a quadriga



for Alexander and his students in Aklan



I



I suppose my father's poetry to be
An existential necessity
Going out by night a hitman as he did
By day in poetry to get rid
Of the blood on his hands by saying
What could not be said and here I am staying
Within the bloodlines saying it now
The son who survived him one who understands
What my father could not say somehow
What I would say now but with clean hands

He did as he was because that was then
Now somehow I am who does it again



II



The dogs are running in their dreams
And barking far away it seems
Across the dark internally
Though paused their paws trot quietly

As they lie sleeping two of three
While one of us writes poetry
Or maybe dogly doggerel
As dogged as the other two

Not yet to get to sleep until
Dreams pass again then when they lie
Still as they will alongside by
This one of three still wakeful me

When it befell me to tell you
About it now then how I do



III



I mow my whiskers short then
They grow back long and soon
They will need mowing again
Within another moon
In maybe a week or two

My hair is growing back now
By my minoxidil
Encouraging to see how
It goes and grows until
I look better than I do

And I have gotten a tan
In Yucca Valley here
I think I look better than
I did that much is clear
So here I am going on

I had to get out of where
I was before I died
I had to get out of there
And I had to decide
To go on or to be gone

So I went where I was meant
To be a place for me
Where the "wayside sacrament"
Of Emerson grows free
And my hair and whiskers too

Santa Ana way behind me
In the desert you may find me



IV



Not buying it I give away everything
So feel good not to be selling anything
But I who do better letter by letter
Know I am growing though meticulously

It feels good being free like I want to be
Understood more than I ever was before
Being now I could say somehow understood
What I always wanted but never dreamed of

And how the future now is haunted by me
Leaving my mad nursery rhymes of my times
My seasons my reasons being all for love
Therefore saying yes I guess to being more

It feels good being me feeling good to be
Doing that Lancean Specificity



Steven Curtis Lance