“ . . . are best left in hell!” I love the gusto of this ending. What if hell is indeed just the place where all the rankest odors gather, and its unlucky inhabitants are “blessed” with the noses of dogs?
I love this playful persona poem from the standpoint of a garlic clove endowed with exceptional rhyming abilities, Larry! I could easily see this paired with some playful illustrations as an interlude in a cook book, a chapbook, or a kids book :))
2/3 of my children have entered the phase of life where their aromas are a little less endearing, and your poem takes me back to the time when they were tiny enough for taquito breath to only add to their sweetness! This is such a lovely, tender poem, A.
This is so wonderful A. I love where these prompts take each of us, often to unexpected places in unexpected ways. Ah, the smell of children and how their scents and aromas change as they go. Your son will remember these smells and these feelings, even if they can't be spoken!
"How am I meant to hold on/to this inevitable letting go?" Such powerful lines, a question that's translatable to all the many ephemeral loves we experiences we go through here on planet earth...heart swelling and bursting, really. For what it's worth, I have a feeling that little guy he is now will never fully disappear, and he will always want to meet you under "the blankets." <3
Another sweet Lisa Jensen poem! I love the symmetry you built in with "blows" in the beginning and "nose" at the tail. Here's my offering on this prompt:
You have such a talent for lining words up in a way that both surprises me and makes me feel like no other outcome was possible. Such a great poem . . . and such a great aroma!
My mom loathed coffee, too...she couldn't even stand the smell of it, but would get out the percolator at holiday time and other times she was entertaining. It was a real treat to smell it when she did! Good for your dad, thinking outside the box...who says you have to drink it??
And now that I've read Larry's excellent garlic poem, let's expand that get-together to include a garlic-heavy meal (or maybe we could meet up at a garlic festival? Or a garlic and poetry festival?
This is do sweet, Keith. A terrific testimony to the coffee bean and the smells they send forth, especially while brewing. I liked the smell of coffee long before I came to drink it, and it invokes some powerful memories for me.
Thanks, Larry. It was always a smell I loved, too - even as a kid. I was fortunate to spend a few years working (playing, it felt like) at a coffee roastery.
I appreciate your clever wordplay here...being "nearly felled by the smell of lumber," (poetic justice for trees, yes!) and dreaming of grizzlies while asleep in a hide-tanning shop (more poetic...justice?), and your beginning with sniffing and ending with snuffling. So good.
I took a journey back in time with this one. We live in a mobile home up until the time I was about 13. My mom was always obsessive about keeping everything clean even though it was "just a trailer." She always used bleach water and she called all bleach purex (I think it was competition for clorox back in the day)- still does! This one is a little rhyme-y and kitschy but here goes:
Once every week without fail
She filled the sinks, no need for a pail.
.
With "purex water" to wipe it all down
Laminate counters and cabinets and tub surrounds.
.
The strong chlorine smell always seemed to me clean
I love the sing song rhyming - it makes me feel like a little kid again in a good way, and that fits so well with the vibe of the poem. I also love that without doing anything overt or preachy, you paint a lovely, homey image of a single wide that contrasts with the stereotypes in the media and elsewhere.
Wow, what a powerful memory, Billy. Visceral not just because of the horror of stumbling upon the deer, but losing the prized Blue Fox lure, then having it taken right before your eyes. Oooph, I'm feeling that. Incidentally, I too grew up in western PA (Erie)...and I think we're the same age, too. Small world (!).
And here I thought this was going to be about the smell of fish (I grew up fishing with my dad and know it well) 😅 I've been nearby when my dad gutted a deer, and I cannot imagine how much worse it would be if it were rotting. 🤢
Great prompt Lisa, smell. Not my typical poem or writing, so please forgive me for some of the references.
.
Oh the power within the sense of smell.
Both odiferous and fragrant come to foretell
of life’s wondrous mystery as one magic spell.
Some becoming perfumes for the market to sell
while others travel the body only to expel.
The delicious ones I am most moved to tell
sweet aroma’s lingering on my tongue do dwell.
Yet those vile and foul stenches, are best left in hell.
“ . . . are best left in hell!” I love the gusto of this ending. What if hell is indeed just the place where all the rankest odors gather, and its unlucky inhabitants are “blessed” with the noses of dogs?
Fun!
These rhymes, references included, are swell ; ) - truly, Julie...this was a fun read!
I like this Julie! So creative how you used the “ ell” sound wonderfully well. A nice flow, rhythm and cadence e leading to that whopper ending!
I am completely sure only the incredible Lisa Jensen coud elicit a poem about garlic from me!
Garlic
.
I am a spicy little clove, yes I am
and I hail quite proudly from the garlic clan,
sliced and diced by many a hand;
sending my super powers across the land.
.
Fit for a pizza, pasta, stir fry and cheese,
I am even ready for a freeze!
Yours to share and enjoy as you please
breathing in that feisty fragrance on the breeze.
.
Protection, healing, keeping vampires at bay
I am ready to stir, shuffle, blend and play.
Guaranteed to bring a heightened spice to your day
trust me, there really is no better way.
.
Some have tried to quiet and throw me out,
If you imbibe too much you’ll sweat me out,
learning in the truest way what I am about
not content to be silent, but to shine with a shout!
Oh my goodness, you had me at “I am a spicy little clove.” What a fun poem, Larry!
I love this playful persona poem from the standpoint of a garlic clove endowed with exceptional rhyming abilities, Larry! I could easily see this paired with some playful illustrations as an interlude in a cook book, a chapbook, or a kids book :))
Thank you Keith! Maybe we can create a collection of good, smells and other sensory writings!
That would be a blast!! :))
Fun Larry, I ended up doing a rhyming poem too. It seems to fit poems for "smell".
Garlic is one of my faves too! Too much is not enough!
Garlic is one of my favourite scents and flavours and I love this so much.
It is one of my very favorites, too!
Well, I started with a scent and then this happened.
I am greeted by taquito breath
as my toddler tucks our heads
beneath a blanket. I try to breathe
.
in my baby, wishing I could trap
and bottle some bit of this time
before he is too big to be trying
.
to hide under blankets with me.
How am I meant to hold on
to this inevitable letting go?
.
It feels too big and too small
and I know someday he might,
too. But maybe that won't be
.
the end of the world. Maybe
when he is troubled and tired
he will still be willing to meet me
.
underneath blankets to breathe
together, letting go of the rest
of the world, for a moment.
2/3 of my children have entered the phase of life where their aromas are a little less endearing, and your poem takes me back to the time when they were tiny enough for taquito breath to only add to their sweetness! This is such a lovely, tender poem, A.
This is so wonderful A. I love where these prompts take each of us, often to unexpected places in unexpected ways. Ah, the smell of children and how their scents and aromas change as they go. Your son will remember these smells and these feelings, even if they can't be spoken!
What a sweet sweet moment in time.
"How am I meant to hold on/to this inevitable letting go?" Such powerful lines, a question that's translatable to all the many ephemeral loves we experiences we go through here on planet earth...heart swelling and bursting, really. For what it's worth, I have a feeling that little guy he is now will never fully disappear, and he will always want to meet you under "the blankets." <3
Ahh the smells of childhood. How endearing A.
Another sweet Lisa Jensen poem! I love the symmetry you built in with "blows" in the beginning and "nose" at the tail. Here's my offering on this prompt:
*
"I smelled you coming
before I could see you."
Words percolating through
granules of memories.
Granules browned by time
of days nesting inside years
spent in the close company
of coffee beans.
Scooping, weighing,
blending, grinding,
flavoring, bagging,
imbibing, inhaling,
infusing lungs and circulating
particulates both
carbonaceous and full-bodied yet
unseen through my bloodstream,
my pores simultaneously
absorbing and off gassing
floral notes and hints of earth and cedar,
trailing chocolate, citrus and almond
in aromatic wake I came to mistake
for my own.
You have such a talent for lining words up in a way that both surprises me and makes me feel like no other outcome was possible. Such a great poem . . . and such a great aroma!
Thank you, friend...this feedback is making my night <3
My dad absolutely loved the smell of coffee and could barely tolerate the taste - but he would brew a pot just to smell it!
My mom loathed coffee, too...she couldn't even stand the smell of it, but would get out the percolator at holiday time and other times she was entertaining. It was a real treat to smell it when she did! Good for your dad, thinking outside the box...who says you have to drink it??
You and Larry both wrote about one of my favourite scents and flavours! I love "in the close company of coffee beans."
I wish we could all sit down for a cuppa together :))
Someday, I hope!
And now that I've read Larry's excellent garlic poem, let's expand that get-together to include a garlic-heavy meal (or maybe we could meet up at a garlic festival? Or a garlic and poetry festival?
If it doesn't exist, we can make our own.
This is do sweet, Keith. A terrific testimony to the coffee bean and the smells they send forth, especially while brewing. I liked the smell of coffee long before I came to drink it, and it invokes some powerful memories for me.
Thanks, Larry. It was always a smell I loved, too - even as a kid. I was fortunate to spend a few years working (playing, it felt like) at a coffee roastery.
You flatter me, Billy (and thank you)!!
First time wandering into the hampton coliseum for something other than a Virginia Squires basketball game,
reefer introduces herself,
with a smile
and a warm smoky handshake,
to the nose of a young,
ripe-for-the-picking
hippie-in-training.
Thank you Grand Funk Railroad.
So delightful!
Nice - did the hippie-in-training make it to full blown hippie??
Almost. 🙂. The navy jumped in for a little while, but I think the spirit is still in there somewhere
"introduces herself/with a smile/and a warm smoky handshake" - it really is a relationship sometimes.
I meant to go sniffing
for words, but they
muscled in
when I entered
my friend’s tool shed
and was nearly felled
by the smell of lumber.
.
I am seven,
playing hide-and-seek
in an unfinished
stick frame in Georgia.
I am nine,
in a Tahoe condo,
and Tahoe is the wildest place
I know.
I am 21
and sampling other states.
Asleep in a hide-tanning shop
in Montana,
I dream of grizzlies
as they snuffle the yard.
I love this so much! How you didn’t waste any words but you pulled us right with you from a single smell to each of these vivid scenes.
I appreciate your clever wordplay here...being "nearly felled by the smell of lumber," (poetic justice for trees, yes!) and dreaming of grizzlies while asleep in a hide-tanning shop (more poetic...justice?), and your beginning with sniffing and ending with snuffling. So good.
Love it - and unfinished lumber takes me back too to my grandfather's cabinetry/woodshop,
I took a journey back in time with this one. We live in a mobile home up until the time I was about 13. My mom was always obsessive about keeping everything clean even though it was "just a trailer." She always used bleach water and she called all bleach purex (I think it was competition for clorox back in the day)- still does! This one is a little rhyme-y and kitschy but here goes:
Once every week without fail
She filled the sinks, no need for a pail.
.
With "purex water" to wipe it all down
Laminate counters and cabinets and tub surrounds.
.
The strong chlorine smell always seemed to me clean
Windows thrown open to air out the scene.
.
Sent out to play while she mopped all the floors.
Slamming behind us those metal screen doors.
.
A single wide trailer soon as clean as could be.
The happiest home in my memory.
I love the sing song rhyming - it makes me feel like a little kid again in a good way, and that fits so well with the vibe of the poem. I also love that without doing anything overt or preachy, you paint a lovely, homey image of a single wide that contrasts with the stereotypes in the media and elsewhere.
I love the rhymey-ness, and this is a very vivid sensory postcard from your childhood home :))
thanks Keith!
don't forget to wipe your feet.
Of course! My dad was the one who got in the most trouble for this - in and out, in and out all day from his shop or working and tinkering on cars...
I love this poem and how you played with the shape so it mimicks scents travelling through the air. It's so impactful.
Good morning! Another wonderful prompt and top of the line photo! Lisa, you are the best! Smell you later!
Downwind of you
I am lucky too
Poemists are so sensitive
We sure are! ❤️
Oh my that took a turn. Very visceral as Keith said. And I'm kinda irked they didn't give the lure back to you!!
Wow, what a powerful memory, Billy. Visceral not just because of the horror of stumbling upon the deer, but losing the prized Blue Fox lure, then having it taken right before your eyes. Oooph, I'm feeling that. Incidentally, I too grew up in western PA (Erie)...and I think we're the same age, too. Small world (!).
And here I thought this was going to be about the smell of fish (I grew up fishing with my dad and know it well) 😅 I've been nearby when my dad gutted a deer, and I cannot imagine how much worse it would be if it were rotting. 🤢