The 5 Senses Poem Challenge

Sight: swallows
sound: wind in trees
scent: pickling vinegar
Taste: season’s first crisp apple
touch: bare feet on lawn.
.......................................................................
Sitting here what else is there to do
but to let my mind drift back
to those days so long ago,
days of innocence and the tickle
of grass between my toes
as we ran screaming with delight
into Summer, much as the Swallows
and House Martins screamed overhead,
seeking insects on the wing.
Daddy exiled to the kitchen, pickled
in vinegar shallots and red cabbage,
bottled for the days of Autumn,
when trees troubled by unexpected
gusts whistling through their leaves
drop green apples, tart upon the tongue.
.........................................
Sight: waving goodbye
sound: revving motorbikes
scent: jasmine
Taste: marshmallows
touch: rain drops
.....................................

Sight: a phone
sound:car passin
scent: paper
Taste: sour
touch: carpet


It sits silently
unringing
a taunt of voices unheard
words unsaid
time passes to a metronome
of cars on the street
their white noise reality

I ink my unseen letters to you
on fresh paper
breathing in the ironic scent
of promise
an ache in my knees
from the fall
no carpet could cushion

how quickly sweet can turn
as one fights rising bile
to choke down what was
what could have been

this inevitable impossibility
of goodbye



Sight: waves
sound: song that stirs a memory
scent: rain
Taste: bittersweet
touch: just out of reach

Sight: waves
sound: song that stirs a memory
scent: rain
Taste: bittersweet
touch: just out of reach

The humid air presages rain
in my mind Sweet Georgia plays
yet a rebel flag briefly waved over Capitol Hill.
Together we strive for better days
but inside lies a bittersweet pain.

Sight: sunrise/sunset
sound: solitary trumpet
scent: smoke
Taste: lack thereof
touch: cold fingers

Sight: sunrise/sunset
sound: solitary trumpet
scent: smoke
Taste: lack thereof
touch: cold fingers

Morning opens like an envelope
and out comes the Sun, bright
comes the empty light. No words
to accompany this dawning
stretch of time, Reveille yawning
me awake, a lone line sans bop
or botheration, sans any taste
of wakey wakey coffee,
eggs, bacony, only water here
sans alluvium.

God I miss you. The ache never
leaves but days keep on rolling.
Morning again. Warm skin, cold
fingers. I wish I had
a cigarette, smoky rich
and acrid in my mouth,
lips tasting of your kiss,
lingering.

Sight: something purple
Sound: coffee being made
Scent: sex
Taste: plums
Touch: glass

Sight: something purple
Sound: coffee being made
Scent: sex
Taste: plums
Touch: glass

komisarz Aleksander
(sex&crimes in rhymes)

"Where's the victim?" she asks when we arrive.
Her breath full of the events ten minutes before
as tonight's detectives on standby celebrated life.
Clear evidence placed deep down her throat
somewhere midway through the late night call.
"Bring Branka along," Janek's knowing note.
Now, every word comes man-breathed, sore
from avoiding sleep's horror since nightfall.

Love never stays at our home,
so Homicide's never stay alone.

The cause is easy to see
shattered on the ground
an obscenely long glass dildo
the counterpart forced as deep as it could go
there were the heart is...should be.
I'm certain there never was a warm-blooded beat
in the stiffening chest of the Family's hell-hound.
My sympathy for the one who delivered his defeat.

Cold fingers frozen around the see-through handle,
never again a street life victim's vandal.

More of his twisted tools already placed
on the now Polish flagged seep-proof sheets,
mostly untouched. Good she had not yet faced
what we've seen before. The air is still filled
with sour apprehensions that mix badly
with Branka's odoriferous aura of amorous guilt.
Rebirth of the Slivovice stops halfway up, gladly,
halted by the thought of now safer streets.

Cursing Maciej's overripe plums recipe,
Homicide's best friend is to be kept inside.

Swallowing the fruity aroma, anger rises.
Deciphering violent patterns everywhere.
Decoration smashed, the parquet floor spoiled.
Remnants of a mini-skirt, a slinky top torn.
The most striking of her street's uniform,
violet tulle lacerated, strewn here and there.
Seduction shredded to all shapes and sizes.
'Girl, in what kind of madness did you get embroiled?'

More questions arise that would be never asked,
give-and-take rules mate both professions at last.

Bringing a device from south Italy to life,
Branka's hands could be that of a wife,
if they wouldn't hold memories darker than
the fuscous fluid ensouling a cup of the dead.
Throaty drops promise awakening ahead.
Crime Scene's absence forms a plan.
Things have to go, others have to come,
time for the Families to finally pay their sum.

Tonight, Homicide sees to the victim,
and that was never him.


Sight: coffee
Sound: grains of salt
Scent: silk
Taste: snow
Touch: lavender

todski28 said:

sight- carpet
sound- music
scent- burnt
Taste - eroticism
touch- keys

Click to expand...

Homebound

I smile at the hint of
smoke underlain with spice
that lingers in the air just
inside the building’s foyer,

You’ve allowed the incense
to move from smoldering to
an out and out cinder, again,
making my eyes water, but not
enough to keep me from moving
in your footsteps—muddy tracks
on the hallway rug—that lead me
towards you just as easily as
the soft tinkling of piano keys echoing
from the back of the house;

It wasn’t our song, per se, but one I
can still remember playing at your side,
sitting together on the bench, thighs
rubbing as my fingers found each key in turn,
in the same way my mouth, lips, and tongue
would find your lobes and long nape,
tasting the very sultriness of you,
and drinking it all in

Now I’m home, once more, and
cannot wait to see how
each part of you
fills my senses
all over again.

~~~~~
sight: traffic
sound: crickets
scent: ozone
touch: chills
taste: pasta

Sight: dark
Sound: something barley audible
scent: perfume or aftershave
taste: something old
touch: coarse

Click to expand...

Heaven

Billy swung the door open,
Rae ducked in among the coats,
I followed into the dark

As the door closed, I could barely
hear Billy through the wood,
“Clock’s ticking, man.”

In the short silence of his words,
I could make out the whispered sound
of fabric being slid along skin,
then the smell of Rae up against me

not so much her, as it was the cheap
Avon body spray that was just overdone
enough to make me taste it as well
as smell it—and it tasted a bit past due,
to be honest,

Then she pivoted about, brought her hips
back against me…the coarseness of her hiked skirt
rubbing my thighs and hard on through
my sweats and then, upon my skin as she
rubbed them right to my knees

“It’s only seven minutes, Bobby,
We gonna fuck or what?”

I smiled and chuckled.
“That was rhetorical, yes?”

~~~~~~

sight: butterflies
sound: wind
scent: something sweet
touch: something painful
taste: sour

sight: butterflies
sound: wind
scent: something sweet
touch: something painful
taste: sour

In August the Monarchs migrate
past the Blue Ridge and Great Smokies.
We see one, then two fluttering

to a pause near the deck where we sit
of a morning, you with coffee, me
with Earl Gray properly soured

with lemon. We sit in the birdcall
morning, surrounded by hickory
trees and the occasional drift

of sweet honeysuckle passing
with the breeze. The Monarchs
are limned in black and orange,

their great burnished wings
small majesty against the surrounding
green mountains and the blue smoke

that weaves across the far ridge lines.
Years from now I'll remember
how we marveled at that view

and the quiet joy of simple pleasures.
The pain in my broken heart
will feel almost ordinary.

*********

Sight: smoke
Sound: singing
Taste: kisses
Smell: grass
Feel: sand

Sight: flickering light
sound: machinery
scent: leather
taste: delicious
touch: sticky

caught between floors
the elevator's sunshine reminds me of you
on, off, on, off, etc.
your honey still after hours
sweet on my tongue and nose
intensified by the face mask
now glued to my skin
almost effacing
the stench of the worn briefcase
once made from some real dead animal
pressed to the chest of the office Methusalem
his rattling, pumping breath
amplifying the armageddon string orchestra
of cables around us, failing
like the sticker on his case
"social distancing is a lifesaver"

...could have been...

sight: nothing
sound: grit
scent: ocean
taste: mint
touch: hot

sight: nothing
sound: grit
scent: ocean
taste: mint
touch: hot

Dinner Time

My tea tastes of honey,
so sweet, and the clean
mint of wild, grass growing
not far from the shore
of our northern lake;
where the lake trout
swam before the net tangled
around it. It didn't die
until the knife sent
its vitals back through
the ice to chum the waters
below. Now I hear the rasp
of baked salt on the pan,
the mallet breaking the crust
and turning it back to grit.
Steam pouring through
the fresh vent brings that
salty tang reminiscent
of the seas and oceans,
birth waters of us all.
My fingers sting with heat
when I lift the crust free
of the mint and marsh grass
layer, that protected
the pink flesh waiting
for my fork to lift a savoury
bite up to my lips. When
I close my eyes I see
nothing of my kitchen
and everything of what I taste
and it is beautiful.

sight: a bird feeder
sound: chimes
scent: coffee
taste: chocolate
touch: glass

Discipline

Instead of your hand
I grip the glass tighter
My fingerprints burn designs that should be on your skin

Instead of watching your mouth move
I point out the sparrows in the feeder
Wings beating as frantically as my pulse

Instead of sweat, hotel sheets and that expensive candle
Your coffee infuses the air
The shared richness as close as we will get

Instead of you
I bite into the square of chocolate
Stolen off your saucer

Bittersweet

++++
sight: a discarded mask
sound: traffic
scent: lilacs
taste: something stale
touch: sunshine

Sight: mist over grass
sound: low rumble of an engine
scent: freshly cleaned
touch: rough
taste: bitter

Just above the pathology
life found its ground level
staring on the foggy green, outside
dew sparkles its thousand lights
of a reborn day.

Diesel fed pistons breath below
pulse their heartbeat through walls
and feed the breathing machine, inside
where a thousand lights inspire
a will to last.

Linen, a thousand percent dead,
sanitized by hands, human-sized
floats from heaven, above
for the nth-thousandth time
onto the bed next to this.

And for a thousand-and-once
those hands stop by
micrometers of ridges and clefts, collide
a continental drift of emotions
erupting in a hospitable smile.

A happy green cup with liquid mist
of 'You need all of this' in its rough texture
a taste of 'You want none of this', within
emptied to the very last drop
as the rumble dies down below.

Sight: tweet
sound: swat
scent: sweat
touch: wet
taste: sweet

This happened today

todski28 said:

Sight: desperation
Sound: running water
scent: nostalgia
Taste: forbidden
touch: a bench

Click to expand...

This happened today

Mina has killed the mouse
Three days after trying
I cannot speak of it’s final squeak

Mercifully, I did not hear it

They are hosing down the hall
Or hosing someone down
I am not sure

Still, the sound mutes mouse sign off

Mina mouths “is mouse forbidden”
I am not sure of that either
Most likely it should be

It may well be more innocent than me.

Mina is skinning the mouse.
I am done with this diorama
Though my choices are limited.

The bench by the bars is cool on my bare feet
On tippy tip toe
I can smell orange blossom
We had a tree at home

I am sure of that.

++++++
Sight: flickering light
sound: humming
Scent: lemon
Taste: ice (which might taste like nothing, but hey)
Touch: elastic

todski28 said:

Sight: trickling liquid
Sound: loud
scent: something unpleasant
touch: something delicate
taste: meat

Click to expand...

He smirked
at the rivulets
leaking from my eyes
disobeying every clenched-teeth
tongue-bitten attempt
to control them

The slap
of leather against flesh
filled the room
volume rising in tandem
with the tenderness
of abused skin

A steady percussion
might be meditative
but his rhythm
was as bad as his breath

He's my worst date
but pays well
so I focus on that
and the steakhouse dinner
reward when I can sit
without flinching

Better than the taste
of blood in my mouth




Sight: paint splatters
sound: glass shatter
Scent: fog
Taste: something pickled
Touch: cold

Sight: paint splatters
sound: glass shatter
Scent: fog
Taste: something pickled
Touch: cold

Untitled Drip Painting ca. 1948-49
Jackson Pollock ekphrastik

In that high windowed studio
with light streaming
through the dusty glass
I want to throw a chair
and smash a hole
in a windward pane.
Noise and gravity let
the fog scent my world

The decaying musk of swamp
and humidity mixes with the India ink
dip ... find my animus and use
black for the layer defining
masculine. Funny, how when I think
"male" my brush sends an air
scribbled cock right where the pendulum
swing unconsciously drew a strange
stick drizzled figure, now another
direction. I find it disconcerting
that there is a phallus

Circles begin defining form,
like DaVinci detailing
his Vitruvian Man;
diagramming the golden ratio
and divine proportion.
Alas, my work is not god-inspired,
not now as I shape a second
and third figure dripping
dripping like the cold brine
off my fingers as I bring
a salivating hand mouthward
to taste the savoury and salt
of a plump olive, licking
my fingers as I ponder

Your full breasts and womb
spattered in red enamel
that eerily paints a heart
in the lifeline between
me, and her, and your nipples.
Like some sort of wicked
EKG, the anima flows where
it will and you seem
to overpower the slim
artist of my spouse,
there, in the background
of my dirty, dry martini.

Sight: mud puddle
Sound: rain fall
Scent: damp wool
Taste: campfire smoke
Touch: birch bark

Sight: mud puddle
Sound: rain fall
Scent: damp wool
Taste: campfire smoke
Touch: birch bark

Click to expand...

After the Rain

My fingers ran gingerly
over the bark of the birch
branches we had broken down
into bits for the campfire,
they were slick,
having gotten wet in the
changing of the cleared space
into what was close to a
record mud puddle by the same
pitter-patter we’d heard
through the night against the
tent roof, the drip drip
that had managed to find its way
inside and left that oddly stale
scent in the air from sodden
Army blankets, but it made the wool
itch less, at least;
The remade fire wasn’t as clean a
burn as the one we had last night,
which I’d not have minded if
dessert had still tasted of
chocolate and marshmellow
instead of
smoke.

~~~~~~
sight: pain
sound: cooing
scent: menthol
taste: something greasy
touch: smooth

Sight: porcelain
Sound: something unexpected
Scent: animal
Touch: something crafted
Taste: water

dislodged from mother nature
the now-foot scratches over earth,
unaturally shaped, burnt
into whitest fragile hardness,
further down into oblivion of cool, refreshing
blood of the earth once shed from above,
pumping the liquid up and through the thick stem,
marveling at the mineral richness,
an un-plant-y presence wafts closer,
a cloud of stolen fellows mixed with
effusiveness of all things moving
like those humming, buzzing busy b...ut this?

"Oh, roses! Got some plans tonight, darl..."

...and then? Not the flower-and-bee-stuff, for sure!

Sight: a shoe
Sound: Marlene Dietrich
Scent: bourbon
Touch: feather
Taste: cinnamon

Sight: a shoe
Sound: Marlene Dietrich
Scent: bourbon
Touch: feather
Taste: cinnamon

The Neighbor

It is very late. It's wee small hours
and in the blue TV light
Dietrich speaks:

Go away and come back ten years ago

I wish I could,
but Miss Ivy has fallen asleep again,
her ancient white head nodded,
chin on chest. The scent of bourbon
clings to her robe and I remove
the cigarette smoldering in her fingers.

I set my alarm to check her nightly,
to keep us all safe. She lives
for late nights, noir film
and Four Roses, neat.
She's like a latter day Miss Havisham,
but I'm no Estella, just the woman
next door with a spare key.

She'll fuss if I wake her, try
to help her go to bed,
so I lift the ratty feather boa
from the floor, drape it
across her shoulders, move the faded red
silk slippers to rest beside her feet.
I pop a hard cinnamon candy
in my mouth on the way out.

Goodnight old friend.

******************



See: ship
Hear: crying
Smell: perfume
Taste: rain
Touch: leather

Angeline said:

See: ship
Hear: crying
Smell: perfume
Taste: rain
Touch: leather

Click to expand...

Indulgence

It's late. The windows
are all wide open,
but you can taste the slate
of the coming thunderstorm
and its drenching rain.

She is softly sobbing
as the ship slips
into the Arctic Sea
and Jack slips away
into unconsciousness,
his last sensations
the smell of salt air, swirled
with Rose's Narcisse Noir.

As the credits roll,
I gently stroke the nape
of her neck, smoothing
its soft down with the braided
handle of her favorite whip.



Sight: wooden paneling
Sound: the crackle of wood burning
Smell: brandy, or a dessert wine such as port
Taste: cheese, nuts, or fruit
Touch: something metallic

Tzara said:

Sight: wooden paneling
Sound: the crackle of wood burning
Smell: brandy, or a dessert wine such as port
Taste: cheese, nuts, or fruit
Touch: something metallic

Click to expand...

Silent Night

The room is dominated
by a stone fireplace. A log burns
and crackles. Oaken wainscoting gleams
darkly in the candlelight.

We play a private game here
with structure and devotion.

You are seated
in the green velvet chair.
I stroke your dear face, adjust
your cuffs, but forego the ball gag.
I want your mouth open to me.

I feed you tiny wild strawberries,
so sweet, and when we kiss my lips
and tongue are redolent
of Remy Martin.

You have not spoken. Silence
is my rule this night. You have not
spoken, but when I clip the metal
ring to the base of your throbbing
erection, swallow more brandy
and lower my glistening mouth,

a small moan escapes yours.


Sight: a cat, any type
Sound: rock and roll (be specific, name a song or artist)
Scent: incense
Taste: chocolate
Touch: pebbles

Angeline said:

Sight: a cat, any type
Sound: rock and roll (be specific, name a song or artist)
Scent: incense
Taste: chocolate
Touch: pebbles

Click to expand...

initiation

i walked over warmed round stones
through the smoky scent
of sandalwood embers

she fed me chocolate truffles
laced with menthol and cannabis
and psilocybin

patti smith declaimed/sang/wailed
radio ethiopia
all while a black cat

rubbed her thick fur along my thigh, smiling
at the red and swollen tip
her rough tongue began to lap

then the animal whispered
oh honey you met your match in a bitch
and i knew

the sculptor's mallet had been taken in place



sight: a body of water
sound: something rhythmic
scent: something acrid
taste: something rich
touch: something rough, but thin

Tzara said:

sight: a body of water
sound: something rhythmic
scent: something acrid
taste: something rich
touch: something rough, but thin

Click to expand...

Like Dreamers Do

We played the game,
then slept. I curled in your arms
which were wholly strong.
Your nimble fingers stroked
my hair.

When we woke
the room was acrid
with a mingled pong of incense
and sex. We needed to leave
that behind so we walked outside
barefoot on shifting sands.

The Atlantic stretched gray and cold
to the horizon, pounding the shoreline
rushing in then pulling away
like breathing, like us.

We listened to gulls
and filled our lungs with gulps
of rich salt air and our hands
with shells, pitted, thin and rough,
but no less beautiful
for the uncertain journey
that had brought them here.

Later I woke sated and drunk
on my dreams of us.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

sight: an ancestor of yours
sound: symphonic music
scent: something sweet (not necessarily food)
taste: water
touch: something shiny

Angeline said:

sight: an ancestor of yours
sound: symphonic music
scent: something sweet (not necessarily food)
taste: water
touch: something shiny

Click to expand...

The Journey to the East
Faith is stronger than so-called reason.
—Hermann Hesse

I was thinking of my grandmother at 17,
writing a journal in her country Norwegian
as she crossed from "Quebek"
in the cheap class of the train, mesmerized
by the beauty of the plains
she rode clacking past.

Now I am heading the other direction,
dreaming of Mahler's "Adagietto,"
and trying to write something
that could explain why this journey,
with its doubtful outcome, is so necessary
yet so wholly unlike my cautious—well, shy—

approach to life. Bring me a poem,
the message said, and even my tablet's screen
and the close air of the train car
smelled as sensual and sweet as jasmine
in full bloom; even the bottled water,
tepid as stale tea, tasted fresh as spring.

Then, when I imagine your unclothed body,
as boundless as the prairie streaming past,
I think of flipping a new quarter
onto the firm flesh of your belly,
to mark the spot where I will first seek
the treasure I hope there to unearth.


sight: trees
sound: bird calls
scent: ozone
taste: comfort food of any kind
touch: cloth

Tzara said:

sight: trees
sound: bird calls
scent: ozone
taste: comfort food of any kind
touch: cloth

Click to expand...

Appalachian Spring

Meet me In Asheville
where mountains shade bluer
than the skies and valleys are orchestrated
by jays and cardinals, wrens and towhees.

Meet me and bring me your poem.
Write it with your tongue and fingers.
Write it with desire and imagination.
Make me your pillow book and cover me
with your hard body. Rub your furry chest
on my soft skin and whisper our secrets
in a bower so thick with dogwood
and lilacs that even the rain can't find
where we lay on my cotton quilts.

When the storm breaks
and the air smells bleached
clean with ozone we'll eat chocolate,
drink wine and read to each other.



Sight: classic car
Sound: classical guitar
Smell: caramel
Taste: cinnamon
Touch: velvet

Sight: something soft
Scent: fresh chocolate
Sound: rattle
Touch: stipples
Taste: dust

The Scent of Chocolate, Left on a Windowsill, Lost to the July Sun

What could have been softer than your skin?
The way it would rise at my slightest touch,
stippled, as though you were a canvas I painted.

At first I teased you that I was Moses,
you the Red Sea - opening for me.
As we listened to the change
endlessly rattle in the cup on my nightstand.
How safe I always felt on the other side of that storm.

Later you teased me that I was Moses,
You, that burning voice of God -
tablets etched with every sound you made.
The stone dust filling my mouth,
changing my life forever.

Sight: trees
Scent: pineapple
Sound: air conditioner hum
Touch: typewriter keys
Taste: margarita