… and best wishes for the New Year
Whither wilt thou hinder
Rigid journey anon
Journey on rigidly
Without hindrance
Whither thou journeyest
Hindered by rigidity
Ever and anon
– James Steerforth
Written to include Hinder, Journey and Rigid from 3WW.
Delicias – delights – was a story I wrote a long time ago. The title came first and seemed appropriate even though the story is not specifically about anything that could be termed to be delightful.
It is set in Mexico, somewhere on Lake Chapala near Guadalajara, and is about a single man who has taken to drinking after his wife left him. He’s a mostly failed writer without any purpose in life.
One day he starts taking care of a crazy girl he’s familiar with from the city park. He chases off a sleazoid putting the move on the girl , who then proceeds to attach herself to him, accompanying him to his house and eventually staying with him for good.
She becomes his purpose, and at the end of the story he tells her something like, “You know how lucky you are? I’m independently wealthy, have nothing to do, happen to love you and like nothing better than to take care of you.”
Perhaps the title of the story reflects mostly my delight in writing it – something light, fairytale-like, with some sort of ironic happy ending in true unrealistic fashion.
– James Steerforth ( © 2009 )
Written for “delicious” at Sunday Scribblings.
A photo posted for “undesirable” at Photo Hunt.
What or who was undesirable? Most likely the photographer – that’s why everybody hid their faces.
The sun is shining
On this December day
Which global warming
Has rendered warm
Just saw a magpie
Landing on a pine branch
After wandering if
All birds had migrated south
But they haven’t
There’s that said magpie
And there’s a lonely
Pigeon on a red roof
And that’s also said
– James Steerforth ( © 2009 )
NB: Everything told here is true and actually happened.
No sé como decirte
No sé como explicarte
Que aquí no hay remedio
De lo que siento yo
De lo que siento yo
La luna me dice una cosa
Las estrellas me dicen otra
Y la luz del día me canta
Esta triste canción
Esta triste canción
Los besos que me diste mi amor
Son los que me están matando
Y las lágrimas me están secando
Con mi pistola y mi corazón
Y aquí siempre paso la vida
Con la pistola y el corazón
No sé como amarte
No sé como abrazarte
Porque no se me deja
El dolor que tengo yo
El dolor que tengo yo
Esta noche tan oscura
Con sus sombras tan tranquilas
Y el viento me sigue cantando
Esta humilde canción
Esta humilde canción
Los besos que me diste mi amor
Son los que me están matando
Y las lágrimas me están secando
Con mi pistola y mi corazón
Y aquí siempre paso la vida
Con la pistola y el corazón
(from “La pistola y el corazón” by Los Lobos, released in 1988. Written by band members David Hidalgo and Louie Pérez)
I don’t know how to tell you,
don’t know how to explain
that there is no remedy
for what I feel inside,
for what I feel inside
The moon tells me one thing,
the stars tell me another,
and the light of day sings me
this sad, sad song,
this sad, sad song
The kisses you gave me, my love,
are the ones that will kill me,
and the tears I’ve cried are drying
with my pistol and my heart,
and my life here goes by
with the pistol and the heart
I don’t know how to love you,
don’t know how to embrace you,
because this pain I feel,
this pain I feel
won’t leave me alone
The night is so dark
with its quiet shadows,
and the wind keeps singing
this humble song,
this humble song
The kisses you gave me, my love,
are the ones that will kill me,
and the tears I’ve cried are drying
with my pistol and my heart,
and my life here goes by
with the pistol and the heart
– English translation by Johannes Beilharz ( © 2009 )
Posted for One Single Impression and Migration – after all, this song has a migrant background.
Lyrics index – an eclectic selection of song lyrics.
Now why would she call me obscene?
I was her loyal love after all,
even after the accident
– James Steerforth ( © 2009 )
A what I would call ’suggestive haiku’ (or something like it, too not bothered to count syllables) written around Accident, Loyal and Obscene from 3WW.
Unforgettable —
classmates translating “Apogeo del apio”
Those imaginary stalks!
Unforgotten in thirty-odd years
Such trifles constitute eternity,
its small eternal bits
– James Steerforth ( © 2009 )
Written this very minute after dancing to Tanya Tucker, then putting on Heather Nova and walking away into my office. Looking for something to write, celery intruded by means of untraceable association.
The Spanish refers to a poem by Pablo Neruda, “Apogee of celery”.
Also a truly totally optional poem for Totally Optional Prompts.
You are incredible!
he said,
I don’t know where
ugly little me
fits in there
with your lofty ambitions
any more.
– James Steerforth ( © 2009 )
Written around Ambitious, Incredible and Ugly from 3WW.
Author’s note: Not the least bit autobiographical, I’m happy to say. But such relationships exist in real life…
Let’s engage in some mayhem before we disarm.
Contains the 3 words
engage,
mayhem and
disarm
from 3WW CLIV.
Could be said to be a variation of the Bushism “you disarm, or we will.”
PS: I noticed – belatedly- that I posted this on September 11. It’s just as well, then, that it alludes to George W. Bush.
I would have loved to capture that Jinx – our Jinx – but, being her cousin, albeit twice removed and not much older than her, I did not qualify. Not that the subject ever came up.
Now she’s married, happily it seems, with two cute kids, and I get to see her every once in a while, at birthday or funeral parties, as it is among relatives.
– James Steerforth ( © 2009 )
Written around Capture, Jinx, Qualify from 3WW CL.
Me alejo de mí mismo…
– Octavio Paz
Wiping the windows for hours
The stale blue cool coming alive
behind her eyes:
Little transparent one-cellular crumbs
She and her white and blue cotton cloth
are one
In the evenings we take walks
Then the daffodils are not so yellow,
and she says in a very foreign language:
Amru tys amry nos …
I open the steel-blue steel car door
She glides in
Or we go to a hula dance but she keeps watching me
through my black-rimmed glasses
and thick small-patterned dark suit,
my bulgy fifties self
But tender I read in her attentive eyes
Amru tys amry nos …
Her short-nailed fingers follow fine threads
and find islands easily
Buttons
And what do you have there? A piece of paper? And it says,
Keep this coupon?
Yes, amru tys amry nos …
– Johannes Beilharz ( © 1981 )
Note
I decided to post this older poem because I thought of it immediately after glancing at One Single Impression’s Windows prompt. This did not seem too far-fetched after rereading the entire poem because the themes of windows, transparency, looking through are all over the place.
Don’t give me that
hypnotic sulk, you drip.
That used to work, but
it ain’t workin’ no more.
Go feel sorry for yourself,
I ain’t doin’ it no more.
– James Steerforth ( © 2009 )
Written around drip, hypnotic and sulk from 3WW.
For A.B., as usual
Several times he seemed
ready to collapse
under the burden of
pain from unhappy love
Yet always managed
to pick himself up –
by his own scalp,
so to speak
But there were moments
when collapse seemed
the sweetest thing on earth –
the final breaking of those
iron rings in his heart region
that would manifest pure love
An infinite sweetness
bearing no relation
to the object of collapse
Something truly
unconditional – an oath
not to ever betray
love, that particular love
regardless of anything
that might happen
Despite it all,
in the face of despise:
there it is – near-blind,
sighful yearning
The more un-
fullfillable
the better
– James Steerforth ( © 2009 )
Written around Collapse, Sweet, Yearn from 3WW.
I opened the door and I found I was looking at danger
It’s been so many years but we’re hiding our faces like strangers
She says that she’s got to go but there ain’t no way
I’m letting her walk while there’s something to say
It’s been too many years
to watch our hearts die in this way.
She’s feeling a time for a seasonal change and she’s yearning
To shake the trees of our love in the streets where the leaves are for burning
All things on this earth were made for the dying
One look in my soul says there just ain’t no use trying
It’s been too many years
to watch our hearts die in this way
In an unwritten time I thought that life was for sharing
And living together was simply a matter of caring
But things did not work out like I planned
and alienation has left me here damned
It’s been too many years
to watch our hearts die in this way
– Jorma Kaukonen
The dilemma of seeming to know each other too well, for too many years, becoming almost strangers. Unfortunately, there is no rendition of this wonderful song by ex-Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna lead guitarist Jorma Kaukonen on Youtube.
Posted for One Single Impression and The Stranger.
Lyrics index – an eclectic selection of song lyrics.
Once again for A.B.
I know you a little better now
than before, will
know you better again tomorrow
and the day after
I knew the sparkle before,
the sparkle in your dark brown eyes
Last week I noticed the wrinkles
around your eyes – you’re
thirty-seven after all, I noticed them
from the side as we were driving along
And yesterday it dawned on me
that you’re also fickle –
capricious for capriciousness’ sake;
you call it spontaneous
And don’t tell me you don’t thrive
on compliments on your beauty –
I know you better than your daughter
who is like you,
dancing away throwing a mane of hair,
curious of its effect
“Did I do a good throw?”
she said over her shoulder
I can’t wait to hear what you will say
over your shoulder
The day after the day and the day
I will know you better
– James Steerforth ( © 2009 )
Written to incorporate Fickle / Sparkle / Wrinkle from 3WW.
For A.S.
With all my cavorting
– and yours on top! –
we never know
who we’re dealing with.
You told me today
that sometimes
you did not know
who you were talking to
when talking to me –
my inner child,
my outer child,
my higher self
or whatever
(I don’t have
the nomenclature
down), and which
layer of you was
communicating with me.
“We’re complicated,”
I said. “No,” you said,
“complex.” That
definitely came
from your mouth
and went into my ear.
– James Steerforth ( © 2009 )
Written upon inspiration by “covert” for Sunday Scribblings.
Kamala Das, one of India’s eminent poets, passed away on May 31, 2009.
Kamala Das alias Kamala Surayya alias Madhavikutty passed away in a private hospital at Pune, India, on Sunday early morning. She was 75. She had been undergoing hospital treatment for the last few months.
She wrote in English as well as Malayalam, her native language. She is considered to be one of the outstanding Indian poets writing in English.
Her popularity in Kerala is based chiefly on her short stories, novels and autobiography. Much of her writing in Malayalam came under the pen name Madhavikkutty.
A poem by Kamala Das from an earlier post.
As he would occasionally do when taking a solitary walk, he shifted into another being. This time it was a brown bear, to enable him to climb a tree and survey the forest from a different point of view.
This was his first time as a bear. He relished the feeling of powerful ease with which he was able to use his claws on the rough bark of the tall, thick pine he’d picked, and the total absence of his usual fear of heights. But he also noticed how thoughts and associations not his own were infiltrating, which he knew to come from being a bear. His sense of smell had increased tremendously, to a degree that was overwhelming. He could sense that there was carrion nearby, and his sensitivity to traces of urine and dung in the vicinity was acute.
His human soul was somewhat let down because his bear-self did not think of his surroundings as beautiful – they were his habitat and therefore entirely normal.
Stirrings of hunger were there, and they were for the dead animal about 20 yards away, for other things his human self did not consider terribly appetizing, but also for the chocolate in his own backpack which he’d hung from the lower branches of a smaller tree.
Time to return and attack that chocolate before some other bear would try and get to it.
– James Steerforth ( © 2009 )
Written for Café Writing’s May/June project, The Magic of Milne. Photo Credit: Tony Campbell.
My dear James, last night was wonderful! You were so gentle and sensitive, yet you knew when to be strong and firm with me. I do like to be chastised when I have been naughty, just a little 
, and you knew exactly how much force was enough to send me into ecstacy. You can be so stern, you nasty man! And when you spoke Swabian to me! That made me wild! And your homemade spätzle was divine! You are the perfect man, James. So well read, so cultured, so knowledgeable, yet so unassuming, so humble. That combination drives me crazy (as you probably realized ). I can’t wait until we meet again, James. – from your little Kazakh warrior
Notes
This was written facetiously by a friend and colleague of mine as part of an e-mail by that same little Kazakh warrior he forwarded to me. It was the one and only association that came to me for Inspire Me Thursday’s Warrior theme.
“I have been maligned by a cryptic flash,” declaimed Tommy theatrically.
Gerald added a few pinches of salt.
“Taste! – I think that will do,” he said, offering a spoonful of the bright yellow sauce.
Tommy turned away in distaste.
“What is it now,” Gerald said.
“You never listen to me. All you care about is food – cooking and eating, cooking and eating!”
“Oh come off your huff. You like my cooking. And anyway, I’ve been listening all along.”
“Prove it!”
“I believe you were saying that someone, most likely your loving mother, said something about you behind your back that you didn’t like, and you found out about it somehow.”
“No! I said ‘maligned by a cryptic flash’! Does that sound like my mother? Or any real person for that matter? And it’s quite poetic, by the way. But you wouldn’t know, maker of curries.”
“Thank you, dear Thomasina, for putting me in my rightful place. But let me return the compliment and call you by your real name: flasher of malignant cryptics and soon-to-be eater of pungent elliptics and sensibly cut rhomboids.”
– James Steerforth ( © 2009 )
Woven around Cryptic, Flash and Malign as suggested by 3WW.
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