A wreck in Pallava Bay

Just like a raven at the sight of a roadkill, Danujan instantly thought of the loot he might possibly get from the wreck. Try as he might, though, he could not enter without tools.

He had to act fast before this bubble of news burst, run back to the shed and grab what he needed before anyone else got wind of the wreck.

Even if nothing of value was in the cabin, he could still use some of the lumber.

Did he indeed not hear the screams from inside, or was the howling of the wind and breaking of the waves as strong as he later told Inspector Mane?

– James Steerforth (© 2012)

Written around possible from Sunday Scribblings and bubble, lumber and wreck from 3WW.

Not normal

Haven’t had my rented tux
experience with pains due to
starchy collar and cummerbund
problems

In fact, I didn’t even
know what an effing cummerbund
is until just now when Wikipedia
informed me it was a wide sash

But that’s ok. Don’t feel the need
to get all poetic, nostalgic or what
not over that male initiation thing,
wide sash, romantic Cinerama
expectations, rusty keyhole
perspectives and all

Just let me be my normal angry
self, and to hell with all the
stereotype bonding exercise

– James Steerforth (© 2011)

One for Sunday Scribblings and normal.

So what did set off that one? It was poetry, in fact. A poem thus introduced by Ted Kooser: “Here’s an experience that I’d guess most of the men who read this column have had, getting into a rental tuxedo. Bill Trowbridge, a poet from Missouri, does a fine job of picturing that particular initiation rite.”

What to do with this pale pink mimosa

Don’t flag her down –
she might just –
no, she certainly will! –
wilt and turn completely passive.

– James Steerforth (© 2011)

Written for 3WW using flag, might and passive, giving certain painfully sensitive people an Emily Dickinsonesque poetic treatment.

Rhyming rote

Now if I had anything to quote
I’d give it an honest vote.

But on that very same note
I’d also tote its antidote

and jump from any boat
for air with the slightest mote.

– Felix Morgenstern (© 2011)

Plain silly and given to nonsense. Triggered by ‘vote’ at Sunday Scribblings.

Apocalypse now

Nucleic breach of love for mankind –
only embers left, not
even a tentative ray of hope.

– James Steerforth (© 2011)

Written around breach, ember and tentative from 3WW.

Two years and numerous emotions later

An exercise in positive negativity

The scene is a dreary café in some London suburb, where these former lovers have met. One in hopes of making up, the other …

“So you insist I’ve left no impact on you – ever?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve simply ejected me from memory?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve never rendered you happy or anything?”
“Yes, never. You’ve never rendered anything.”
“Thank you, my dear.”
“Good bye.”

James Steerforth (© 2011)

Written around eject, impact, render from 3WW.

At home in the clouds

Why mumble to myself of all persons –
to the one that can take the truth first-hand?

I’ve been dragging on the pipe of self-indulgence,
taking great pains to penetrate shallow layers.

– James Steerforth (© 2011)

Written around drag, mumble, penetrate from 3WW.

A captivating sunset

A captivating sunset for Sunday Scribblings.

Picture taken from Villa Rita on the island of Elba, Italy.

Oh what to do …

“No, Tim is not a fag, dad. He makes me gag!”
“Uhuh. A fag, just like I thought. But I still wonder why he makes you vomit.”
“Dad! What I said was that I omitted a word in a flyer, and because it was an important word and the whole thing was published –”
“Damn right, that would make anyone vomit, son. But I still don’t get that mountain connection. What were you doing in the mountains after you got yourself fired?”
“Maintain! I didn’t say mountain. All I wanted to say is that it’s going to be difficult to maintain this big house now that Tim’s axed my bonus. He didn’t fire me.”
“And why do you think moving to the mountains would solve the problem?”
“MAINTAIN!” I shouted.
“Maintain?”
“Yes, maintain, AND I FIND IT DIFFICULT TO MAINTAIN COMPOSURE, DAD!”
He gave me a puzzled look, eventually shrugging his shoulders.
“I still don’t understand why Tom’s homosexuality makes you vomit, son, and why you find it difficult to maintain composure in the mountains. It all seems just a wee bit disconnected, if you ask me.”
“Dad?”
“Yes?”
“Your hearing aid? Where is it?”
“Oh that. Battery’s dead.”
I sighed and tickled the little bit of white fluff on his head.
A silly old song came to my mind: What do you do with a worn old shoe?
What to do with a stubborn old man like that?

– James Steerforth (© 2011)

Written around gag, maintain, omit from 3WW.

The significance of things and events

“What else did you see in your dream?”
“A violin. Nicely flung, not one of those ugly duck-chested ones.”
“Uhuh.”
The patient crossed his feet on the couch.
“Let me repeat: You saw an angel in a nearly sheer white dress on a shore, with foamy waves rolling in that were the same shade of white as the dress, plus a violin.”
“The angel was quite sexy, with an extremely shapely set of buttocks.”
“But there was something insect-like about the angel’s wings, you said. Correct?”
“Yes. And now that I think about it, the bow of the violin looked like a butterfly.”
“Hmm. Can’t quite picture that.”
“So tell me, doc: what’s the significance of this dream?”
“You also said it looked like a storm was brewing, and that you were afraid the angel was going to get sucked into the storm.”
“But also that the angel’s stance was actually quite solid, as if she were perfectly prepared to face the weather.”
The doctor sucked on his cold, extinguished pipe.
“Was there any sound that you can recall? Music being played on the violin?”
“Oh yes, the butterfly bow was playing a thin butterfly song. Sounded Vietnamese, if you know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t quite know what you mean.”
“Oh you know, that kind of tinny oriental music.”
“Ah.”
“Tell me, doc: what does this dream mean?”
“The symbols I see in your dream according to Jungo-Freudo-Jandlian theory are: enigma (that is the angel), mystery (that is the violin), the future (the storm) and the past (the land). – In other words: you are twice riddled, your future is uncertain and the past is behind you.”
“Doc, this sounds more like Tarot than serious oniroanalysis.”
“If you insist, I will also be happy to read the cards for you.”
“But what about the butterfly component?”
“Perhaps you’ve killed a butterfly or moth lately. Or seen the opera Madame Butterfly.”
“I won’t let you get away so easily, doc! Remember, this is costing me 90 bucks an hour.”
The doctor sighed.
“What do you want? Practical advice based on your dreams? And even if the angel means you’ve got a problem with your own repressed sexuality, I’m not going to tell to you leave your wife, get liberated and start fiddling around with other women, butterflies, storms or oceans. The significance of things and events in reality is in general grossly overrated. Even more so in dreams. What we’ve got here is a scene with contradictory or even random elements. In essence, this is all about you since it was your dream. You’re attracted, fascinated, afraid but also repulsed. So what? Everyone else is as well.”
“Doctor, are you trying to get rid of me?”
“I’m trying to tell you that you are wasting my time and your 90 bucks an hour. And now please get off my couch, Salvador Dalí.”

– James Steerforth (© 2011)

Written upon inspiration by the following painting (week 22 prompt at Writer’s Island):

Painting by M. Maier.

A flocked tapestry

When we were young, we’d all flock to church.
That was in our Wladiwostok days, when flocking was such fun.
The whole flock would be gathered around the pastor and then drink.
It was a like a huge cloud when the flock dissipated.

Just like a flock they all went and bought Tamagotchis and, later on, Toyotas.
As it happens in these flock days, the music changes fast and furiously.
I can’t easily tell the black sheep from a flock, can you?
And bees? You call them a flock? Geese? Fish? A school? That is surprising, the Armenian said.

He and his flock had come from Yerevan in the early 1900s, before the genocide.
Back then flocks were more numerous and mottled.
Cesar, it is known, would bathe his face in a morning flock.
And Napoleon loved to have his hand in his flock coat.

Rock Hudson often wore flocks in his movies.
Even Winston Churchill was known to flock now and then.
Today, off course, flocking is forbidden except outside,
but as I speak laws are being elaborated to ban external flocking.

“That was so sweet, the way you gently flocked me on the mouth
that night,” Sarah said. “It was that gentle flocking that made me fall in love with you.”

– James Steerforth (© 2011)

Written for Sunday Scribblings and flock.

The word did not ignite a spark. So first I wasn’t going to do any flocking, but then it occurred to me to do a sort of John Ashbery treatment. As in some of the poems in his Rivers and Mountains (1966).

Mona Lisa smiles, Jessica grins

Jessica’s grin, while being more wide than sublime, is still quite enigmatic, as it won’t let on by what it is provoked.
Somebody may be talking about the latest epidemic or a death in the family – Jessica puts on her distracted grin.

Today I find her on her bed – naked in a jumble of clothes.
No trace of that patented grin, just something like worry.
“What’s wrong, dear?”
“Wrong? Oh! – Don’t know what to wear!”
“I like you this way.”
“Which way? – Oh, that way!”

A slight blush, and the patented grin is back…

– James Steerforth (© 2011)

Intended as a light summery scene with ingredients from 3WW (jumble, naked, grin).

Pictures at an exhibition

Dutch or too much? Perhaps one of the pictures at the exhibition…

My dear friend,

We went to the exhibition,
the big exhibition
that is here in town, the big exhibition,
I’m sure you’ve heard of it.

You’re surely curious to know what there was at the big exhibition.
Well, there were loads of things in it,
lots of paintings,
otherwise they would have hardly called it that.

We decided to go in there, into the big exhibition
even though it cost 12 euros without membership.
It was twelve halls long,
and the exhibits were numerous, to say the least,

if not astounding. It took us three hours at the big exhibition,
to look at everything there was. What was best at the big exhibition?
you will surely want to know. It was the biggest exhibition
ever of a big exhibition of an exhibition,

with so many famous artists and painters exhibited
I can’t even recall their names. But some were French,
and some were Dutch,
some were English and some too much.

Your friend E. B. Higgins

– James Steerforth (© 2011)

Written for One Single Impression and Exhibition. Somewhere in between Gertrude Stein (pardon me, Gertrude), Raymond Queneau (pardon me, Raymond) and My Fair Lady (pardon me, Eliza), between naive, tongue-in-cheek, absurdist and plain stupid. You decide. But perhaps the E. B. Higgins type of art appreciation isn’t all that uncommon…

A gift

“You’re brandishing that cake like a weapon, a weapon of love and remorse, Thelma, and I still won’t for the world manage to rip it out of your arms and throw it out the window as I should. Now, on my birthday, you show up with this syrupy brown thing out of a box and expect me to forget it all – the scorn, the ill treatment, the belittlement of my feelings, the I-don’t-give-a-shit, couldn’t-care-less attitude. And why? On a whim? You’re going to be whimsical and love me, Thelma? For how long? Tell me, for how long? – And how dare you come in here after forbidding me to ever touch you again!”

She stood immobile for a good long time.

Eventually she said, very quietly, “Have it your way, Ethan. I won’t bother to tell you why I’m here. You seem to know it all too well.”

She put the cake down on his desk and returned to the living room, which had become her room in this small, hellish apartment they shared.

– James Steerforth (© 2011)

Written around brandish, forbid and manage from 3WW.

The border

It’s going to be the end of something – leaving most everything behind – having had no time to pack much except for whatever little money I had, some clothes and my naked life – having been woken by the knock on my door at 3 a.m. – Ashraf whispering that I’d been uncovered, all the unpatriotic, antireligious, blasphemous things I’d been saying on my blog – he’d overheard some officers talking about it – knew it had to be me – knew I’d be picked up, shoved in the slammer, beaten up, sentenced according to whatever ancient law –  he had his Nissan pickup waiting outside, was going to take me to Chalmand, from where I could get a bus – it was unlikely that they were on the lookout for me yet, but I’d have to get off before the border – he had an address written down of a man who’d take me across, through the high mountains –  but then I’d have to look out for myself  – surely I had friends over there I could stay with for a while until – but the main thing was to get me out, across the border

– James Steerforth (© 2011)

Posted as a contribution for One Single Impression and ‘border’.

My fun times with Gloria

“Take me to the station. Right now!”
“But all I said was …”
“Take me to the station. It was foolish of me to assume you might be different.”
“Gloria, all I said was …”
“Lord have mercy on me. What doesn’t this man understand about ‘Take me to the station’ and ‘right now’!”
“But Gloria …”
“Don’t you Gloria me, Homer. I take no relish in being called anything by the likes of you.”
“Gloria, if it’s just a question of relish, I’ll run to the store and get you some right now.”

This seemed to appease her some. She let go of her suitcase and sat down.
I heaved a sigh of relief.
Gloria was not supposed to be home for another day; her husband had made that very clear.

“A shoulder rub when you’re back from the store? I feel so tense after all this.”
“Yes, Gloria, of course.”
“Then what’s keeping you? Get going, Spud!”

– James Steerforth (© 2011)

Written to tie together foolish, mercy and relish from 3WW.

Words for Julia

You can’t go back
because life is pushing you ahead
like an unending howl.

You’ll feel caged,
you’ll feel lost and alone,
perhaps wishing you’d never been born.

But always remember
what I wrote one day
thinking of you as I’m thinking of you now.

Life is beautiful, you’ll see,
despite its sorrow,
you will have love, you will have friends.

A man, a woman alone,
one without the other,
are dust, are nothing.

Therefore you should always remember
what I wrote one day
thinking of you as I’m thinking of you now.

Never give in, never stray,
never say by the side of the road
I can’t go on, I’ll stay.

Life is beautiful, you’ll see,
despite its sorrow,
you will have love, you will have friends.

And always, always remember
what I wrote one day
thinking of you as I’m thinking of you now.

– José Agustín Goytisolo

(translated by Johannes Beilharz)

Translator’s notes
This translation of the poem is based on the version sung by Paco Ibáñez – please watch the Youtube video below.  The original contains some more stanzas, but I feel that Ibáñez’s shortened version is actually much more powerful.
The poem was written by José Agustín Goytisolo (1928-1999) for his daughter Julia, named after his mother, who was killed in a bombing during the Spanish civil war in 1938.

Posted for shackles at One Single Impression.

Many-splendored

No wisteria,
no chrysanthemum out there,
but still a good sneeze.

– Oson

Posted for Haiku My Heart at Recuerda Mi Corazón.

A somewhat tongue-in-cheek haiku by one of the lesser-known masters.

Epidemic thinking

While Fukushima is out of control, blatantly demonstrating the helplessness of the operators and the nuclear power community, releasing radioactivity that might in some way eventually affect everyone on the planet, some countries can’t seem to wait to build more of the damn things: USA (lesson forgotten after Three Mile Island), China, India, Belarus (of all places!), etc. That’s what I would call ‘epidemic thinking.’

– James Steerforth

Prompted by Epidemic at One Single Impression.

Ruminations about current trends in love I

L’amour ne peut plus voyager
Il a perdu son messager
– Georges Moustaki

Is there less love now
than there used to be?
Perhaps the messengers
have indeed died off,
as in chemical reactions
where two need to react
but won’t – with the
catalyst missing.

– James Steerforth (© 2011)

Written for Sunday Scribblings and Messenger.
The quote is from the song “Le facteur” by French singer Georges Moustaki.
Translation:
Love can no longer travel
because it has lost its messenger.
In the song, the messenger is a mailman, dead at age 17.