Transcendental Sonnet #1443: The Ballet of Our Being
Happy Birthday Sachin
I have turned and returned now having learned all ways are one All ways when always turning then returning with the sun As returning from turning to I learned too in return What in turning and returning one cannot help but learn
Wherein when turning is done then returning is begun As the one and the other turn to one another in The ballet of our being when to end is to begin In the matter of our meaning as turning to explain Then as we die to live again when as we lose we win We turn and we return again as always we remain
And returning as in turning one cannot help but learn What turning from returning to we learned too in return All ways then always turning when returning with the sun In turning and returning learning how all ways are one
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXI
Jan 2, 2011, 1:56 pm
Love Blessing
In the names of the immortals by the ancient ones For all of us who love in many worlds of many suns The thesis of hope as the antithesis of fear Action and reaction synthesizing now and here
You and me
Out of many one the any found among the many Chosen by ourselves and by each other as our any From the many found and chosen as the few to be true Who find the we of you and me embracing us into
Family
Knowing this is love though for this some would call us odd We who know love casts out fear who know no shame nor blame We call on love to bless us as what some would know as God Who know love and God by any other name the same
Blessed be
When the blessing is spoken may a kiss then be shared And when we are embracing may our love then be compared In its power to a flower as we bloom the spring Of love and understanding in the swing of everything
As we bloom once again So mote it be Amen
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXI
Dec 31, 2010, 9:33 pm
Transcendental Sonnet #1442: To Levitate the Pentagon Again
We thought we were saving the world then and perhaps we were Back when the world was saving us perhaps if you prefer But we grew to be two of the who to care about it As always ready to save the world again if need be To levitate the Pentagon again and to begin Over again as often as it took while wars remain
We may say we do not believe anymore but we do And though well over thirty now trust me none could doubt it But should they we could demonstrate it as we would shout it Proudly that we made it better if perhaps clumsily Demonstratively graceful in our way though you and me Two for revolution where I was there alongside you
Should we do nothing nothing less than nothingness would win Could it be time to levitate the Pentagon again?
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMXI
Dec 28, 2010, 1:26 pm
Now That I Am Crazy
Now that I am crazy I can see the chemtrails too My virgin sky submitting to the markings of a beast To better keep the secret that her lock is broken Plowed and prepared to be the main dish at her wedding feast Proud silence broken too as she speaks the unspoken And the bride wears something borrowed over something blue Now that I am crazy I can see them (but can you?)
I can see between things where I could not see before The timbre of my timber turned more ashen than oaken Where maybe I should not is the question I suppose And yet when I see something there I would see something more Something there or not there as if anybody knows Where freedom can be slavery when false can be true The same eye sees anew the same sky newly woken
I get curiouser as my curiosity Thinks of the unthinkable and speaking the unspoken Seeks something more in the sky than before I could see Or could not or should see or should not but I see them there Combine to comb a bridal veil into the hair of air And the bride wears something borrowed over something blue Now that I am crazy I can see the chemtrails too
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Dec 23, 2010, 2:11 pm
To Catch a Falling Star
As I am so I would be love As I make so I would make love too As I am love so you are love and love is what we do
As I have so I would give of As I believe so I would know someday As love is what I get more of when I give it away
As far as we can is never reaching too far As we are so we make as we give so we take As we reach for the sky to catch a falling star
When I am love and you are love then there is love between Where being love and making love there we know what we mean Giving by taking living and my making love with you
As far as we can is never reaching too far As for love as we are love so love is what we do As we are love so love is and love is who we are
As we reach for the sky to catch a falling star
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Dec 21, 2010, 3:04 am
As We Remember Us in December
Roses are like us our story the same I think as I trace our trajectory From bud to bloom into our fullblown fame Fleeting as ever and passing away
Like those who went ahead had said it could To what remains at the end of the day The way those who are dead now knew it would A shrug and a smile and a memory
A feeling of having been understood When that is enough then ultimately Youth becomes age and no one is to blame It is how it is and was and will be
As water breaks stone and as fire burns wood Living and dying are best beyond shame By common sense and toward the common good If uncommonly and like you and me
To be considered beautiful then when Remembering to forget our regret We demonstrate mortality again Having been and done the best that we could
Roses are like us our story the same Because it is the way of living things To come and go but live our very best Then in our moment to give life our all
At the end of the day burnt offerings Gathered for harvest like leaves in the fall Dust into ashes roses into flame When earth takes all and air bears the ember
Acceptable sacrifice for the rest As the roses in the Plaza remind Of what is ahead of what is behind Us in December as we remember
But all any living thing wants to be Is happy or short of that to be free And I am a rose who remembered me As we remember us in December
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Dec 12, 2010, 8:44 pm
Home for Christmas
A quarterback from 1924 He had a lot of things to think about Too young the first too old the second war He drank but he had things to drink about Thought a lot thought he forgot but could not Forget the things he thought he could forget Really what it was was that he would not
Being unready to forget just yet With so much he was on the brink about Like all of us there was a story there Remembering things he maybe should not Things he had done or maybe had not done And so he drank to drive those things away Back to the shadow from the light of day
I can understand this from being one Who chased them before they came back to stay But the more you chase them the more they run And they would not stay away as they wore His broken heart down till it beat no more A beat at a time and yet right till then When death took everybody by surprise
I smile when I remember him again Smiling to answer through tears in his eyes A question when to live then to die for That he was the luckiest man he knew I asked him why and he said it was you When in December then as a reason Meaning me so that made me happy too
Living on the brink of winter season A quarterback from 1924 And I were home for Christmas that last year Too young the first too old the second war And there were gifts but there was something more As the best gift Grandpa ever gave me Love is what it was and what will save me
Being unready to forget just yet With so much I am on the brink about I can be happy despite everything Then thought forgotten when remembering When I remember love then as I do As love begins to look like the reason In my unreasoning winter season
Christmas is a difficult time to be Remembering and the difficulty Consists for me in what to remember In my December maybe in yours too With so much we are on the brink about Like all of us with stories everywhere We have a lot of things to think about
But as we wonder what to remember Meaning you and me gleaning December Gleaning for the meaning of the season We can be happy despite everything Then thought forgotten when remembering When we remember love then as we do And winter becomes the reason for spring
A place to die for sometimes to be there To learn at the end love was the reason Home for Christmas anytime anywhere We are when we are in winter season When we remember love then me and you As the best gift those before us gave us Love is what it is and what will save us
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Dec 11, 2010, 3:55 am
Down the Mountain
for Bud
I have been up the mountain but I am coming down Going home for Christmas back to Orange my hometown Having gotten a little old for stableboying
And since it is getting a little old for me I think I would be A little unsure as I shovel manure if I were enjoying My being and if that were the best the rest of my being could be
It is so nice here but take my advice location is not everything I just I must get out of here now before those snakes wake up in the spring
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Dec 7, 2010, 2:25 pm
Silent the Snow: A Christmas Carol
warm wishes from my heart to yours
Silent the snow The song sweet and low Soft on the lips of the tender maiden mother Straw on the ground The beasts crowding round Offer their warmth to the Son of God our brother
O Alpha and Omega O Bright and Morning Star O Jesu de Maria How beautiful you are
Crystal the cry Of angels on high "Glory to God in the highest and on earth Peace and good will" Rang bright through the chill Swift ran the shepherds to see their Shepherd's birth
O Alpha and Omega O Bright and Morning Star O Jesu de Maria How beautiful you are
Splendid the song Of right over wrong Life over death and true love transcending sorrow Happy are we Who have eyes to see The light in the darkness that we rise tomorrow
O Alpha and Omega O Bright and Morning Star O Jesu de Maria How beautiful you are
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMV
Dec 4, 2010, 11:23 am
Taking Maybe for an Answer
Now as I remember what I almost forgot All I ever wanted was to be understood Or maybe I just wanted to understand why Anything really there had to be a reason
But it happens here now there does not have to be A reason or at least a reason I can see Here left to wonder staring under starspanned sky Now at this late hour of this my winter season
I have to try as I have tried as best I could If not to understand why to accept why not Taking maybe for an answer as time goes by To be understood to be good enough for me
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Dec 1, 2010, 10:42 pm
The Joys of Being Reasonable
for Ray Remalig
My mother taught me socially a gentleman ought not to speak Of politics nor of religion out of church during the week Either one was nothing but trouble and I was to speak of neither Especially in the company of the tendentious or the pretentious To speak about the any out among the many simply too contentious
I found her advice to be sound in strange ways through strange days As it stood me in good stead when instead of straight ahead the days went Stranger then the strangest days stood me on my head and proved how it pays To be courteous and clever not upstage nor ever step on anybody's line
Finding she was right and minding what of my own business there might be I like to think that I am everybody's and that they as well are mine As friend to many if as lover not to any in particular I make my friends feel good about themselves and that feels good to me
Patricia Lance my mother was a lady who knew how For me to be a gentleman and now I think I know what she meant About personal things being personal as a matter of design I tried to live this way if seldom did but daresay turned out almost fine
Trying to be graceful and to keep my sense of equipoise amid the noise Of an ungraceful and ungracious rather grating time I celebrate the joys Of being reasonable after all as fall turns into winter and I enter now Remembering how my mother was and not forgetting I am her somehow
My mother taught me socially a gentleman ought not to speak Of politics nor of religion out of church during the week Either one was nothing but trouble and I was to speak of neither Especially in the company of the tendentious or the pretentious To speak of the any out among the many simply too contentious
She said Lances do not stoop to speaking of finances either though we do But having none to speak of anyway I speak of neither nor that too
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Nov 30, 2010, 12:35 pm
Tiger
a sonnet for a fellow sonneteer called Shradnikov
With a tiger in his tank and a Dodge in his garage But winter in his heart and spectacles on his nose Heaven knows it took awhile to see him through his camouflage To spy and scry his specificities his these from those Of other swingers circa 1965 as he remains
Cigarettes Kool temper hot outside warm inside not Moving like a cat and purring like that too
Though missing in action out of college that year His journey of a lifetime led him straight home for his pains Where every now and then somebody sees him reappear When I have seen them try then to wash away his stains The rusty trail of blood he left remembered when it rains
Moving like a cat and purring like that too Too late when you see tiger eyes devouring you
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Nov 29, 2010, 2:59 pm
A Winter's Breath
Needing to be perfect while fearing I am not I do my best and hope the rest of me will be all right Knowing I am dying and that no matter what As I ascend in pleasure to descend in pain again Living to remember all those things I forgot When I was young and ignorant though it may seem in vain l have to keep looking until I see the light
In a circle again I begin to see my end The light saw me before I was as once I used to know Has been with me always all the places I may go My ending my beginning my turning to transcend While needing to go nowhere as I look and I see I had to keep looking until I saw the light Having looked everywhere else but here inside of me
All for now and always mine for here and everywhere If only for the warming coming after being cold If only for the loving getting better getting old And I know who I am now and I came here to do good The son and grandson of the ones who did the best they could As I have done and I will do as I am called to sing for you That when I disappear you may remember I was there
If only for a winter's breath suspended in the air
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Nov 26, 2010, 2:54 pm
One Sonnet for Three Animals
for Ginger Princess and Cotton Top
I speak these lines to invite you Ginger Princess and Cotton Top Up where sweet grass will delight you Such as to make your long jaws drop
Come friends equine and asinine To the upper paddock with me Created speechless by design Who practice taciturnity
They call you dumb beasts but I think Of you when I feel on the brink And cannot think the word to say A dumber beast by far than you
Who are not so dumb anyway Since every word you say is true
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Nov 24, 2010, 3:38 pm
Winter Song
I
I had to go outside to come back in Going and coming until I overcame What was to be the ending before the beginning Before I died so I could live again What was to be the losing before the winning The beginning ending so the end could begin Before what was to be was to be me When I remembered my forgotten name Though nobody is left now but me for me to blame Because I had to lose then before I could win
II
That was then when the horse and the carriage Of my elegant personality Went runaway through divorce from marriage The carriage before and the horse behind Through horror into madness after before Forgetting before for happy ever after Becoming a spaceship on a universal pilgrimage Remembering the laughter I had come here for Through lonely success into only wanting more Having come from then and now gone out of my mind
III
As this my returning reality Becomes the wings of Icarus for me When I think of then now that now is when I wonder how I ever passed between Since when then is when then is now again And this is the meaning of what I mean That as I think I am both now and then And now as I enter my winter I Manage the economy of my mortality Looking after every moment before I die
IV
Sunward slow and steady if precariously I have been forgiven and been forgiving Because I have seen how it has been when I have lost and won and here I am living Then through the swarms of would and could and should bes Now between the storms of dreams and memories Then for the when of before of after The zenith of the day though wax wings melt away Now for the laughter of happy ever after Freefalling to tomorrow through today from yesterday
V
And so I come full circle into winter after all Even though the laughter may be sweet and sour Turning spring to burn through summer I learned in fall The hard way the way I learn everything That winter is the losing wherein I win Learning the hard way makes it easy to remember As the time has come of my returning hour Here at the returning of the light in December Now having lost everything when I am winning Because I had to end then before I could begin
VI
That was then and this is now and somehow In the going and the coming I have overcome Going at today like no tomorrow coming now And when tomorrow never comes then now will be the same Knowing and not knowing of another spring to come Coming to remember my not forgotten name Coming and going I am going to come home And though nobody is left now but me for me to blame For the coming and the going or the knowing and not knowing I like now better now than I did then
VII
I no longer have to prove anything to anyone Nobody does except for those who play that game Being who I am and having done what I have done And having been a long time making better my best Here I am now being the best me I can be So those who do not get me go forget me for the rest Because I believe in me as God believes in me Now after not believing in anything at all But answering my question by believing what I see Now I enter my winter having learned how in fall
VIII
From sadness through madness to gladness take me Returning light of winter come and as I go make me The answer to the question asked so many suns ago The sunbeam sung on Sunday I once sang I would be As I have slept the time has crept up quietly to wake me And knowing and not knowing sowing springs ago I know As I enter into winter now the light will not forsake me Being as it was and will be doing what it does And I have kept the secret of the light within my heart The returning light of winter as both cause and because
IX
I had to come back in to go outside I had to turn and tune within beyond doubt and sin To bring myself to be myself as I was meant to be To the why of the eye of the storm of everything And here once proven guilty now redeemed and justified I enter into winter to bring myself as offering To bring me how it will be through now from how it was I had to go outside to come back in But as we come together even though we came apart I see the light of winter returning now to enter me
X
Through dusk to dawn and on and on day through night to day The turning light returning will not turn me away
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Nov 19, 2010, 9:44 pm
The One and Only
for all my friends in The Philippines
Were I to love my neighbor as myself we would be enemies He has never tried to kill me yet as far as I know Yet I have tried to kill me such that nothing here below Could have outdone the determination of that dread disease
Nothing could have stayed the hand of death but the hand of life With my own against me in the strife of life and death between But love is everywhere and even and especially there Above and between where love is the meaning of what I mean
Love makes me believe for the first time in an adult way A feeling something must be out there caring what I do Out there above and in here between where love knows what I mean As tomorrow blooms from the seeds of yesterday today
Still only but not lonely anymore with love at the door Loving myself as my neighbor a labor of love for me As I find when I refuse to see I might as well be blind And I believe for the first time what I only thought I knew
Believing is relieving after only being lonely Seeing is believing and my eyes are not deceiving when Opening eyes and heart I begin to see the light of love again Nothing to prove to me as love proves to be the one and only
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Nov 13, 2010, 7:54 pm
All Right with Me
sixteen multiversal verses "of a trip through"
1
There goes another day here comes another night As have all the days and the nights I have been Beginning and ending and beginning again In the now of always and the when of then
2
I remember the beginning now the end is in sight And the turning and returning in the in between Of a trip through what I may not know to what I may As I find out the hard way what I may not know
3
As well as what I may despite what anyone may say As if anyone may know anything anyway But to fade to silence from a former fortissimo At too late to explain now for whatever may remain
4
Though some of what I may know may not even be so And though I may not know it even though I may know what I may know or I may not I know I remember more than I forgot
5
As who and what if maybe not how I would be I could be worse and should be better but never mind Because I left what to compare me with behind Within the shed skin of what some may know as me
6
I used to own a lot of things too many to count And they had an estate sale as though I were dead and gone Five generations liquidated for the lowest amount The curious could pay to take it all away and I moved on
7
I got married once but do not want to be buried The one idea the wrong one for me I suppose The other even less appealing but then when who knows And both so claustrophobic I would rather just be burned
8
And not alive as in the one but as the other goes As this much now unmarried and unburied I have learned It is not the institution but the constitution of The married buried claimed and put to bed in the name of love
9
I seek no sacramental nor environmental walls I would rather not be buried in the exclusivity Of the institution since my constitution would be free The open elusivity of freedom is what calls to me
10
As a boy I learned a Bible verse about how it was "Better to marry than to burn" and I did both because A contemporary temporary man I earn the flame With no one left now but myself to blame
11
Seasons of both happy and unhappy surprise Pass before my eyes now like the grass before it dies To pass into the past as my time passes too But by consciousness I am and conscientiousness I do
12
Decay does not delay and I must pay for today Tomorrow as an old tomorrow and new yesterday Like all the old tomorrows and new yesterdays past Another good reason to make today last
13
At least until tomorrow anyway As better than I would be but worse than I should I mean well and keep meaning to do well by doing good As well as doing good by doing well as you could tell
14
And I am all right because I have to be all right When another day and then another night I see What I may and I may not know and come what may Knowing and not knowing will be all right with me
15
Right now is as right with me as any time would be And has the advantage of not being a surprise Reassuring of mere madness and not sheer senility Readjusting to the darkness through my newly opened eyes
16
There goes another night here comes another day Of coming and going of may and may not knowing But I am all right because I have to be Another day another night will be all right with me
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Nov 11, 2010, 12:35 pm
The River of Stars
for Lucy in the sky
1
In the middle of the darkness of the midnight sky Written in the riddle of the sparks of night Where they fly upward there as I seem born to trouble here As if to ask why not in answer to my question why
2
When the only thing preventing me from anything is fear I wait then for the spine of the sky to appear When though silence is unbroken love is spoken in The backbone of the black and of the velvet blue On either side of glory as it spirals through
3
The river of stars the superhighway of light Like heavy traffic late on the celestial interstate With every light a blazing sun surrounded by the worlds of Other worlds but worlds the same made one in light by love
4
And love is the giver the sea to which the river flows Origin as destiny what comes returning where it goes The promise unspoken of love never broken in The course of the source of the universe surging In the river of stars for now and forever
5
From me and to me around me and through me The river of stars is my visible hope of Now here before me around and behind Exchanging the unchanging with me changing my mind
6
Channeling me to the challenge of love Through the rocks and the rapids and over the falls Alone with my feelings together with love Knowing no ceilings no floors and no walls From me and to me around me and through me
7
Around and below as around and above The spine of the sky comes unaffected by our urging Doing what it does because of and for love of love And if the clouds within and without allow we see it now
8
This is the now as well as the never We never imagined would ever be like this In the river of stars when the sky becomes a kiss To free our being to become whenever we see The only thing preventing us from anything is fear
9
Along the spine of the sky every being is free To wait then for the river of stars to appear The backbone of the black and of the velvet blue On either side of glory as it spirals through
10
Overarching undergirding compassing who are Rotating revolving notating and evolving Each to the specificity of every separate star Harmonized within the music of the spheres Synchronized within the synchronicity
11
So all our times are nows and all our places heres Purpose in the pattern meaning in the measure And light in the darkness where pain gives birth to pleasure When we see each other signaling as we are sailing by
12
We never thought what could be would but see now it is this In the middle of the riddle of the spine of the sky Unbroken love in silence spoken by the sparks of night In the river of stars when the sky becomes a kiss As if to ask why not in answer to our question why
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Nov 10, 2010, 12:18 pm
Cha Cha Cha
I would like to dance cha cha cha for you But because I should not I could do what I could do a little more gracefully
Like cha cha cha chatting amiably Or dedicating you some poetry A transcendental sonnet or two (or three)
I would like to dance cha cha cha for you But because I forgot how I should not
If I could remember now in November I would cha cha cha charm you but good if I could Remember to dance cha cha cha as I should
I know and show my limits inimitably To dance cha cha cha could be the end of me And yet now in November I would like to remember
Chachachacha chacha Chacha cha cha CHA
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Nov 9, 2010, 7:19 pm
The Thunder of the Butterflies
1
When I hear thunder I wonder More like dream than thought If maybe I could understand An answer spoken in thunder To the questioning lightning flash Like something I forgot
2
Here between the flame and the ash Reality feels like a kiss When thunder answers me as what Here between over and under To remember that I forgot And then I feel and remember this
3
Alone out here along the way From never to ever No understudy for my part With no one left for whom to say No one but me to see the play Its curtain now or never
4
No one but me inside my head And yet I say it anyway Except to everyone instead Outside my head into your heart And come what may as we become A poem for the long way home
5
And coming apart at the seams Or so it seems to be As we come together today I can see surprise in your eyes As we shed our skins for our dreams To be reality
6
To be reborn as butterflies Though caterpillars yesterday And caterpillars tomorrow Cycling to our joy through sorrow But we will get there if we dare And if we care to and we do
7
Going through the cycle again Ready to shed our skins Undergoing then going free Cycling through our ups and downs when Now not later and now not then Now is when it all begins
8
In purest possibility Since N and O and W Become the somehow of to be And W and O and N Have those who knew this who have been And having won now one will be
9
Some of the total of how but Possible so far Beyond the sum including what Cannot be seen we mean to mean As total of the sum of us The all of what we are
10
The total of the sum of how Caterpillars can dream and fly Butterflies to become of us Who know no limit to our sky Freedom becomes us rise or fall In the total somehow of now
11
And so we are and so we rise The answer after all The gift made better by surprise When we shed our skins of fear And wonder is answered in thunder The thunder of the butterflies When now connects with here
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Nov 8, 2010, 12:10 pm
St. James Wood in the Morning
for Robert and Aurora
I am staying at a place called St. James Wood today The lawn goes on and on and on I know because I mow Addressing both the business ends of animals too Feeding them before and after shoveling up the residue Otherwise free to pursue my poetry
The snakes sleep now but when they wake must be the day I go Or so I always say but really where else could I stay But where I always have the front row seat for the nightly show Of the universe dancing its delight with all its diamond might For me up in the upper paddock like it will tonight?
St. James Wood in the morning and another day again Of ora et labora then with Robert and Aurora when Through the animals through the sod Through the love of my friends to the love of God I will be and I might even be at home someday
Whatever happens happy to be here and now and anyway
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Nov 7, 2010, 11:47 am
The Wonderland Verses
1
I am shrinking with age but better that than Stinking with rage the way an angry man can Not getting mad going mad slipping away
2
A little smaller today than yesterday With everybody angry and with me not But not with me not that it matters anyway
3
Except that I am curious about the what Of the why whereby I seem to disappear As though I were something the future forgot
4
And though I know that I am now and here I wonder if my now will be later when I get smaller and smaller then not thinking shrink again Suffering to separate my now from my here
5
Every year I very nearly die but remain A little smaller little too confused to explain Trying to understand it all in wonderland
6
As in December I remember things the past forgot To bring from spring I thought would be forever But because they were here there here they are not And since they were now when now they are then
7
Now never to evermore see them here again Nor do I understand it all at all not yet and yet Better small than bitter gall better now than never
8
Long ago an ego like the great outdoors Was at my command and might have battled yours But shrinking I have changed and thinking I may say You mean more to me than me or as much anyway
9
The inwardly expanding here of now allows Our heres to be here now together with our nows Here to realize us now at actual size
10
And though I might appear to be Disappearing gradually It seems to me to be and entre nous That I am being realized actually
11
Doing what I do in order to come true Realizing how I want to be actually As you actualize now what is really me As I am realizing what is actually you
12
Made clearer in the mirror of reality Shared and compared and completed in reflection And though old and small and fallen I arise again
13
The penalty death but the pardon resurrection Content now to be outwardly growing in reverse While inwardly here expanding with the universe
14
The scope of my hope is if anything greater And richer and deeper if small if problematic Than it was when I was then now that later is now
15
Content and continent if strange if enigmatic An ego like the great indoors but still not angry Living through bad times but having lived through worse Never having died yet but wondering how
16
With everybody angry at too late to explain Aheading and behinding forwarding and rewinding Where not many if any explanations remain In wonderland though small I understand it all at last
17
Understanding how I understand nothing At all now wondering why it took so long for me To see I could be happy if I let myself be
18
And that is the part that is harder than anything To let myself be happy allowing me to see Myself clearer through the mirror shrinking but thinking To understand in wonderland a wonderful thing
19
How it all works out now somehow though not easy nor fast But this is how it is and how it does what it does How now is my present from the future and the past
20
A Trojan horse or Pegasus on which to go free How it will be when now is then to see not to say But now is how it is because it is not how it was
21
And here and now is all I ever hope to be Happy or else understand why not in wonderland So forward no behinding ahead and no rewinding It is clearer through the mirror when I go the right way
22
As in the dark immensity of fear What could it be but us I see who could it be but we Who spark the bright intensity of here And now as the somehow of those who go free?
23
Time may have its way with me If I may have this day to be The way it is because you stay with me And it may end if till then you will be my friend
24
As in this our meeting within this fleeting greeting Of sparks in the dark on the eve of despair And in this our finding each other never minding I can feel the future remember us from there
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Nov 5, 2010, 3:31 pm
The Madmen
for Lydia Aswolf
Have you seen the madmen walking Men with something on their minds Heard the angry sad men talking Less aheads and more behinds?
Walking straight ahead into the past Talking straight behind into the when of then Having been but never meant to be again Men for whom the endgame cannot come too fast
Ignorance in action rude reality Closeted and goitered faked and baked and brewed Laughing at us even as we help them be Men for whom money is their favorite food
Have you heard the madmen talking Less aheads and more behinds? Seen the angry sad men walking Men with nothing on their minds?
Straight ahead off the cliff after us behind Blindly having bought and paid now for the blind
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Oct 28, 2010, 11:14 pm
Up the Hill
I went up the hill and here I see The death of the sun through the dogwood tree Seeing the mindful process entire From when it was too bright to see but light Then glory and the phoenix death by fire The promise of morning given by night And for the absence rising the higher
What if God were wiser than we thought The universal better through worse Kinder than we knew or we forgot Making ourselves and others dizzy Getting nowhere but keeping busy Caught up in rules and regulations Races and tribes and warring nations?
What if God were simpler than we are Nothing but the all of everything The ambient amniotic of The birth through death of the sun of love The still small voice of hope along the way No matter what anyone else might say Open and real and pure as a star?
Differing traditions disagree And I with all of them as I am free Being a someone of the somehow On the precipice of the present now Though they insist on their explanations For that which they fear to understand Impotent but for the fear they command
Maybe in others but not in me Because I see how below as above Always and everywhere God is love The ambient amniotic we Have given the name reality Here at now with God and you and me So close there is no separation
No race no tribe no warring nation Nothing but the all of everything Open and real and pure as a star Better through worse through the universe Kinder than we knew or we forgot The how of now and the why of what Is but is without explanation
And for the absence rising the higher The promise of morning received by night Then glory and the phoenix birth by fire From when it was too bright to be but light Being the mindful process entire The birth of the sun through the dogwood tree I went up the hill and here I see
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
Oct 28, 2010, 1:52 pm
Doggie Doggerel
As soon as you see him you can tell A dog on the go when he steps out
Meeting and agreeing With other dogs out seeing The sights a dog can see
And if there is an answer to his bark On the doggie telegraph today You can tell a dog well on his way To a doggie convocation in the park
Sniffing things and peeing Getting worked up and being As God made him to be
Talking what the walk is all about Simply speaking doggie doggerel
