What a joy it is as a joy it was No matter how long nor far we have come None can resist the effect of its cause As the wheel of life turns forward and free
To be gotten is to be understood All the begotten seek to be gotten To get someone and have someone get me As we would all be gotten if we could
A joy it will be to feel and to see The inward warmth of a welcoming smile To get someone and to be having some Human propinquity well worth my while To risk everything for the ecstasy
The circle closes as I understand That someone is seeking to get to know Me as I know and gets me even so The circle completes as you take my hand Which seemed impossible not long ago When our hearts were watches wrapped in cotton
A joy it is and was as it will be To be gotten and not be forgotten As we would all be gotten if we could Begotten and gotten and understood To get someone and have someone get me
The circle closing as I understand And then completing as you take my hand None can resist the effect of its cause As the wheel of life turns forward and free
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMIX
Dec 12, 2009, 3:18 pm
Paper Bridge
I know nothing better For saying what you mean Than to write a letter To bridge the in between
Linen laid paper and A feather pen are grand Though mine have all flown away to be lost
My friends would still be glad With the letters they had No matter what the stationery cost
Because they came from me And real friends understand What you say because they Understood anyway
But a letter is nice Read more than once or twice A letter breaks the ice Just what you mean to bridge the in between
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMIX
Dec 10, 2009, 8:16 pm
Love in Winter
I am happy to be and to be here The happiest I have been for a while Now at the happiest time of the year All it takes for me is to see you smile To feel as confident and clever as Anyone ever as I never was
Your smile is contagious and I caught it Outrageously beautiful I thought it And who am I but one dutiful who Has chosen to spend the winter with you And in the end who are you then but me And round the bend who am I then but you?
One who was burned to blindness by beauty Opens his eyes now to see again healed As he embraces his primal duty To life itself and the bargain is sealed I who can see now see you as you are Close as a kiss and distant as a star
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMIX
Dec 8, 2009, 11:50 am
Decembering Remembering
first Christmas of my afterlife
I wish I could go home for Christmas but Home has slipped away From always to forever
I said I would someday no matter what But now my someday Has slipped away to never
You do not remember me do you? All those poems to you Went past or went through you
Now not who you were You never were her
And I know now I never knew you
Singing my songs in a strange land I feel like a fool all alone But by singing I understand What other strangers might have known
Who sang alone feeling like this In the hope of a stranger's kiss
Decembering Life stubbornly persists Remembering Love quietly insists
At the deepest time of year Life and love are now and here If they are anywhere Decembering
As caring not I care Remembering
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMIX
Dec 4, 2009, 4:23 pm
December Song
Meeting old friends around every corner And making new friends in the in between I have been walking too long looking down To realize if you know what I mean How in love I am with humanity
Whose communication is our birthright The meaning behind all this vanity Beyond such failure and futility As cloud inward light as we slip from sight
At least I still have the ability To get as to give that small human spark We recognize between us in the dark By which we humans navigate the night
I know I have come further than I know Led by that small human spark and its glow Caught like a faraway kiss blown to me Warming in my heart long after we part
And this is what I love this time of year Meeting old friends around every corner And making new friends in the in between Wherever you are I can feel you here Long after we part warming in my heart
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMIX
Dec 2, 2009, 6:02 pm
The Sacrament of Being
We thread the needle we circle the square And we triangulate successfully We make steady progress till we get there Wherever our there might happen to be Though arrival is not itself the goal
The getting is more important than where The getting is the process of the soul By which it exercises and creates Itself daily as the soul is laid bare Becoming according to loves and hates By strengths and weaknesses as it unfolds And winding ahead the journey awaits
We only know then what the journey holds When it is and not before nor after Now we are shaped now we are created In present tears and in present laughter The moment of life is celebrated
The sacrament of being as we are As the immortals look on from afar
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMIX
Dec 1, 2009, 3:54 pm
This Moon is Mine
A blue moon falls on my birthday this year And falling then will bounce to rise and shine I hope the sky is clear to see it here Because of all blue moons this moon is mine
And why is it blue? Because there are two Full moons in my birth month of December The first one followed by the one called blue One for now and then one to remember
Coming soon a blue moon will rise with a smile Doing what only a blue moon may With more moonlight than has been seen in a while To round off the year with my birthday
It is only blue if it is number two And not just a full moon but a gift Because the second moon in a month is blue Like me to give me a little lift
A blue moon is coming to welcome me Into a new year of my existence A blue moon is the perfect moon to be A kiss from the sky for my persistence
A blue moon falls on my birthday this year And falling then will bounce to rise and shine I hope the sky is clear to see it here Because of all blue moons this moon is mine
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMIX
Nov 29, 2009, 8:29 pm
Today
I am excited to begin a day again Beaming as a beautiful opportunity Am happy to be healthy and past my past pain Free to enjoy the freedom of impunity Because this is a good day to do good things well And those who do good things well have nothing to fear
Today may be my best day yet for all I know Knowing the now because the next will never tell Since now is never next since next is always now And since now is the only time we ever are I have a good feeling about today somehow Being happy to be and happy to be here
So I am ready to adventure for as far As this day and my imagination take me Till the setting sun makes way for the evening star To make a day of it as the day may make me I came a long way and have a long way to go The road rolls out before me and my way is clear
Today may be my best day yet for all I know
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMIX
Nov 27, 2009, 1:29 pm
Busy Bird
a moment observed
Busy bird I can hear the beat of your wing Off canyon wall in the hollow of the stream And those rattles in your throat you say or sing Said or sung as you seek supper it would seem
Whatever you sing or say other birds know Or seem to know what you seem to be saying And I think I understand you even though This might be further than I should be straying
To say that you sound optimistic about Your lot in life uncomplicated by doubt
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMIX
Nov 24, 2009, 2:25 pm
Autumn Apart
an die ferne Geliebte
I was wondering about you and if you remember The way it was and how we felt another November One which was so long ago now that it seems lost to me Except for the haunted persistence of its memory
I was wondering about whether it persists in you Or not the way it does in me and if it haunts you too
When the leaves are as they are and the stars are as they are In this November like another one I remember It makes me wonder about you and if in December You will be alone as I am alone with leaf and star
And the haunted persistence of the memory of what The haunted persistence of memory never forgot
As I have life I have hope we could make new memories However separated we might be Completing a circle with stars and leaves with things like these And things only experience can see
The way we see too late how love is indivisible And how the cruelest walls of all are invisible
I was wondering about you and dreaming about you You say you are real and I have no reason to doubt you And I guess it is only an effect of poverty Not being able to travel as we would like to do
An effect of fear too if you are anything like me Which keeps us apart missing each other as I miss you
The question is only when not whether Our day will come to be lived out We are predestined to be together Real and without reason to doubt
And until we are together a star Shines in memory of the millions of The stars and leaves of November to seal and say my love Belongs to you exclusively
I wonder if you wonder about me
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMIX
Nov 20, 2009, 4:54 pm
Smiths and Joneses Rise Together
Downward upward mobility fueled The Smiths and the Joneses as they dueled Small claims by small names carried to extremes One could hardly keep up with the other Pursuing their upwardly downward dreams But looking back now why did they bother?
And oh how they bothered yet even so They never bothered to learn what I know The hard way from bitter experience Being petty makes a big difference And one very much for the worst it seems I want to aim high and transcend all this
Squabblers are trapped in each other's embrace Being right is relative after all They curse each other when they want to kiss Are sad to the back but mad to the face And puffing themselves to get big get small Small claims by small names carried to extremes
One name is as big as another when All names are respected but until then We seek our true upward mobility And grow to full size when we realize Mere utility is futility Unreal is as real in reality
There is more that is than what you can see Outside and inside of you and of me Appearance is not the worth of a thing And can prove paradoxical at best Just as mine is marked by my suffering As well as by my joy and all the rest
However I may appear I am here However it looks and am looking for An upward mobility without fear One without an interpersonal war Where people are people not means nor ends And Smiths and Joneses rise together friends
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMIX
Nov 16, 2009, 11:33 pm
Snow
All snowflakes are based on the hexagon Yet are mathematically unique Through considerable variation As the variation of me and you
Though those who know snow generally speak Of certain common patterns of design Due to such factors as temperature Causing varietals like those of wine
With snow itself the crystal clear and pure As old as time and yet forever new Mathematics descending down the air Out of the ether of other up there
The snow we know and the snow we do not Snow we remember and snow we forgot All of it all of it always will be As the variation of you and me
Through considerable variation A pattern in this case a hexagon Dance of the atoms to the rhythm of What all have in common and some call love
And all have in common what is most rare Never discovered because always there Were it not forgotten it would be gone Taken for granted to oblivion
But it is everything and everywhere As the variation of me and you Mathematically descends the stair Through considerable variation
As old as time and yet forever new Beyond as behind us urging us on
Out of the ether of other up there
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMIX
Nov 16, 2009, 12:06 am
If a Dream is
You and I are still children in our hearts Not having been convinced quite by adults Still thinking of whole things instead of parts Believing in hopes as well as results
Nor does it seem implausible to me That sometimes magic happens even now As we are given opportunity For magic we ought to take it somehow
At least this is the horizon I see That the way we feel is the way we are Nor is it an impracticality For us to wish our lives upon a star
Someday when we figure out the details Then we will make a dream reality Someway or other and if all else fails Understand if a dream is it will be
It is and has been as it will be still Children ever young who never grow old Those who stay warm when the grownups grow cold Understand no impossibility
Not the ones who would but the ones who will Understand if a dream is it will be
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMIX
Nov 11, 2009, 7:37 pm
Deeper in Autumn
The deeper in autumn the deeper life feels Like the way an autumnal cloudbank reveals Light revealing nothing by translucency
Deeper light is better light by which to see The deeper in autumn as deeper we share The idea of home and of our being there
Wherever home is whatever home might be It feels less real in place than in memory And is borne and is worn like the clothes we wear
Then when we remember it is November To break our hearts by how much we cared and care For what was loved and lost as we remember
I can find home refracted in your handshake I can taste it in a gift from far away When it comes from you as a gift for my sake
Then to be for the sake of humanity Given and given back again and again The autumnal cloudbank returning the sea
Our tears are washed away in autumnal rain We have lived a lot and we will live still more And it is each other we are living for
Light revealing everything translucently Like the way an autumnal cloudbank reveals The deeper in autumn the deeper life feels
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMIX
Nov 9, 2009, 8:14 pm
Once and Future Light
Midnight is blue As I feel tonight Here missing you Once and future light Do not or do And it is all right With me
By this blue moon I will await you Since I know soon Love you and hate you You will come back to (since you never left) me anyway Once and future light (which by this true noon) now I can say I see
That though I know this is all in my head Still I feel something like sick from living So I prefer to be alone instead Of being the misfit at Thanksgiving
Midnight is blue As my blood runs red Here missing you As left here for dead
Do not or do It is all the same I find But lonely too Both credit and blame Behind
By this blue moon I will be happy someday Inopportune As it is and be that as it may Though this is a hard time this time is when I live So might as well answer in the affirmative I am glad to be not so much lonely as free
Do not or do And it is all right With me Once and future light Who was and who Will always be
Shine though through pain As sun through rain As once again On me
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMIX
Nov 7, 2009, 4:32 pm
We Hope Who Live
Where there is life is hope not far away Who live will always find encouragement Even on the most discouraging day And if hope is lost here is where it went
Which calls us back from the pursuit of there To follow our hearts and awaken to What is as vital as water and air We hope who live since that is what we do
It is for good reason the wise ones say That life without hope is impossible We follow by hope through the shades of grey To where black and white are invisible
And hope is our horizon as we go Since hope is usually all we see And until we try what we never know We fall we rise we go on hopefully
To follow our hearts and awaken to Blooming possibilities of meaning Bending or breaking falling or leaning We hope who live since that is what we do
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMIX
Nov 5, 2009, 8:12 pm
When LBJ Grew his Hair
LBJ grew his hair at the end (like me) Along with Howard Hughes and the rest That erstwhile paragon of conformity Felt something needing to be expressed Or else he just forgot about his hair In any case I noticed (I was there)
After Watergate there was a little thaw In the frigid conservatism of The Orange County context from which I came Reflected in officeholders and in law Ironically Nixon was to blame For that false-spring brief experiment with love
And soon enough it all went back to the way It seems to be inevitably Except for evolution down to this day
Only the evolved dare to be free By daring they select themselves for better
LBJ might not have been one of these but Having outgrown his conventional fetter At the end he had that hair no matter what
Some people say LBJ was sorry for Decisions made and things he had done Or maybe he lost his mind about the war I wonder what he thought of Nixon? But unlike those he sent to fight and die there He had the luxury of growing his hair
I had the feeling back then that he evolved Or at least that he was thinking then With his shoulder-length hair at those football games His presidency and his war unresolved As paranoid Nixon added names While the rest of the world wondered why and when
That erstwhile paragon of conformity The unwanted dad of the nation Just might have realized the enormity Of it all at his fall by this small Gesture of reconsideration: LBJ grew his hair at the end (like me)
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMIX
Nov 3, 2009, 8:53 pm
Beginning
I begin as I have been again To write my way out of this hole I am in So I say when discouraged like yesterday But then with a pencil clear cobwebs away
To begin is to be begun With journey underway To begin is to be half done With journey come what may
To begin is a call received Perceiving a vision To begin is a dream believed Achieving a mission
Beginning forever because ending never Felt quite so free Beginning is already halfway to winning Actually
Yesterday I began again I wrote myself out of that hole I was in And if I can do it today who can say? But as I have been so I begin
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMIX
Nov 1, 2009, 2:24 pm
A Love Song in November
So we have established that we exist Now and are sufficiently grateful for This chance that therefore we do not resist When existence asks a little bit more
And what it asks is that we do our best Though it seems indifferent so we ask Searching for meaning like taking a test For up and down and best and worst we task Ourselves with finding meaning as we go And meaning is not invisible here
Then when we find it at last we will know We found it since meaning is always clear A crystalline moment of clarity Made more beautiful by its rarity
And so we find the elixir we need To carry us forward across the night And who finds meaning is happy indeed As though rediscovering a birthright
Wherever meaning comes from it is there As always lost as it is always found That indefinable quality where We feel the universe turning around And feel that we are at the center of It all at the still point of the turning
And what does it feel like? It feels like love From and towards as turning and returning
How love feels is something no one can say Yet it is something everybody knows And it comes even as it goes away Love is beyond what merely comes and goes Love always is and it is everywhere The secret of to care and not to care
We wonder about below and above And find meaning in each other by love
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMIX
Oct 31, 2009, 12:01 am
What He Forgot
on learning the lawyer who lost my house for me has been arrested now for double homicide
After he took the rest of my money The lawyer was arrested for murder Two murders since he shot the witness too A mother and one who would protect her
They say he did nothing at all for me Bringing the ruin of things as they were Who knows why people do the things they do? Who knows how people can be so unkind?
He was a lawyer who looked at his fee As what was most important in each case And when he felt like killing then would shoot To lose his humanity with his mind
I am just glad I am not in his place But nor am I in my place anymore He was a pirate plundering for loot And now I stand outside my locked front door
His crooked lawyer joke turned out to be At my expense to cost everything but Life taken from others if not from me I suppose I got off with a warning
And I still have life left no matter what He took the rest but now what is that for? Prison and disgrace and the stink of greed Life as exercise in futility
Here in the canyon in this rented room I am alive and I have all I need Love is the attitude I will assume I will be here to welcome the morning
And I will remember what he forgot My heart will never break though it may bend And after I have blossomed then my seed Will rise to remember me at the end
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMIX
Oct 28, 2009, 8:08 pm
Magic on the Wind
The wind scrubs the stars to shine silver bright Scattering clouds and scaring them away And there is magic on the wind tonight Shattering darkness into crystal day
The wind has come and I have waited for A passing opportunity like this To let myself out by another door The wind has come and I can feel the kiss Of other which reminds me then of me And so wondering if I am alone In prosecution of my destiny I let go and I fall to the unknown
The wind winnows me as it makes me clean Of the detritus of disappointment Not the high nor low but the in between None knows where it came from nor where it went
The wind is my spirit no more no less It represents me as I rise to be The wind is the only faith I confess And it sounds a lot like myself to me The wind is light and dark to curse and bless A revelation or a fantasy And in the end the wind is all I know: Where does it come from and where does it go?
The wind comes from where it comes and goes there In neverending cycle again and Again because the wind is everywhere The wind in my heart my head and my hand
The wind is the breath of life and of death Ending beginning losing and winning The wind has come and I have waited for A passing opportunity like this To let myself in by another door The wind scrubs the stars to shine silver bright Scattering clouds and scaring them away Shattering darkness into crystal day
The wind has come and I can feel the kiss Ending beginning losing and winning The wind is the breath of life and of death And there is magic on the wind tonight
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMIX
Oct 27, 2009, 3:56 am
Finding Stars
I came up here to find stars and now I do But only because I am looking at you Since no matter how many stars there might be Without you it is only the dark I see
And since we have been that we know what we mean Without you these diamonds cannot be seen But you are here if only a memory Always in my heart now always on my mind
You and I still have so many stars to find You know I know nothing of astronomy I came up here to find stars and now I do But only because I was looking for you
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMIX
Oct 25, 2009, 5:16 pm
Fifty One Fifty (Two)
When I was in Unit Five we had the cage Unit Three had none but had a black tar yard Some were filled with sadness others filled with rage All of it was madness (all of it was hard)
And my roommate was an angry amputee In piss-soaked Unit Five where his screaming voice Raged against the severed loss of his body (I didn't want to meet him but had no choice)
In Unit Three I was with two quite quiet And rather confused men who understood me They liked to observe but avoid each riot Becoming statisticians of lunacy
And though we were all sedated as zombies (Or maybe because of that) there was trouble: I had never seen such anger as in these Broken ones each in their own fresh (popped) bubble
Impotent rage of broken futility Struggling against the smugness of our masters Led to some interpersonal disasters But I met a girl there who remembers me
Just two crazy people in love you might say
And there was a lot of just that sort of thing In that lockdown psychward awkward sort of way As the thing that took away that sort of sting Of realizing madness once (and for all?)
The only way is up from that sort of fall But I'll be taking these madhouse memories Wherever I'm going till when I'll be where I find happiness (then: I'll call her from there)
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMIX
Oct 23, 2009, 2:04 pm
Silvergreen Saxophones
Saxophones swimming like dolphins and Playing like porpoises far from land Utterly free from the human hand: Some saxophones seem to understand
I saw saxophones dancing together It sounded as beautiful as it was Bringing a warm interior weather
I learned all about this only because This was a lifechanging moment for me When I saw them singing their symphony
And then in the olive grove I recall Seeing them shining in silvergreen leaves And there they seemed most beautiful of all: When it comes to saxophones one believes
I keep my ears open so I can hear Of silvergreen saxophones swimming near
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMIX
Oct 20, 2009, 2:11 pm
Coming with Drums
That which inheres is in here in this sphere I am a parent to the inherent Apparently as it inheres in me A parent and also a child of this Quintessential essence of my being
And when I feel this it feels like a kiss A bringing to being of the freeing Which is what inheres and what is in here And this is the freedom of unity That which inheres is in here in this sphere
I gather myself as a sphere of light Formed of the photons and photographs of Before and behind what was lived for love Particulars and particles of right Rhymed into reason inherent in here
That which inheres is in here in this sphere Which is what inheres and what is in here Is to give birth to my parents and me As well as my children apparently Gathering myself tonight as birthright
Though to be born is a sentence of death Not to be born is to never exist Only those born unto heartbeat and breath Are ever alive who do not resist This questioned life and its answered insight
The surprising lightning silently comes But thunder is coming: coming with drums
