
to you who knew
My bong wears a necklace of glow-in-the-dark plastic pearls Stars round the pipe like ideas coming ripe to spark the dark With those who chose to know what I mean with me there between When I am who learns now the season turns then life goes on Where Mr. Chips taught all boys Mr. Lance learns from the girls Preferring their company way back in 1960 When Mrs. James my Kindergarten teacher wrote of me Noting I disliked "rough" games did "NOT take criticism Well" on my report card by unconscious witticism I understand inside me now somehow through outside in
By living and loving the ones who have understood this To die in pleasant company within where I begin I come home where I came from now to seal then with my kiss Love letters like these to the future for those who get me Out of the past (and their boyfriends too) with even a few Like me as it were in general in particular Who knew my bong wore a necklace who do not forget me Stars round the pipe like ideas coming ripe you spark the dark When I am who learns now the season turns then life goes on Returning what I learned from you from me when I am gone
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXI
Nov 7, 2011, 1:47 am
Transcendental Sonnet #1478: Tomorrow to Me
Feet on the ground head in the clouds Try to get by without tripping Mind alone but heart with the crowds Of us hanging on though slipping
Solidarity anyway Then such human propinquity As once there was and still might be When the balance might be tipping
Where I want to be happy now The way you do and we agree That we are all we know of how Tomorrow might come back today
Head in the clouds but I can see We look like tomorrow to me
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXI
Nov 4, 2011, 3:49 am
Around the Circle Once Again
When I am now where to is here Then here before now here for more To be and do alongside you In my parallel dimension To learn love by unlearning fear Around the circle now as then Careen my eccentric career Unfolding with the lotus when We pass each other on the way Now here before we disappear Into dimensional breakthrough As you and I fall through the sky Though to rise was our intention
By many turns around the sun My journey unbegun as done Adventure as I wanted one To be enough for two or three Or four or more than I can see This chain of pain and pleasure we Who are me measure up to be Down the days along the ways of Me to be what we all can see To be what we can see is love To be as unbegun as done What we agree to be is love By many turns around the sun
It seems like only yesterday Greeting each other passing by Then today had our attention Now anyway tomorrow may Not come at all except today When by our falling then we rise And by our losing then we win When by dreams I open my eyes Then how when now my reason why When I am now where to is here Then here before now here for more Around the circle now as then Around the circle once again
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXI
Oct 31, 2011, 10:14 pm
Our Own Society
Falling through a crack in society I hear some reality calling That sounds a lot like unreality As both or either as I choose neither But choose to realize what I see As real to me now as both and either And everything all of it let it come All of it to be what I become
Though the real to some may not be to me When tomorrow comes then the way today Becomes yesterday the other way To be to become and to come to be When though it seems something like a mistake Sometimes it something like rhymes to me Through a crack to find some reality When you are there too where we can be free
Did we fall through then or did we break Through now to find our own society?
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXI
Oct 29, 2011, 3:17 pm
Imago Dei
Within the face of divinity The church would see there appears to me Another face in an inward place Where we are there in our time and space Enlightened clearer than their dark mirror
A face my own when I am alone Seeing my face by freeing the grace Of being here now in time and space Nor God as he then appears to be And not he nor she but everybody
Freeing myself now seeing how you Fleeing the church and becoming free Being yourself are freeing God too Nearer than far as we are and do Farther than near we are God now and here
In our time and space in a face our own God is us to know as we are known
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXI
Oct 24, 2011, 9:38 pm
Orange California My Hometown
The place my mother pushed me in my pram In nineteen fifty-five is where I am Alive with these trees where our memories Of a prodigy turned prodigal son Wander now wondering over these bricks Under this sun on Sunday smiling down As I wondered in nineteen fifty-six At one downtown here fifty-six or one Around the circle as who I was then
I got turned around and forgot my way But got my way back then in twenty ten Got back home to stay how today I say Love turned me around and away from fear This sundown smiling at one now begun At this end where my beginning is near My heart was always here but now the rest Of who I am is too where I love best In Orange California my hometown
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXI
Oct 22, 2011, 2:38 am
Donizetti Spaghetti
alla famiglia
I like to listen to Donizetti Especially when I twirl spaghetti Marinara cara I would like to Have Donizetti spaghetti and you With plenty of wine then we would be fine And we could keep each other company When though it hurts to be at least we are
Up the stair with you there where I should be When Donizetti is just the thing for Wining and dining a diva divine For whom all the way should never be far Spaghetti di Lammermoor and then more Than before up the stair behind the door Up to get down there with a friend of mine
So though ironic my macaronic Doggerel of Donizetti like this Is less about spaghetti than a kiss Describing the features of creatures who Seeking each other find us like we do When though it hurts to be at least we are With Donizetti spaghetti for two
Chi parla bene canta bene say Oodles of bel canto come stay the day Sfogave con le stelle like a star Noodles al dente enough anyway Like Donizetti to twirl spaghetti Marinara cara I would like to Have Donizetti spaghetti with you
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXI
Oct 18, 2011, 4:56 pm
Transcendental Sonnet #1477: A Postcard from Orange California
Orange California is a circle in a postcard town Old around the new of me and what I do between the two In the roundabout of turnabout to end where I begin In the tournament of faith and doubt by turnabout I win
Where brought up how I got up now getting down to what I mean Where faith and doubt in their roundabout have room for me between In my getting by forgetting then my getting back up when December may remember May I may give myself again
I have faith that I belong here and I doubt that I could be Myself to give myself away in May more than December In good faith around the roundabout when doubtless I am free Above what fear forgot to find the love that I remember
In my giving the forgiving by the living of the dead Is a circle in a postcard looking back alive ahead
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXI
Oct 16, 2011, 5:39 pm
Bloom
for Lindsey
Like a star In the sky and in my heart There you are Even when we are apart Though not a star a flower You have that kind of power To bloom wherever I may go
Where I go I may never know But there you are wherever I am with you forever O Laughing Daffodil I love you so
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXI
Oct 13, 2011, 2:54 pm
Revolution
Cruelty and greed and execution Haunt a hunted people drowning in debt As puppet masters gather now for how To vow to hold us down no matter what Some of us who should remember forgot
Frightened old white men grabbing all they can Taking so much they are breaking us now Calling all the rest un-American Turning a blind eye to those left behind Warring on the poor according to plan
Exploitation without explanation Nor does it matter to them if we mind Taxation without representation Enforced by bread and circuses and yet Some of us who could see would rather not
But eyes kept in the dark now realize Their hope out in the park to their surprise Now beholding the lotus unfolding Coming to us becoming you and me As the ninety-nine percent solution
Held down long enough we who would be free Opening now to see revolution
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXI
Oct 9, 2011, 5:01 pm
We Win
Anger is fear in action but Love is not afraid no matter what Because when we begin to love we win
Our losing or winning our choosing An ending or a beginning Anger or love that can get confusing
And yet not afraid no matter what Anger is fear in action but Because then we begin to love we win
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXI
Oct 6, 2011, 4:02 am
Myself Again
25 May to 15 December 2010 in a place they called St. James Wood
(Super flumina Babylonis illic sedimus et flevimus cum recordaremur Sion)
I was held down once by the greedy Shoveling shit but paying for it Paid precisely nothing by the day When they were making war on the poor Saying they were helping the needy Helping themselves to myself more like Throwing away my bed and my bike Keeping my friends far away from me In an isolation of sadness Doing their best to silence my voice Or make it sound like theirs anyway Controlling my life and legacy Where my only escape was madness Being their worst by doing their best To prove that I was demon possessed
(Quia illic interrogaverunt nos qui captivos duxerunt nos verba cantionum)
There between their belief and my grief For what I lost and they took that cost Me all I had so they could have more Between bad and worse I saw my choice With all I had worked for working for Conservatives who only conserve Mistakenly what they have taken From those shaken down who awaken Now to serve them right as they deserve And if a slave I was not a whore But I remember how I forgot Mowing their lawn that went on and on When it was then a hundred and ten Between their snakes and their shit again Who was demonic and who was not
(Et qui abduxerunt nos hymnum cantate nobis de canticis Sion)
I understood they misunderstood Could not begin to let reason in Just too religious for their own good Needing to be perfect as they do I could believe they could have believed Being deceivers could have deceived Themselves to that extent anyway Of the dark there where it shrinks away In fear or be light nor dark no more There is where I saw the light at last Up from my knees now out of their past I saw pass away until somehow Ready for another point of view I saw they were hopeless but not me Seeing myself again here and now
(Quomodo cantabimus canticum Domini in terra aliena?)
Seeing is believing and I see myself free Being an escapee to reality
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXI
Oct 2, 2011, 10:46 pm
Occupying Wall Street
Justice delayed but not denied What was before no more because We had to rise but how they tried To stop the ninety-nine for one
When we forgot then or we thought We did we hid our hope inside But now that we remember we Have never been we want to be Whatever it means to be free
When it means everything to me I too who have been pushed too far I too then rise to my surprise When history feels like a kiss As we remember who we are Who waited all our lives for this
And now that we remember how And what and where we see us there That we are why right here right now Forgetting fear for now and here The revolution has begun
Spring has come for us after all And tonight it sleeps in the park American spring in the fall As hope keeps watch across the dark
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXI
Sep 29, 2011, 7:46 pm
Vodka Dave
standing in the breadline on Saturday morning
When I looked back then he was there Vodka Dave and his soul to save With a rosary round his neck And what that fuzz was was that hair That bristled from him everywhere In the breadline there behind me
Where someone there gave Vodka Dave A Holy Bible to libel His drinking because such a wreck He was one does not look away And he was thinking of drinking Able to under the table
I tried not to let him find me Alone with trouble of my own And yet he did his id his breath His hidden bitterness stinking Unanswered questions in the air Somewhere between vodka and death
Some things one does not come thinking Of for the love of Saturday Morning with no warning that way His trouble mine in the breadline When there Vodka Dave was nowhere Somewhere between vodka and death
The line moved up and I moved on When I looked back then he was gone
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXI
Sep 24, 2011, 1:17 am
Looking at Clouds and Thinking About You
entre nous
I
Looking at clouds and thinking about you Wishing I were better and wittier I wonder if you think about me too Who make these clouds look even prettier
Knowing I am not but hoping you do Anyway
We would be us if my wish could come true If wishes were horses beggars would ride I know even so though since I have tried Looking at clouds now I see you somehow
II
When we talk about meaning we mean us We who mean something to someone who mean Everything with nothing but love between We who have nothing but love between us
Meaning we should be in love with us now One could say
Or two would do like me and you when we Talk about meaning then mean us to be With nothing between us but love we know Love follows after by night before day
Balanced in equipoise after before Now is when
III
Thinking then about us now thinking of The meaning of now as thought of from then We are the meaning to come as we go And when we are then we are now again
Forever could never be better for Being or seeing than now when I see How now is enough nor would I ask more Than to be for what is always to me
And we are again when we are now then Once again When one could say anyway once again Now is when
IV
Looking at clouds now and seeing when love Looks back from always how could we doubt us? Looking at clouds and thinking about you Seeing believing no doubt about us
Knowing you think then about me now too Now and then
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MXXI
Sep 22, 2011, 5:41 pm
Book of Secrets
(until today)
I looked in a book of secrets and read "Raped by the church youth director" it said To my age a line of mine from a page Of my youth and the truth but hideous
A trace of that place so insidious So how before now when nothing more shocked Until someone snapped then the doors were locked
And everyone had to keep quiet then
Or someone would get in trouble again At the direction of the director Each of the directed an inspector
Trapped in a sad place sick and mad and dark Where life was bad there my choices were stark So I kept quiet and faded away Not knowing what to say (until today)
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXI
Sep 19, 2011, 5:02 pm
A Blossom Toward the Sun
In the nature of an experiment I like to find out how high I can get Out of my mind now I get to forget
I like to be as far as eye can see When I can remember who I am then As I was and am and will be and yet Not as I was then but I am now when I like now and like how it looks on me As I try on a new reality And the lotus unfolds to my surprise
Transcending fear by love beyond regret Now this is the way I pray how today A blossom toward the sun I turn to rise Through tonight to the light I never met Before to more to bloom with room to grow Where having always wondered there to know After the laughter up up and away
I soar beyond where the darkness can go To find happiness or else where it went In the nature of an experiment
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXI
Sep 16, 2011, 5:19 pm
Transcendental Sonnet #1476: The Few We Always Knew
that kind of friends
Psychosis is no joke is far too serious for me In my paranoid schizophrenic bipolarity (Type 1) begun forever ago for never ending
But you might smile awhile to know me and be befriending Me even how I am now even though now and again A little mad you had to know though always even then Just wanting to be happy just like you get by get through The bad times to the good and to be understood when you Then see me from another point of view though you might see How I am now but even so you see how we might be That kind of friends that never ends for in nor out of mind
For those who have it all or chose to leave it all behind Or who got left who are bereft of something anyway To be the few we always knew we had to know someday
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXI
Sep 14, 2011, 1:19 pm
Disappointment
I could call my life a disappointment but I would prefer to speak of the surprise of what Happens to happen as what is meant to be
If not a disappointment then the surprise In my eyes of what happens happening to me Not knowing but going if out of my mind
When opened by surprise then my eyes can see What goes around coming full circle as I find Now to fall again is how I turn to rise
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXI
Sep 12, 2011, 12:55 pm
Calling Across the Void
fifty-six lines on lines at fifty-six
I
I always knew I would never be rich Just because I could never be the b-tch Of anybody but was here for me
So I have said to myself in my head It hurts but I could get used to the pain
No axes to grind with nothing in mind Nothing but nothing nobody to blame Just be and write about it as I do
II
To see the rosebud open as it grows When by my being I am here for you As who I am until I am no more
To be and do though I could not explain What now but how to allow you instead When being has been and doing is done
Then by my doing to find it the game Of being to find out what the rose knows
III
Seeing if maybe by seeking I find The magic word that opens like a key From then and there bringing to now and here Something to bring everything from nothing
Like something I remember I forgot Unready to remember until now
Like when something was and then it was not As if though it was not it was somehow
IV
It hurts but I could get used to the pain For something that seems like it could be true And seemingly seeking for me to see No way out of here but to love through fear
There is no profit in this sort of thing None I suppose but the word of the rose
But this means more to me than anything My sign by which it would if it could be
V
Something to believe in then afterward When only afterimages remain Before I find what I was looking for In the dark mirror none but love the one
Speaking to my mind by calling across The void between a prophet and a loss
The prophet blinded could not see what came When the loss became the profit to come
VI
And speaking its mind the loss left behind Where the laughter of love was overheard As if something was though something was not What yesterday as today is the same
Of the stuff of always the thing of some The sum of something then I once forgot
Where a rose calling across the void knows Now I remember here though at ember
VII
And should the rose remember me again Love would be good to know in December
It hurts but I could get used to the pain After the laughter once more like before The game when the rose names the magic word After the fear the love I remember
There is no profit in this sort of thing But this means more to me than anything
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXI
Sep 11, 2011, 8:13 pm
As You Send Me Away
You told me to get the f-ck out of your car That you never want to see my face ever again
But whatever I am is whatever you are Whenever I am gone I know you miss yourself then And though you do not care that I die you say It is as if I do now as you send me away
A kiss to miss the bother of your father when The wheel turns back and someone does this to you someday
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXI
Sep 9, 2011, 9:59 pm
Love Note
I have two pencils sharpened just in case Should one not do what two are supposed to But one place at a time in time and space Through where I am to when what I would do
As someone who has learned how now is when It is then now and again the hard way As one who would do something good somehow With one good chance someone who hopes for two
It is there I am here where now is how My time and space now at this time this place Here then when always is there it is now Where yesterday tomorrow came today
Two pencils sharpened but one thing to say My way now when I say how I love you
