Posted for Photo Hunt 110 - candy. Not a picture, but a song by the Velvet Underground in video (thank you, Youtube) and text below.

Candy says I’ve come to hate my body
And all that it requires in this world
Candy says I’d like to know completely
What others so discreetly talk about

Candy says I hate the quiet places
That cause the smallest taste of what will be
Candy says I hate the big decisions
That cause endless revisions in my mind

I’m gonna watch the bluebirds fly over my shoulder
I’m gonna watch them pass me by
Maybe when I’m older
What do you think I’d see
If I could walk away from me

(written by the Velvet Underground, i.e. most likely mostly by Lou Reed)

Only sleeting rain after sun
after sun after buttercups
in the fields after bright yellow
bright green

– James Steerforth ( © 2008 )

Hardly symbolic, or is it? Yet it was born in response to Totally Optional Prompts’ request for Symbolic Poetry.

(in variation of Barbara Guest’s June)

I

“Sorry, can’t help you with this. You need to see the NECK.”
“The what?”
“The Navigational Excellence Commando Klerk.”
“And where would I find him?”
“That would be Mike Machine in room 4405.”

II

“I was sent here by Mary Model II, the secretary in 1608. She said you could help me with this form.”
“No, unfortunately not. I would suggest that you see the SCRATCH about this.”
“The what?”
“Stellar Commission Receiver’s Assistant for Technical Compliance Handling.”
“I can’t believe this. Who is that, and where?”
“That’s up a few floors, in 9859. And you need to make an appointment - that’s a high-ranking officer.”
“And how do I make an appointment?”
“You go see AVERAGE.”
“Let me guess - that probably stands for Asinine Varmint Extinction Restraint Action Group Elector.”
“Not quite,” the humorless robot said politely. “It is short for Average Citizen Application Center, also known as ACAC.”
“And how do you know that I’m an average citizen?”
“I scanned your code when you walked in. Good-bye.”

– James Steerforth

Written using and explaining the 3WW terms NECK, SCRATCH and AVERAGE.

“You speak français? Because, if you do, that proves you’re a linguist, and I’ll take you to see the most magnificent soap opéra ever. They perform it at Père Lachaise, the famous one, tu sais, and it’s about sausages – merguez, the Moroccan kind – absolument ‘ilarious! You’ll laugh volumes! Why, I might even persuade mon amie the floriste to join us, if I can get ‘er away from ‘er canvases and columns long enough. What do you say?”
“Non.”
“Non?”
“That’s the only word of French I know. But even if I knew French I don’t believe I’d want to spend an evening laughing about sausages at a graveyard.”
My new acquaintance’s jaw dropped visibly.
“However, why don’t we get your florist friend and hit the bars in Giverny?”
That put the smile back on Claude’s face.
“Bien sûr,” he said, “excellente idea.”

– James Steerforth

Written using Raven’s words florist, graveyard, sausage, magnificent, soap opera, linguist, columns, volume, French and canvas plus some more of my own.

Tulip and Concrete

A flower post for Photo Hunt 109.

“Like, will you stay forever?” Nutan said.
“I’ll try. But eventually I’ll have to go. And you might have to go before that.”
“Where would I go?”
“Study, for example. At a school in some other town.”
“I would never do that. I want to stay with my mother. And you.”
“You might change your mind.”
“No. – What would I study?”
“Maybe engineering. Many Indian girls study engineering.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s about building machines, cars, airplanes and other things.”
“No way. Something else.”
“You could study art. That is how to paint.”
“I love to paint. I’m going to paint something right now.”
Upon which she hopped off my lap and skipped towards her room, not to be heard from for about a quarter of an hour, when she reappeared.
“Look at this,” she said, triumphantly waving a piece of paper in my face.
“That’s very nice, Nutan.”
She proceeded to explain it all to me.
“Look, this is me in another town. You can see it’s different because there’s snow there, and they have a clock tower, see? I saw one in Switzerland. – And see this girl? She’s studying what you said.”
“Engineering?”
“Yes. See the machine she’s building?”
“What does it do?”
“It makes ice skates. Because they also have ice in that town.”
“So you’re going to study engineering after all?”
“No, that’s not me. That’s her. My friend. I’ll do the painting.”
I’m looking forward to the transformations she will go through – painting, engineering, whatever – and hope to be witness to them.

– James Steerforth ( © 2008 )

Written for Totally Optionally Prompts and transformation.

A view out the door of a hotel room on Crete.

Digitally processed photograph posted for “Doors” at Inspire Me Thursday. The photo was split up into its CMYK components, which were individually altered, and finally the channels were combined again to render a Hockney-like color effect.

Wordless Wednesday / Friday Edition

Maybe he should not have done it – torn the tenderness, the love for her out of his heart. It had been a brutal operation: lie down, make incision, cut, remove, close with suture, get up. No anesthetic.

Would the suture last?

He was human after all, meaning changeable and given to mood swings, and he was going to see her again … and again. Five days a week because she worked in the office next to his. There would be the inevitable hellos, how-are-yous and good-byes, some chitchat – the hell of avoidance of what really went on inside.

Perhaps he should throw caution to the wind? Forget the old wounds, the fact that he was not quite over a recent divorce, was much older and not exactly film star material (she wasn’t either, even though very cute with her petite figure, Central Asian features and big brown eyes between mirth, frown and surprise).

And then what? What if she had never even thought of him that way? How (im)possibly embarrassing!

More self-procured surgery or certainty?

– James Steerforth ( © 2008 )

Written using the words cautious (close enough: caution), human, maybe from 3 Word Wednesday LXXXV.

Having retired at age 52 from a well-paying job in the aeronautics industry, Abner D. Sandington-Elliot decided to realize a life-long dream and follow in the footsteps of Antoine de St. Exupéry, a writer and fellow pilot he greatly admired. Following months of thorough preparation, he had his modified SY X911 shipped to Morocco and soon set out on a trip across the Sahara desert.

A terrible sandstorm forced a disastrous crash landing somewhere in southern Algeria. He himself and the fuselage of his machine survived more or less intact, but the rotors were destroyed and parts of the undercarriage were severely damaged.

Remembering his favorite movie, The Flight of the Phoenix, in vivid detail, he devised a plan to repair what could be repaired and return to civilization in a phoenix of his own making – even though the easy way out would have been to call for help on his satellite phone.

Thank God he had converted his machine to a highly efficient fuel cell drive with energy resources that would last for weeks, and he had sufficient provisions for himself. Flying was out of the question, of course; he was ground-stuck.

Would his fuel cell jet-propelled vehicle take him across the rough terrain to the nearest oasis?

One thing he knew for sure: unlike his famous French idol, he would not vanish without a trace.

– James Steerforth ( © 2008 )

Inspired by Totally Optional Prompts‘ desert call.

Now what was it I needed to get from the store?
Cranberry sauce for the Morning Glory celebration over at the Church of the Eleventh Commandment, where they have that thundering sparrow hawk of a preacher, Elmer Pumpernickle. Always reminds me of Burt Lancaster, who played Elmer Gantry. While he goes on and on with the Lord’s word or his own, I mostly get sidetracked by the light shining in through the stained glass windows, which are the church’s claim to fame – they have been called Chagall Blue.
I quite like the habit and invigorating smell of burning amber at that church (or is it incense?) and the somewhat Jewish “shalom” greeting everyone uses.
Most extraordinary of all, though, are the laundry list everyone’s supposed to write before attending the service – it is to be one’s list of dirty laundry to be washed for the week – and the model A or B coffin one has to order and pay for way in advance.

– James Steerforth

Written using the words cranberry sauce, amber, laundry list, coffin, morning glory, shalom, mystery, sparrow hawk, pumpernickle, stained glass given by Raven.