The 5 Senses Poem Challenge

[bogusagain]

This link always seems to fail for me.

That's because I'm stupid! I copied and pasted and had a double http

A bit late now but it was this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf59n9DVfeA

 

[bogusagain]

Remorse

I watched her from the floor.
She put a song on repeat
and we listened to its steady beat
sing of ashtray girls and open sores.

We shared several slugs of schnapps
and the alcohol made us sweat,
the scent stale in the small room, yet
it made her kisses taste of apricots.

She tied my hands behind my back
with a rough jute cord that bit
deep into my wrists.
She wore only black—

an open jacket, heels, nothing more.
When she picked up the crop,
I knew she’d use me until I dropped.
Never date another German girl, I swore.



Sight: An open box of chocolates
Sound: Glass on glass
Scent: Arpège, Chanel No. 5, or some other famous perfume
Taste: Citrus
Touch: Something very smooth and cool

Tzara, I knew there was a beast in you trying to get out.

 

[bogusagain]

Sight: pillow
Sound: whistling
Scent: wood shavings
Taste: something sweet
touch: something cool or cold

I know I know I know
there is no need to whistle dixie
I know his modus operandi
a sack of wood shavings
on which he rests your head
a pilow of sweet smelling cedar
is his chosen drug, an opiate
in which you find romance
you're like like all the others
thinking he's some cool dude
as his cold chisel shapes you
your breasts, your belly, your cleft
his strong hands tenderly strokes
cups and brushes over the wood
you imagine their horny strength
confidently taking hold of you
taking control of carnal love
with the dexterity of a master craftsman
and like a master craftsman
he understood his material
how to manipulate it, work it
smooth and form it to his will
and you, seduced by his artistry
opened up to him, allowed him
to work you with his tool
yes yes yes, I know I'm being crude
he'll sign you like a sculpture
sell you to any one who'll pay
leave you to cry on someone else shoulder
let someone else listen to your hard luck story
about how two faced callous he was
well babe, let me tell you about his art
technically brilliant, imaginatively cold
like his chisel deftly worked the wood
he had you work his candy pop


Sight: swimmers
Sound: people arguing
Scent: urine
Taste: candy
touch: something sticky

 

[champagne1982]

I know I know I know ...

Sight: swimmers
Sound: people arguing
Scent: urine
Taste: candy
touch: something sticky

Rekindling Romance?

God! The folds of my breasts
over my ribs are at the stage
of cooling where flesh sticks
to flesh and stench
barely begins to describe
the mix of sperm and urine
rising from the stains
and swimming upstream
on the carpeted stairs.

Why are you showing me this?
Did a whore stand here, cheap
and gaudy in her paint
chewing Juicy Fruit
in more ways than one?

..."Take a sniff. Pull it out.
The taste is gonna thrill ya
when you pop it in your mouth!"​

And all that gush drips down her thighs
while higher up through a thin door
a man growls his frustration
at a worried woman and she nags
and nags while he struggles
to find the way to buy better.

Better than melamine laced formula
at the supered up big box store
that takes thirty minutes
to reach by transit where he works
graveyards stocking shelves
with product packaged in America.

I get it. It's where the world is going.
But there's still a question of what
the fuck ever happened to pride?
Don't beg me to kneel
and pop it in my mouth.
This is not my idea of risqué.

Sight: dew spangled grass
Sound: straight pipe exhaust
Scent: tar
Taste: cigarettes
touch: a breeze through a window

 

[greenmountaineer]

Driven

"Women have no wilderness in them,
They are provident instead"

Louise Bogan

Thenceforth she'll drive five maybe six
m.p.h. under the posted limit
when everyone else is spilling their hot
I got to get to work by nine coffee
that steams if not tastes like the tar they lay
asphalt with on the Garden State Parkway.

Melissa slows down to see the green paint
that sparkles like dew might northbound of Newark
where grass doesn't grow in the Garden State
that smells like fumes middle managers make
smoking their butts and weaving a bee line
cursing Melissa who says never mind,

having said it last night five hundred times
after five glasses of sauvignon blanc
over her limit to sleep and forget
his face she still sees in some tomcat dick
she tilts to the right in her rearview mirror,
reminding her of her tail chasing Harry.


Sound any bird
Taste oatmeal
Smell propane gas
Sight negligee
touch flannel

 

[Desejo]

Sound any bird
Taste oatmeal
Smell propane gas
Sight negligee
touch flannel

Daydreaming in the Kitchen

I think about you.
Conversations we would have
Clothed and naked

That negligee in my closet
discarded in a scarlet ribbon on the floor
I’d slip instead between flannel sheets
That make winter so delicious
And you’d slip into me, of course

You would try to explain
Which bird was singing
Though the open window
I'd coo into your neck
suggesting the domestic pigeon

All this has me very distracted.
I forgot to turn off the stove
And have not taken a single bite
Of my oatmeal.

sound: typing
scent: fresh cut grass
touch: gemstone
sight: empty chair
taste: good, snob worthy chocolate

 

[greenmountaineer]

Daydreaming in the Kitchen

sound: typing
scent: fresh cut grass
touch: gemstone
sight: empty chair
taste: good, snob worthy chocolate

I in a Horseless Carriage

These tablet computers, goddam it,
no longer tap like the manuals,
and I miss the Cape Cod Bay lapping
sound of my push reel mower

each time I ride over and over
lawn and watch the globs that plop
in a pasture like cow pies supplant
the fresh sweet clips of summer.

I wouldn't dare wake up the neighbors,
having to mow in a horseless carriage
dog day August afternoons away
in lieu of having high tea with you,

although we savor late night claret
and relish its lees and tea leaves in cups
while the empty chair in the bedroom
charms with the emerald charm you'll wear

upstairs as my Lady Godiva,
licking the foil of dark chocolate
about to get ready in the dark
to ride with me who bucks like a horse.

sound: television
scent: bread just out of the oven
touch: bootlaces
sight: snow
taste: beer

 

[njoyjade]

I in a Horseless Carriage


sound: television
scent: bread just out of the oven
touch: bootlaces
sight: snow
taste: beer

Daily Bread and Boots

Every time the front door opens, the cow bell rings,
We bought this fish camp thinking we would fish more,
Ha, reality bites just as loud as the Saltwater Sportsman shows on ESPN.
Every morning, six a.m. ,our feet hit the dock;
not like before, when we were the customers.
Now we have customers!
They have had the breakfast of champions;
Beer for breakfast, beer for lunch, if we're lucky,
Beer for dinner too.
We live in the South, for God's sake!
The only time you've seen snow is from the
inside of a cooler, brought down from Illinois in February.
We have no laces on our boots anymore, only slick white rubber
that sure comes in handy when **it starts getting too deep.
At least we sold before the crash, six months before Wilma's flood.
The fact that there is still a "we", is from some great design by the one who
knows how important the little things in life really are.
Like remembering to put the kneader blade in the bread machine;
It still smells really good, just may not rise as high.


Sound: cow bell
Sight: standing in line
Scent: pine or rich tree smell
Touch: needle point sharp
Taste: peppermint

 

[Desejo]

Sound: cow bell
Sight: standing in line
Scent: pine or rich tree smell
Touch: needle point sharp
Taste: peppermint

Seven hairpin turns
in the airport security line
and then
people avoid my gaze as
they do up belts and put on shoes.

I feel like I missed an intimate moment.
A cigarette is out of the question
But Starbucks is always open
For a post tryst coffee with strangers

I turned 47 this month.
Lashaun, our waiter at the Cheesecake factory
led his posse in a rousing chorus of
Happy birthday, blah blah

I guess I really am getting old.

I’d have preferred to hear
the clang of the rusty old cowbell
that hung on our front porch in NY
eat sweet corn topped using those corn holders
we used as a weapons to prick each other
and fresh rock salt cranked ice cream
laced with peppermint.

Not to mention the smell of real trees
instead of a “frosted Spruce” Yankee Candle
sputtering on an erstatz wood table

If time and place could be linked
as a destination
I’d stop travelling.
I’d just go home.

Sight: flying insect
sound: barking
Taste: cranberry juice
Smell: heat
touch: rough

 

[njoyjade]

Sight: flying insect
sound: barking
Taste: cranberry juice
Smell: heat
touch: rough

A Corporal's Dream


The dragonflies' shadows dance across our face
Your skin still has the scent of the afternoon's heat.
Our kisses, long and deep, taste like the sea breezes
we ordered from the poolside bar.


In my dreams, day and night,
I no longer hear the Captain's barking orders.
In my dreams, day and night, I cannot feel the sand
gritting through my socks and in my teeth.


Who'd have ever guessed the rough
spot I had on my index finger, from writing,
would have time to soften and become smooth;
only to show up on the one that now pulls the trigger.


Sight: a lover
Sound: music of choice
Taste: pumpkin pie
Smell: Autumn
Touch: leaves

 

[Tzara]

Sight: a lover
Sound: music of choice
Taste: pumpkin pie
Smell: Autumn
Touch: leaves

Day after Thanksgiving

Surprise! I was eating
(no that is not the surprise),
leftovers—turkey, candied yams,
and one last slice of pumpkin pie
when Darla opened a window.
The air was close, I admit,
but the smell of burning leaves
was too strong and put me off
my appetite. We had yet
to rake the sugar maple’s
leavings, and I thought
about their crisp fragility,
strewn over the back lawn,
how Dee and I had joined
late last night in a high pile
of red and gold and brown
after all our family had gone home,
swaddled in wool against the cold
but for our two important parts,
how Dr. Morgan, two doors down,
incongruously played Ives’
Decoration Day out into November night.
Dee pressed a leaf (unstained)
into her journal, made some notes.
I gathered leaves like they were hopes.



Sight: A street in a large city
Sound: Something quite soft, despite the ambient sound
Scent: Fennel or licorice or a liqueur based on those flavorings/scents
Taste: See above
Touch: A stretched fabric of any kind

 

[KatieJones]

Sight: A street in a large city
Sound: Something quite soft, despite the ambient sound
Scent: Fennel or licorice or a liqueur based on those flavorings/scents
Taste: See above
Touch: A stretched fabric of any kind

The noise on Broadway mimicked
both the beauty and dissonance
of the orchestras tuning up to play
inside the many theatres that lined the sidewalk
where they walked-a little slower
than the rest. The uncertainty
of separate rooms negating the need
to rush and explained their quiet
which ironically insulated them against the crowd.
She could smell the faint aroma
of anisette on his breath when he leaned
into her to avoid a streetlight-the scent
moved through her like a kiss and closed her eyes
until there was only the sound
of her heels hitting the cement, counting
down their time together like a metronome
alternately fueled by the tension of inevitability
and the fear of improbability
until she stopped, stepped
into the alley under the guise
of fixing an errant strap on her sandal.
As she straightened
he pressed her against the uneven brick
wall which bit into bare skin
and she noticed he was drawing
his door key back and forth
against his thigh with a soft rasp
as the stretched cotton in his pants resisted
what she could not.


Sight: smashed window
Sound: waves
Scent: vanilla
Taste: salty
Touch: leather seats

 

[Desejo]

Shattered

Sight: smashed window
Sound: waves
Scent: vanilla
Taste: salty
Touch: leather seats

This shattered window
glimmering hundreds of crystalline cells
makes me wonder about parallel worlds

Yes, I know: Geek alert.
But imagine--

had we met years ago
my daydreams today might
include the leather seats
of your car under my bare thighs
and the smell of the Breyers
you scooped onto me
spread eagled on the wooden counter
topped with whip cream
dark chocolate sauce dripping
down my vanilla leg

And you, maybe would be thinking about
my sighs crescendoing in waves
echoing in my thighs
and the taste of salt on my neck
that time you pulled me into the alley
in Boston, or Portland
or even somewhere smack in middle America

I guess we are both happy
in this particular window pane
But I’d like to have those memories
Ya know?


Taste: Chili
smell: something cooking
sound: a choir
touch: grasp
sight: a fight

 

[KatieJones]

Taste: Chili
smell: something cooking
sound: a choir
touch: grasp
sight: a fight

It’s been years since their last fight
but the smell of chili repaints
the kitchen walls from blue to grey
and fills her ears with a medley
of the bubbling spats of an unwatched pot
and a chorus of spring peepers.
She looks down
expecting to see the bruise
his grasp left that night on her skin
but her body has long ago absorbed
the blood of broken vessels-all that remains
is a colourless pain. She stirs
the memory of his fist
smashing against her cheek
when the guilt boils
to the surface and threatens
to spill the secrets of what silenced
the frogs that evening. It never feels
righteous but does allow her to hear
their song instead of the condemnation
that comes with silence.



Taste: raspberries
smell: something warmed by the sun
sound: gravel crunching
touch: someone’s hair
sight: sailboat

 

[Desejo]

Taste: raspberries
smell: something warmed by the sun
sound: gravel crunching
touch: someone’s hair
sight: sailboat

Déjeuner sur l'herbe, Jardin des Tuileries


Beside this charmant pond
where children race sailboats
Bearing tiny tricolore and fleur de lis flags
A guillotine once stood

On sunny days — like this
Conciergerie prisoners felt
the sun warm their skin one last time
before they were dispatched

A wicker basket was neatly positioned
to catch the heads
but sometimes they missed
And the executioner
Picked them up
the hair tangling like veins around his gloved hands
like the seal of the Sun King

Would you like another raspberry,darling?

Marie Antoinette loved them, I’m told
She had them grown at the Petit Hameau
Where she played peasant
They baked brioche there
Which led to that unfortunate cake comment

At night, they say you can hear her
Tiny ghostly feet crunching the gravel
in the Jardin de Tuileries.

Touch: wind from a fan
Scent: mushrooms frying
Sound: something battery operated
Taste: something fizzy
Sight: dusk

 

[greenmountaineer]

Déjeuner sur l'herbe, Jardin des Tuileries


Touch: wind from a fan
Scent: mushrooms frying
Sound: something battery operated
Taste: something fizzy
Sight: dusk

L'Histoire du Parc des Buttes Chaumont

Too old, Mon Vieux, to work the streets,
the horses were whipped by their knackers
once to a battery of cannons
pointing at the mad dogs from England.

Given its promontory the king
and court saw worth for frolic and fear
until the queen complained once at dusk
she barely could see all the hangings
after which his majesty ordered
beggars, thieves, and whoever he pleased
be hung one hour after vespers
with torchlights for queen and God's justice.

Little did Louie know she was mad
although her handmaidens did indeed,
fanning the fool both morning and night
when her grace complained of the weather
thinking it August in December.
"I feel like mushrooms frying today.
Is le Daim, that rogue, dead yet, Cheri?"
whose cup bearer feigned tasting champagne.

Mon Vieux, but for flowers you see
above the many pockmarks and gnarls,
here perhaps was hell's seventh ring
in which more than one cupbearer fell.

Touch: petting a dog
Scent: skunk
Sound: Simon & Garfunkel
Taste: any kind of fortified wine
Sight: your woman in a negligee or your man in whatever you choose to have him wear

 

[KatieJones]

Touch: petting a dog
Scent: skunk
Sound: Simon & Garfunkel
Taste: any kind of fortified wine
Sight: your woman in a negligee or your man in whatever you choose to have him wear

Lie La Lie

The Boxer played
in the next apartment
just loud enough
to identify the melody.
He was not a fighter
and assumed he didn’t have to
-that the four glasses
of port he paid for counted
as consent. He undid his tie
and rolled up his shirt sleeves
while she waited on the edge
of the couch its round coils
leaving a pattern
on her bare thigh. She smiled
and sang softly
“a man hears
what he wants to hear”
while she stroked
his ego and the dog
which despite many baths
still carried the faint odour of skunk
muted but ever-present
like the arrogance this man
tried to cover with a smile.

There was no hiding
his construction
beneath slip covers of kindness.
He was all angles compiling
lies with flips of the Rolodex
in his head looking for one
labelled what she needs
to open her legs
but to his surprise
she didn't wait
for “a pocket full of mumbles
such are promises
all lies and jests”. She disconnected
the offending senses
having ‘squandered her resistance’
and left only touch and taste
to take what she needed
and disregard the rest.


Touch: tree bark
Scent: limes
Sound: geese
Taste: ice cream
Sight: run down barn

 

[Remec]

Touch: tree bark
Scent: limes
Sound: geese
Taste: ice cream
Sight: run down barn

In Twilight


Summer ends, like most
things eventually do, but
we didn't care as we ran
all throughout the spaces,
empty even as they were
still full of things--broken down
tractor, molding hay bales,
the rundown barn where we
sat in the near dark and told
each other all the great lies
you tell your first loves

Childhood ends, so they say,
but as long as I can lounge
in the arms of my favorite
tree...the great big one that
was always easy to climb,
where the bark was rubbed
smooth in just the right spots...
and listen to the migrating geese
(on the move once more)
while studiously catching every drip
of Nanny's handcranked ice cream
in those next-best-thing-to-cardboard
cones they sold up at the market,
as long as I can do that, if nothing
else, then I can be a child forever.

~~~~~
sight: a fluttering bit of fabric
sound: scolding
smell: comfort
taste: medicine
touch: feathers

 

[Desejo]

~~~~~
sight: a fluttering bit of fabric
sound: scolding
smell: comfort
taste: medicine
touch: feathers

Hora da Sesta


The white gauze canopy
lifts with the exhale of the xaroco
fluttering like a bird hovering in the hot currents
not unlike my breath lifts stands of your hair
against the linen pillows

Surrounded by luxury
you are my greatest indulgence

There is a flutter of noise
in the courtyard
Egyptian geese scolding in the olive tree
protesting lost territory
or sins of an undefined sort.

You stir slightly
ever the peacemaker.

I cannot resist a kiss.
The sweet local Porto we tasted
earlier in the vineyards
still clings to your lips
Almost like cherry cough syrup
Which might explain how well I sleep next to you
At least in part

Ah, I have awoken you
Your eyelashes fluttering against my
Shoulder feel like feathers
Of a newborn Egyptian goose

Sight: someone crying
Sound: scream
taste: strawberries
scent: ripeness
touch: something wet

 

[greenmountaineer]

Dream Weaver

His dreams went beyond comfort.
Success meant a million-pound yacht,
red ripe strawberries for breakfast,
and a grouse moor of his own.

In a pied-a-terre Simone
was crying because Marie
pulled at his brillantined hair,
screaming his name in ecstacy.

My oh my, but his dream was wet
as wet as his groans and groin
at midnight after thirty-five years
next to a wide awake Ethel.


Sight: a turbaned Pakistani
Sound: boiling water
taste: onion
scent: tobacco smoke
touch: a glass

 

[Desejo]

Sight: a turbaned Pakistani
Sound: boiling water
taste: onion
scent: tobacco smoke
touch: a glass

Lahore Kebab House

My friends cannot be blamed
for the choice of the Lahore Kebab house
Their politics do not differentiate any lower than
subcontinent

And none of this is supposed to matter
in America anyway.

Distracted,
I can hear the boil of water from the tiny kitchen
behind me
bubbling away happily
It reminds me of the tea
my mother was brewing

The night Operation Searchlight
busted into our kitchen and took my father

The man in a scarlet turban
at the table next to us
smokes a bidi, laughing.
I believe it is the same tobacco that Baba smoked
after all, it was one country then

I grip the painted glass a bit harder
and take a sip of mint tea
trying to wash away the taste
of bitter onion and meat from my mouth.

Sight: white clothing
sound: bells
smell: citrus, sharp
touch: paper
taste: lemonade

 

[KatieJones]

Hemminway borrowed the line
‘for whom the bell tolls’
from Donne I hear him drone
so sure he’s educating
me. I slice the paper menu
across my thumb
until a red line blooms
and the numbness is edged
slightly off stage by the sting.
The fact that he doesn’t notice
I am bleeding makes me question
Donne’s assertion that no man
is an island. I spear the lemon
that sits in the bottom of my empty glass
like a ship run aground. It bleeds
a drop of lemonade
releasing a citrus smell
that hits my nose like smelling salts
jolting me back from my ennui-induced
reverie to the man
delivering his lecture entitled:
My Self-Described Brilliance
and Other Reasons You Should Sleep with Me.

I excuse myself and I know he assumes
a trip to the ladies room to primp
but instead I hit the bar
for a shot of whiskey
and a borrowed pen and paper.

I am long gone when he reads
my note: it tolls for thee.

Sight: coyote
sound: silence
smell: cut hay
touch: cotton candy
taste: blood

 

[Desejo]

Sight: coyote
sound: silence
smell: cut hay
touch: cotton candy
taste: blood

Summer 1976

It’s oddly thrilling, watching Wylie coyote
Get beat up by the roadrunner
Through the clicks of the Viewmaster
The same black clouds of frustration
But no beep beep or crash

It gives me ideas
About how to destroy the
The house that Jack has built
of sweet smelling hay
For the the iconic doll with chewed pig feet

The game is blow the house down.

I climb to the hayloft
Assume a wolf pose
And launch a flying attack
Screaming Little Pig Little Pig

It’s not hard to blow the house down

But Like Wylie, I don’t escape unscathed
When my method of sucking the blood
Doesn't work Jack patches it up
With a spiderweb, sticky silk like cotton candy

Barbie looks up at me with roadrunner eyes
beep beep

Sound: construction work
sight: box
scent: coffee
touch: brick
taste: dust.

 

[njoyjade]

7 World

Summer 1976

Sound: construction work
sight: box
scent: coffee
touch: brick
taste: dust.

the elevator ride; Up.
Briefcase, portfolio, agenda;
Hot tea and java steaming from
Multi colored cups.

the elevator ride; Up.
Red brick, embedded, encased;
A walkway to the world.
Forty-seven stories to tell.

the elevator ride; Up.
Energy, light, connected;
A voice of new beginnings,
Inhaled with the embers.

the elevator ride; Up.
Reconstructed, united, rebuilt;
A Tower of Hope rises,
Machinery singing triple beeps.



Sight: waves
Sound: whistle
Scent: lavender
Taste: mint
Touch: felt

 

[Desejo]

Sight: waves
Sound: whistle
Scent: lavender
Taste: mint
Touch: felt

Walk in a Lavender field

The wind whistles through waves
swelling between well worn paths
the world seeming to drop off
where endless purple folds into blue

wading waist deep hands floating
in the tide of felt-soft flowers
false footfalls crushing fresh leaves
lavender flows in the lungs air once filled

Where the well known whop
of a mint Altoid withers
in comparison

Sound: something falling
sight: red shirt
Scent: candle
Touch: worn wood
Taste: autumn drink