The 5 Senses Poem Challenge

[Angeline]

Let me know if the link is not working , I had some trouble with it.

It took a while to get the sound to load and play, but I'm glad I was patient. Your poem is evocative without it, but hearing those sounds really took it to another level. Kudos and I hope others will get the full experience of your poem.

 

[Angeline]

*****
Sound: Kitchen sounds
Taste: Nostalgia
Scent: (open)
Touch: Skin
Sight: Smile

Hobart Avenue

Morning comes before the light
a soft chime of spoon on china.
Click. A door closes, the house goes
silent. Later we'll rise, eat cereal,

rinse our bowls then out the door
we go: the yard, the street, the
corner, dusty hours until click
a door opens, the radio plays How

Much is That Doggie in the Window?
Mama sings along. Today is a good
day. I eat my sandwich, take my dime,
walk slowly, wave to Cathy on her porch

She won't be there next September.
At night comes voices, clatter, onions
frying, babka risen to bake. I lean
into Mama and her moist safe smell.

The hi-fi is on. We listen to Stravinsky.
Daddy tells about the time he made'
a mile-a-minute cake you had to run that
fast to get away from. Laughter. A curtain

closes, stage lights fade to black.


Sound: horns
Taste: blood
Scent: roses
Touch: metal
Sight: sky

 

[Tzara]

Sound: horns
Taste: blood
Scent: roses
Touch: metal
Sight: sky

Crash

All I can hear are horns,
or perhaps this is what deafness
sounds like.

I can still see. The sky
is blankly blue, benign
above me.

A car fender, warm from impact,
covers me like a blanket,
red as the the blood

that runs, rich with iron and salt,
over my thickened tongue.
Death smells of roses.




Scent: Citrus
Sight: Children, one or more
Sound: Buzzing
Taste: Tomato
Touch: Linen

 

[Desejo]

Crash


Scent: Citrus
Sight: Children, one or more
Sound: Buzzing
Taste: Tomato
Touch: Linen

Supernova

The stream of photographs on Facebook
make me suspect a birthday
always that smile, California so
pure it smells of oranges and lemons
beaming down on the two wide-eyed children
Love so strong you hear it buzzing
like a power wire

And then three letters
Appended, as if an afterthought

RIP

Seal in shock and unleash questions
How. When. we know the where
Of course the real question is Why

The details do not help.

Our last lunch in DC.
she wore a sea green linen shirt, crumpled.
We had spaghetti topped with sundried tomatoes

I swallow now; my mouth tastes of cheap tomatoes
stewed in cast iron.

Please do not say
She died doing what she loved
As if anyone wants to die at work
On a crappy road in Haiti.

****

Sound: Fleetwood Mac
Sight: cape
Scent: fresh baking
Taste: wine
Touch: embrace

 

[KatieJones]

Supernova


****

Sound: Fleetwood Mac
Sight: cape
Scent: fresh baking
Taste: wine
Touch: embrace

Snapshot
Dawn is by nature defined
by an absence that I not only see
but feel as I leave the bakery
after another shift that is punctuated
by the smell of fresh bread
and my need for the bottle
of wine in my fridge to not just stop
time but erase it completely
so I can’t remember the past
and don’t have to worry
about the future. Come on
he calls and I think two words
could be romantic but those are not.

My need for warmth and to erase
the grey pulls me into his embrace
and not long after the front seat
of his car where I sit by accident
on an already cracked CD case
containing Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours.

The cover art presses play
and in my mind I hear
Go Your Own Way while he kisses
my neck and I think of sunset
on the cape and the promise
left
by the pad of your thumb
across my waiting lips.

Sound: crow
Sight: sailboat
Scent: lavender
Taste: salt
Touch: rope

 

[HarryHill]

Seabreeze

Sound: crow
Sight: sailboat
Scent: lavender
Taste: salt
Touch: rope

A crow flies overhead,
screaming those three strident caws
that only one that speaks crow knows mean,
'Get the hell out of here'

The scent of mountain lavender,
cloying in my nose, watching
crow head eastward,
across the mountains,
toward the oceans clean scent,
where sailboats ride the landbreeze,
running before
into the gathering night.

The taste of sprayed saltwater,
The feel of a rope hauled close,
distant memories.
Perhaps the crow is right.

Sound: rain/wind
Sight: an alien world
Scent: undetermined
Taste: alkaline
Touch: hindered by gloves

 

[KatieJones]

.

Sound: rain/wind
Sight: an alien world
Scent: undetermined
Taste: alkaline
Touch: hindered by gloves

The Politics of an Actual Tea Party

In this alien world
there’s a subdued hum
that plays just one level up
from silence and the mood
is defined by a lack of
laughter, movement and skin.

The ladies move slowly, fettered
by societal beliefs and heels
designed to reshape calves
to inspire envy while quietly causing
bunions. White gloves
move past accessory
and into a philosophy of restraint
and judgment of minutia
such as who is gauche enough
to leave her kiss
amongst the flowered patterned cups
or worse too close to the lips
of the hostesses’ husband, Chad.
I silently fume about being sentenced
to suffer through this agony
and in my head I write
a long list of things I’d rather do
that begins with licking
alkaline batteries and ends
with swimming in a pool
of piranhas when suddenly
I am saved. The skies open
and remind the ladies
their umbrellas like the rest of them
are only for show and they scatter
and leave me smiling
all alone in the rain.


Sound: silence
Sight: train
Scent: clover
Taste: blood
Touch: bare feet on whatever

 

[Remec]

Derailing

Sound: silence
Sight: train
Scent: clover
Taste: blood
Touch: bare feet on whatever

Disembodied,
not really on an astral level
just that sense of being
elsewhere that comes when
the senses are
disjointed,
I raise a head from the grass,
the smell of trefoils trying to
masquerade as four-leafs still
in my nose and that warm mix
of salt and metal on my lips
and tongue telling me I've cut
myself somewhere again,
to look about and make sense
of what's going on, seeing the
jumble of cars reminds me,
Oh yeah, the 8:00 from Richmond
I stand the rest of the way up,
toes clutching at the soil and clover,
and turn slowly about, viewing
the debris of broken bodies while
wondering where my carry-on
has gotten to.
~~~~~

sight: farmland
sound: whistles
taste: onion
touch: smooth
smell: fur

 

[Desejo]

sight: farmland
sound: whistles
taste: onion
touch: smooth
smell: fur

Marie's Depression Wedding

Although it is not in season
she changes into a traveling coat
rabbit fur tickling her nose

Shivaree whistles and hoots
fade into the final rays
of late summer sun

He studies the road
savoring the taste of buffet onion fritters
with a heavy tongue

The sun sets on a view of their house
quietly waiting on a hillock
surrounded by black Iowa soil

He stops a minute
takes her tiny smooth hand in his
And almost prays.
********

Sound: phone (whatever your ring tone is. Mine is the Star trek theme
Sight: bird
Smell: hot as hell summer
Taste: tea
Touch: stomach ache (is that touch?)

 

[Tzara]

Sound: phone (whatever your ring tone is. Mine is the Star trek theme
Sight: bird
Smell: hot as hell summer
Taste: tea
Touch: stomach ache (is that touch?)

Ringtone

Mine’s just a trill, like that robin
that hangs about the yard,
happy in the heavy heat
of summer. Worms rise
out of the cool earth,
because I’ve watered the lawn.

Poor worms, they’re snagged
for junior’s lunch.

Gape Gape Gape Gape

A fledge will eat until its stomach
bursts, or aches.
Eventually, it will try to fly.

This tea is cold and citrusy—
I feel its bite. But I wonder,

will my white teeth be not so bright?




Scent: Oil
Sight: City
Sound: Rasp
Taste: Soft drink
Tough: Plastic

 

[KatieJones]

Ringtone


Scent: Oil
Sight: City
Sound: Rasp
Taste: Soft drink
Touch: Plastic

She uncrosses her legs
and the faint smell of vanilla
rises from the oil she used
on her skin this morning
before she came
to the corner booth
that he hopes shuts out the city
and the rasp
of her dead mother’s voice
listing off 1950’s morals.

She’s quiet, savouring
the bouquet of her acquiescence
while he talks
about architecture
unaware for now
that she's undoing his tie
in her mind
while she sips her ginger ale.
Her tongue tracing the mouth
of her plastic straw
until her lips close
and she sucks
him in with the tiniest
of smiles.

Scent: burning
Sight: TV
Sound: creaking
Taste: pepper

 

[Remec]

Scent: burning
Sight: TV
Sound: creaking
Taste: pepper

Late-night Snack

The clock affirms what
I already knew from the
flickering image of the
flag being lowered on
the television screen.

I was up way too late.

And without real reason,
not being Christmas or
Easter and not expecting
visitors that morning. So
I never quite knew why
the need to creep to the
kitchen, down creaking
steps and across a floor
that was just as noisy.

Left-over pizza seemed good.

I had a plate of three slices,
minus the bite I savored once
they were in hand--that mash
of meat and cheese and tomato
overshadowed by all the pepper
PopPop liked to throw on the pie.
I glanced over him once more,
having spied him before the
blue-white glow all head down
and snoring like he always did.
Food in hand, I paused on my way
to bed to lean over and risk kissing
his bald, grey forehead while easing
his cigarette into the ashtray and
making sure it was firmly out.

Maybe that smell was what woke me.
~~~~~

sight: contained fire
sound: applause
scent: beer
taste: taffy or cotton-candy
touch: sand

 

[Desejo]

Scent: frying bacon
Sight: wedding chapple
Sound: drumming
Taste : salt
Touch: coarse hair


Uluwatu, Bali

The smell of bacon
dredges surfers out of
hungover hang ten dreams
into bobbing formations around
the egg station

They brag about bar girls
even as the glass walled wedding chapel
across the lawn begins
the first of a steady tide
of unions

This couple looks Japanese
no one is in attendance
her dress looks too big for her
hair lacquered in sprayed
ringlets that scream special

Hiroshi always remembers the coarseness
of those artificial curls melting in hot suite
limp over her salted skin
that first married love to the beat of
hippies drumming on the hidden
beach below the cliff.

****
sound: muffled
sight: planet or globe
smell: whiskey (which I think smells like gasoline, but that's just me)
touch: pulse
taste: steak (apologies to vegetarians)

 

[KatieJones]

sound: muffled
sight: planet or globe
smell: whiskey (which I think smells like gasoline, but that's just me)
touch: pulse
taste: steak (apologies to vegetarians)

Best when the blood runs
he said while cutting his steak
between sips of Jameson.
The table is muffled
he shakes his empty bottle
looking at it like a child
with a snow globe
but while it has clarity
it is without content
so it’s smashed
against the cracked drywall.

When the screen door slams
I get up to clean
the glass, cutting
a finger but pain is living
and I agree it’s best
when the blood runs.

Later, in a ditch
of quiet bullfrogs
lit up by broken headlights
my bandaged finger
reaches through the car window
to feel for a pulse, thinking
sometimes it’s best
when blood doesn’t run.

Sight: cemetery
touch: fish skin
smell: rubber
sound: high heels
taste: salt

 

[bogusagain]

crusted in sea salt
the gravestones lay
like fish scales
up the side of the hill

Linda's high heels clicking
to the side of me
out of place and struggling
on the breaking tarmac

the silent tut tutting
at her inappropriate dress
tight as an innertube
wanting to be somewhere else


Sight: Japanese tourists
touch: a stranger's arm
smell: sewer
sound: commotion
taste: liquorice

 

[KatieJones]

Sight: Japanese tourists
Sight: crying person (male, female, child)
touch: ice
smell: fresh linen
sound: traffic (close by)
taste: chocolate

Motel 6

She sits on the edge
of an unmade bed
her wrists prostrate.
Traffic grinds. Ice machine
releases. Toddler cries
for chocolate. The maid knocks
with fresh linens.

The day never waits
for us to swallow
the regrets of the night

so she answers the door.

Sight: apartment building
Touch: cement
Smell: rain
Sound: coyote
Taste: sugar

 

[Desejo]

sight: trees
touch: skin
smell: sweat/b.o
sound: power tools
taste: peaches

The Anthropologist, Timika

The dugout canoe slides
like a snake in the green river
Sago palms stout on the banks

Away from incessant roars and clanks
Of monsters on tires it takes 4 men to circle
relentlessly churning money
out of what was a mountain

Three hours later they arrive
village children clamor in excitement
smelling of sunbaked sweat
he gives them tiny cans of American peaches

The artists are ready
Today they load several carvings
sago bowls and
three hourglass shaped drums
he takes pictures and names of each artist
with their work.

He absently beats out a tune
on a drum on the way home
as the sun spreads pink over the river.
the top is rough monitor lizard skin
This kind of drum used to be sealed
with lime and the blood of a daughter or sister

These days anyone’s blood will do

The company jet flies the art to the capital.
No cost. All proceeds to the artists
At least he is saving the culture
But that small victory feels as hollow
As the drum in his hands.

Sight: cat doing something foolish
Sound: floor creaking
Scent: protest
Taste: poor taste
Touch: kleenex or tissue

 

[greenmountaineer]

Hormones, 1959

She puts a tissue on top of her head
because she forgot her chapel veil
as she enters the almighty booth
whose prie-Dieu creaks like the gates of hell.

She can smell sweat of the Freudian priest
and even taste the fire on his breath
from an omelet with onions, broccoli, and cheese
as she prepares for his kiss of death.

Instead of protest, she crosses herself
and tells a tale with a Cheshire Cat grin
because he wouldn't want her to say
"Bless me, Father, for I haven't sinned."


Sight: swamp
Sound: thunder
Scent: summer breeze
Taste: any kind of berry
Touch: thorn

 

[Angeline]

Sight: swamp
Sound: thunder
Scent: summer breeze
Taste: any kind of berry
Touch: thorn

Backyard's a swamp rain beat the lilacs
silly petals gone asunder grass bestirred
but thunder fades and we emerge
sharing the basket pinning sheets
back to the highest line beyond

my reach they billow tunnels lightly
lightly we traverse the blues move quickly
shade and break to gold to shine I think
its God. My sneakers squish but I don't

mind a towel will clear the bench
I'll curl beside the trellis, only roses cry
away the morning.

I've berries in a cracked pink bowl,
a book, the Sun came out and thorns
don't really bite.

Sight: avenue or city street
Sound: people talking
Scent: fried food
Taste: something sweet
Touch: face

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Sight: avenue or city street
Sound: people talking
Scent: fried food
Taste: something sweet
Touch: face

This street is changed
forever. That's what
five railcars full of oil
will do when they explode
in fire and thick, black smoke.
Neighbours hover sharing
shock and sympathy.
The local cafe rallies with
poutine and strong sweet tea
but this town has been hit hard.
I touch a rain drop on my cheek
and find it is a tear.

Sight - migrating birds
Sound - an orchestral symphony
Scent - hot tar
Taste - onion soup
Touch - dried flowers

 

[KatieJones]

Sight: avenue or city street

Sight - migrating birds
Sound - an orchestral symphony
Scent - hot tar
Taste - onion soup
Touch - dried flowers

On the Patio

When the snow melts
road crews slap hot tar
on the streets like it’s sunscreen.

Eyes disappear
behind sunglasses that hide
half-open lids and reflect
the v of geese flying south
across the lake. They call
with the unison
of an orchestral symphony
that is slightly off- key.

French onion soup is replaced
by gazpacho and dried flower
centerpieces are switched
for fresh carnations trying
hard to look like roses.

My waitress brings me
another pastel drink
which I sip as the ferry
pulls away from the dock
and the seagulls say goodbye.

I check my phone
to make sure it’s off
and crack the spine
of my new novel
while I exhale winter
and the work it entails.


Touch: hair
Sound: fire
Smell: new car
Sight: barn
Taste: Nutmeg

 

[Desejo]

Touch: mud
Sound: jet plane
Smell: welded metal
Sight: two people arguing
Taste: cauliflower

I apologize in advance for the dubious poetic quality and dorkineess of this, but those were odd words.


Spock's log, Stardate 66986.3

We are beamed to Roswell.
Earth, July 8 1947
tricorders detect the odor
of a ship hull breached by phaser fire
highly irregular in this time and place

Antique jet planes
chatter above in circles
with the stealth of a lovelorn Klingon
they do not see us.

Predictably, Captain Kirk and Scotty argue
finally agreeing on
Stunning the witnesses
And wiping the most important
memories

Logical.
First contact has not yet officially happened.

They will awake with no effects
Other than the odd taste of boiled “cauliflower”
in their mouths.
An ancient earth vegetable, I am told.

Chances of reports on that are deemed
Acceptable.

Back on board the Enterprise
we engage in a ritualistic bath
in Romulan mud.
It alternates temperature and
texture according to body part.

Fascinating.

***
Sight: missed call
sound: doorbell
Scent: opportunity
Touch: plastic
Taste: mint

 

[KatieJones]

sight : something that scares you
sound: something that makes you happy
scent: something that makes you nostalgic
touch: anything you can't stand
taste: something you find delicious.

Fortune Beach, P.E.I.

The fire warms the scent
of sunscreen and deepens
the pink of everyone’s skin.

Drift wood crackles, chasing
the sand fleas away.
Lips are sticky
from roasted marshmallows
that cling to skin much like sand
to wet feet. “Wipe them off
before you get in the car,”
he’d grumble.

It’s been forever since I dove
from his shoulders and that forever
leaves a fear of the tipping
point of time. When you live
longer without than with
life closes around the space left
until you are unsure how
it was once filled
and doubt
whether you really remember
anything other than feeling
a little more alone.



sight : bench
sound: racoons
scent: hay
touch: water
taste: charcoal

 

[Desejo]

Graduation Fair and Unfair

The Twister
whips big 80s hair
blonde highlights
over day glow t-shirts

We twist
far too many
caps off Mooseheads
stocked under the bushes

I twist
each cold sweating
bottle against
my sunburnt skin

Day turns
to dusk squeezed into booths
for Pizza, extra cheese
one last time

Your is thigh too close to mine

I’ve sworn off you.

But, oh hell - you are wearing Drakkar Noir

And I want to hear
The sound of your belt
studded with Moroccan coins
Drop to the floor
One last time.

****
Sight: piles of something
Sound: stifled laughter
Scent; fruity
Taste: dirt
Touch: spiderweb

 

[Angeline]

Sight: piles of something
Sound: stifled laughter
Scent; fruity
Taste: dirt
Touch: spiderweb

Office Politics As Usual

Are you through

he asks looking past his nose
not to me but perhaps
to the bottle he hid
in her desk.

She titters
from the hallway soft
hand on her mouth, unsure
yet unruffled. She clicks
with impatience,
parades their contempt
which hangs like a film of grease
on this lank afternoon. I'm
an interloper. They want lunch

or maybe to eat each other
up with ravenous eyes, avid
intent. I pop a stick
of Juicyfruit in, let the cheap grape
and sugar bloom, obliterate
their dirty pong.

Nope.
There's a good pizza place
just across the bridge.

They disembark a huddled mass,
purse snap and elevator snick.

I shift the pile of work
from chair to arm, crack my gum
for remembrance and leave.
I'm sidewalk strong. They've a fine
walk to cross that bridge, just full
of spiderwebs and worse.


Sight: tires
Sound: sex, kissing, making out (you decide)
Scent; air freshener
Taste: strawberry
Touch: moth