I give you words; what will you give me in return?

[wayfaringwordhack]

As you know, LJBobs, we are in the middle of packing for Egypt.

The other day, I was handling a tin box that contains slips of paper Julien I used to use as prompts for our "creative endeavor of the week." Sadly, we fell out of the habit but have decided to pick it back up in Egypt, so the box is coming with us. Anyhow, I dropped the box and out fell some clippings of words from magazines:

If I asked you to play with these words, what would you give me? A sentence, a lyric, a stanza, something else?

And in other found-word news:

Julien's father gave us three trunks to ship our belongings in, and at the bottom of one of them* was this "souvenir" from a girl's communion, which asks Jesus to bless those who came to her communion. It dates from 19 June 1960, which does not seem that far in the past, at least not to me, not until I stop to think it was over 50 years ago.

______________
* J's dad, P, is kinda sorta in the antique/junk-shop business (he has retired from it, but has the bug and can't stop looking for good deals :P ), and he got all of these trunks to resell. The one with the communion card in it is an army-issue trunk which belonged to one of P's superior officers from his army service days. One of P's friends called him not too long ago and offered him "some stuff from an old army guy who lived in X." P had not been in contact with this officer since his service, but he knew where he lived. Sure enough, when the chests and other affairs arrived in his shop, they were from his superior from his "ancient" past. The funny thing is that P did not do his army service in the region around his home, but in another part of France, but both he and the officer ended up back in the same area.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Read me a a tale of beauty, crusader; kiss me once before you leave for Egypt :-)

('cept I know you guys are not the crusading types!)

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Whoops, I could have sworn "Egypt" was one of the words.

Well then:

Read us a tale of beauty, crusader, and kiss me before you go back home.

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

I love seeing how each brain works differently with a string of random words. It confirms the "give five writers one idea and get five different stories in return" idea. :D

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Definitely! I love what everyone has said very much!

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

Those look like novel words to me.

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

Hehe. Want to write one? I have my hands full!

[mindseas.livejournal.com]

I read of a crusade to bring beauty back to us. I kiss the book.

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

I would kiss that book, too. :D

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

**love**

[mindseas.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Dear Crusader, read back to us, the tale of the Beauty who kissed you.

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

I like the capitalization. Makes me thing beyond a "beauty" and a "crusader."

[nipernaadiagain.livejournal.com]

What would bring us back to reading about the crusade for the beauty of a kiss?

"Reading" is, hopefully, the word that stops the image from being yet another entryway to dystopian fiction.

Have I told the story of having been taken to a militia station in Moscow for being kissed in public?

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

I haven't heard that story before, but I would love to!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Have I told the story of having been taken to a militia station in Moscow for being kissed in public?

I would like to read about this too.

[pjthompson]

I wrote those words down and went home for the night. This morning, however, when I saw the list, this came out. Do you mind if I use it on my own blog with attribution to your list?

I am on perpetual crusade
to return us to those first moments
when your battlements fell,
the beauty of that first kiss,
the way your eyes read my face,
the way my mouth crumbled
your defenses, our breath
intertwined, our skin's
burning velvet embrace.
Can we fight our way back
to that fire of long ago
after so many years of comfort
and knowing? Or is it instead
a children's adventure to try?
The contentment of our lives
is its own crusade, a gentle
battle against the world's
harsh ways, a bulwark
against its fires of destruction.

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for sharing, PJ; and of course you may post on your own blog!

[pjthompson]

Thank you. It was fun. And mysterious. :-)

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Gorgeous ♥

[pjthompson]

Thank you, sweets. I don't know where it came from. :-D

[mindseas.livejournal.com]

Wonderful poem!

[pjthompson]

Thank you!

[me-1956.livejournal.com]

Crusade forward into the night,
But leave us with a kiss
whose beauty we will read about
to the ends of the Earth and back.

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

Nice! Thanks for playing. :D