Night and Day
I
Night: Lonely Town
I sought now I see my society
As conventional as a thing can be
Some simulacrum of reality
Imagined by those who are not too smart
To be bullies and to get what they can
While they can within the foreshortened span
Of this tragic comedy known as man
Custodians of conventional taste
They see no tripe need ever go to waste
Feeding us stomachs at least if not brains
Then throw the odd bone for our labor pains
And yet they never remember the heart
We felt once beat the most important thing
The cause we sang and the crusade we sing
Even now (who knows how?): the heart sings on
Until all the going becomes the gone
When we have learned desire is suffering
The hard way whether giving or getting
When the regretting turns to forgetting
Then there is nothing at all anymore
Except when to wonder what it was for
Just as I wondered all the hard way down
Lonely Street as I wandered Lonely Town
Soon it will be over and no one cares
As it is ending for wheres nor for theres
But are mostly relieved by the ending
Embracing death and even befriending
Nothingness if but relief from the pain
Of the world devolving on us again
Resolving the riddle of revolving
As whatever sends seems to be sending
A belated greeting to Lonely Town
What goes up (so it was true !) must come down
II
Day: Reminder to the Future
When I walk downtown small children smile at me
Escaping their minders for a moment they
Wave at me furtively as if they know I
Am able to make white rose petals appear
As if out of nowhere I can make them fly
By wonders so small their minders may not see
But their minders have been charmed now anyway
By a spell which only small children may hear
And not with their ears but with their hearts is how
I take what they call reality and make
It stretch with my special elasticity
By which it may change its form and yet not break
Reality is obedient to me
Since I know it is not real but is a fake
A false front agreed to by society
Or you could think of it like a pie crust which
Worries that its filling might be too thrilling
As well as providing a protective form
To keep the secrets of childhood from spilling
Where the present is hidden under the norm
The form of which originates in the past
We will eat this pie but save the crust for last
As reminder to the future of the now
III
Chorus Mysticus
Like death going mad is like being born
It means I am outside of all of this
If God would be (at least to me) then I
Would then have the rose along with the thorn
As I know the curse I would know the kiss
At least not be as lonely as I die
And now I am mad I may say: he is
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMIX
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immortalized it in music. Stgeven, You take us there in the skill
of your uncompromising words. -gene