The 5 Senses Poem Challenge

[Tristesse2]

You do have the best ideas to poke the sleeping muse, j.

Starting fromh the top.......

From Jamison -

Taste: Pomegranate
Touch: Sand
Smell: Sandalwood
See: Red
Hear: Breathe

Foreplay

Come, my little Pomegranate,
let me taste your redness,
suck that precious seed,
test it
gently with my teeth.
I want to breathe your musk
more dear to me
than sandalwood or spice
and run my hands over skin
sanded smooth by desire.

I'll add my five senses at the end.

[Tristesse2]

From Champagne1982 -

Taste: grapefruit pith
Touch: vinyl chair
Smell: bleach cleanser
See: stained Formica
Hear: a radio program

Nine Eleven

She’s addicted to
the CBC .
Morning coffee slouched
on vinyl chair
drawn close to the table
stained Formica that even
bleach cleanser could not
sort. She’s biting her cuticles
the residue looks like
grapefruit pith on the
red vinyl
The radio program ends
and “breaking news”
“Two jets have struck the
World Trade Center"
The world changes.

[Tristesse2]

From Jamison
Taste: dead fish
Touch: seaweed
Smell: low tide
See: sundog
Hear: silence

New Years Day

It is low tide,
the kind that only happens
when the moon draws
oceans to her breast.
A mile or more of naked sand
and silence, the breakers too far
to hear. Dead fish, landlubbers now,
wrapped in shrouds of seaweed,
unaware of the winter warning.
A sundog on the horizon.

[Tristesse2]

From Champagne1982

Taste: honey
Touch: breezes
Smell: clover
See: blue sky
Hear: drone of bees

Snow Warning

Even though the sun shines
from a cloudless blue sky
there is snow coming.
For comfort I stir
honey into my tea,
the label says it’s
clover honey and
for a moment I can hear
the drone of bees
but it’s a bluebottle
woken in the warmth
and making breezes
with it’s frantic wings
to disturb the curtains.

[Tristesse2]

From Jamison
Taste: copper
Touch: icy rain
Smell: cigarette smoke
See: darkness
Hear: foot fall on sodden leaves.

Noire

He knew she’d been there
the residue of cigarette smoke
hung in the air.
In the darkness of her empty room
he listened to the icy rain
and heard her foot fall
on sodden leaves outside.
You didn’t have to be
a copper to deduce
she’s escaped again,
this time by the back door.

[Tristesse2]

Yikes! This will take ages!

From Vampiric Mirage

Taste: champagne
Touch: cold
Smell: sweat
See: the universe
Hear: crashing

Those were the days

1982 was been a great vintage.
Champagne bottled that year,
served cold, with caviar,
was much in demand
brought to our table
by sweating waiters crashing
between the tables
yet spilling nothing.
The universe unfolded
as it should,
we were happy then.

[Tristesse2]

From colddiesel

Taste flesh
Touch heat
Smell you
hear silence
see darkness

Femme Fatale

Cannibals have a taste for flesh
not from need
but by choice.
You on the other hand
seem to need to chew
men up in the heat
of passion
only to spit them out
when you’re satisfied.
Doesn’t the silence
in your night
make the darkness
seem endless?

[champagne1982]

the alternative word list

Originally Posted by champagne1982

skinny cow kicks maid
chicken head sits on block, kung
pao for dinner, axe kicks
hard, Kapow! Livestock dead
tomorrow, minted lamb
or beef and greens?

Sight: Birch bark
Sound: Splash
Taste: acrid
Touch: sting
Smell: smoke

[Tristesse2]

From UnderYourSpell

Taste chocolate
Touch snow
Smell blossoms
hear babies
see dishes

Motherhood

She’s surrounded
by dirty dishes and
screaming babies
and he’s calling
to say the snow’s too deep,
he’s staying in town
over night.
Her anger blossoms,
she sees him in the hotel bar
then tucked up
in clean sheets, hopefully alone.
She eats a quart
of chocolate ice cream
and feels even worse.
The twins have gone quiet
and she looks in on them.
two perfect faces, angels.
suddenly life’s not unfair at all.

[Tristesse2]

Originally Posted by champagne1982

the alternative word list

I'm working my way from the 1st 5. It's killing me!

Carrie, shall I add your 5? I'm happy to do that. I just set myself the task of trying them all.

[Tristesse2]

From CeriseNoire

Taste: wine
Touch: rough
Smell: burning
Hear: singing
See: water

Circe and Odysseus

Was it the rough wine
heated with the glowing
broad sword drawn
from the burning coals
that made them think
they heard sirens singing
from across the water?
Whatever it was
they didn’t deserve being
turned into pigs.

I'm getting punchy.....................

[Tristesse2]

From Champagne1982

Sight: Birch bark
Sound: Splash
Taste: acrid
Touch: sting
Smell: smoke

Sight: Western movie
Sound: Hiccup
Taste: Black coffee
Touch: feathers
Smell: Damp earth

[champagne1982]

I've gotta admire a girl who can turn a 5 senses challenge into 5 poems for the senses. It's phenomenal work and that potlatch poem is exactly what makes me glad to know you. I'm glad you wrote a poem for my list. It's beautiful.

[Tristesse2]

Originally Posted by champagne1982

I've gotta admire a girl who can turn a 5 senses challenge into 5 poems for the senses. It's phenomenal work and that potlatch poem is exactly what makes me glad to know you. I'm glad you wrote a poem for my list. It's beautiful.

Thank you. You're just inspiring. I'm still determined to do all the fives up to yours but just not add them to the thread, it ruins the continuity.

[champagne1982]

Originally Posted by Tristesse2

Thank you. You're just inspiring. I'm still determined to do all the fives up to yours but just not add them to the thread, it ruins the continuity.

Just do what I did with the 5 that I listed when both Ang and I wrote a poem on the same words, quote them in your posts until someone else writes a poem on them... then just quote their newer list and so on ...

You could be answering this challenge forever if you keep writing all of the lists up into poetry. I like that. It'll give me Tess poems in perpetuity . <<< just did the grains of rice thing >> vocab is moi!

[UnderYourSpell]

Please please Tess if you havent already post this poem for everyone to read

[Remec]

Originally Posted by Tristesse2

Sight: Western movie
Sound: Hiccup
Taste: Black coffee
Touch: feathers
Smell: Damp earth

Intermission

We collapsed in a great
ole heap of sweat and laughing
bodies, arms aching from
swinging pillows and cushions
against the Philistines who
would interrupt an Eastwood
spaghetti marathon with
their beery hiccups.

I lay on Anabell's stomach, feeling
a layer of down upon my face and
breathing the scent of soil off
Henry's boot, my tongue gathering
excess saliva to add to the phlegm,
and wondered how long my mouth
would taste of undoctored coffee.

-------
Sight: Green
Sound: Ping
Smell: Onion
Taste: Chocolate
Touch: Bubblewrap

[Angeline]

Sight: Green
Sound: Ping
Smell: Onion
Taste: Chocolate
Touch: Bubblewrap

April when the tender shoots
relieve the cold expanse,
when ping and plish of rain opens
that muddy mouth the ground awash
in promise, onion weed, the Queen
Anne's lace. April. Snowmelt
washes salty roadsways freed
and broken out in gappy grins,
when I eschew the dark velvet
of hot chocolate, unwrap myself
from my bubble of winter say
Good Morning Sun and trade
my blues for green.

Ok I cheated on the bubblewrap.

Sight: cell phone
Sound: thud
Smell: roses
Taste: peppermint
Touch: dog

[Tristesse2]

Remec

Taste: chicken
Touch: silk
Smell: vanilla
Sound: bells
Sight: schoolchildren

From Angeline

Sight: cell phone
Sound: thud
Smell: roses
Taste: peppermint
Touch: dog

[CeriseNoire]

Originally Posted by Tristesse2

From Angeline

Sight: cell phone
Sound: thud
Smell: roses
Taste: peppermint
Touch: dog

He always told her to stop
and smell the roses
forgetting
about her acute allergies
to pink jeweled cellphones that would keep her
umbilically leashed to
the inner circle, she never said yes
nor did she want
smooth accessory dogs
with peppermint breath
meant to mask
the thud of integrity
---

I wonder, does it work without punctuation, or does it only make sense in my head as is?

Sight:wall
Sound: prayer
Taste: ashes
Touch: goo
Smell: apples

Originally Posted by CeriseNoire

I wonder, does it work without punctuation, or does it only make sense in my head as is?

However that I've written plenty of poems without, I now think punctuation adds more clarity, giving readers a pause or places to stop where the poet intended instead of making their own rhythm.

Sight: wall
Sound: prayer
Taste: ashes
Touch: goo
Smell: apples

Adam and Eve II

Against the wall, we are locked,
formed in super-heated bronze goo,
now solid statues in erotic pose.

All around, gawkers and whisperers say
prayers I've long forgotten,
of a religion just as gone.

This moment lasts and lasts
as the time before it was ash
on my tongue once I found her.

Though we cast gold in shadows,
I smell apples and sin. Somehow,
we are an abomination
and once again, unforgiven.



Sight: shadows
Sound: popping embers in a fire
Taste: sweat
Touch: erotic
Smell: leather

[unpredictablebijou]

Originally Posted by Jamison

Sight: shadows
Sound: popping embers in a fire
Taste: sweat
Touch: erotic
Smell: leather

I can only judge your next motion
by the shadow I can see,
That sting fast enough to flicker
with a sound like the snap of burning wood
my hands feel only space and the tight edge
of leather, but my skin
tastes everything, everywhere
and later, when your sweat
drops thick onto my face
I can't wipe it from my eyes
but I don't care.




sight: a hand
sound: growling
taste: metallic, iron
touch: thick fabric, brocade
scent: cinnamon

[Angeline]

Originally Posted by unpredictablebijou

I can only judge your next motion
by the shadow I can see,
That sting fast enough to flicker
with a sound like the snap of burning wood
my hands feel only space and the tight edge
of leather, but my skin
tastes everything, everywhere
and later, when your sweat
drops thick onto my face
I can't wipe it from my eyes
but I don't care.




sight: a hand
sound: growling
taste: metallic, iron
touch: thick fabric, brocade
scent: cinnamon

See my hand? Some days
it looks three times
too big to ever linger
on the wire fence, hide
from Mrs. Kurtz's growling dog
or ever linger, press my palm
against the squares and wonder
at the pattern. Diamonds
lined my skin, gold pieces weighted
in my mouth that taste
of copper, iron leavings in the dirt.
Chickies Machine Shop gone, gone,
my hand three times too big
to fit a child's mitten, play
with buttons, ever linger
in a forest of brocade, coats,
gray whorls of lambskin sleeve
I rubbed my face against
dreaming of library mornings
in the children's room, cinnamon
hard candy in a china dish
beside the stack of yellow cards.

sight: trees
sound: wind
taste: broccoli
touch: butter
scent: steak

[poem by Angeline; sensations brought to you by eagleyez]

[tungtied2u]

Originally Posted by Angeline

See my hand? Some days
it looks three times
too big to ever linger
on the wire fence, hide
from Mrs. Kurtz's growling dog
or ever linger, press my palm
against the squares and wonder
at the pattern. Diamonds
lined my skin, gold pieces weighted
in my mouth that taste
of copper, iron leavings in the dirt.
Chickies Machine Shop gone, gone,
my hand three times too big
to fit a child's mitten, play
with buttons, ever linger
in a forest of brocade, coats,
gray whorls of lambskin sleeve
I rubbed my face against
dreaming of library mornings
in the children's room, cinnamon
hard candy in a china dish
beside the stack of yellow cards.

sight: trees
sound: wind
taste: broccoli
touch: butter
scent: steak

[poem by Angeline; sensations brought to you by eagleyez]

the wind tackles the trees
turns them into widow makers
no more steak and broccoli
mushrooms basted in butter
that was last night
this evening it's a closed casket
how quickly the good life turns

sight: an old acquaintance
sound: a steam radiator
taste: acid indigestion
touch: callouses
scent: body odor

[CeriseNoire]

Originally Posted by tungtied2u

the wind tackles the trees
turns them into widow makers
no more steak and broccoli
mushrooms basted in butter
that was last night
this evening it's a closed casket
how quickly the good life turns

sight: an old acquaintance
sound: a steam radiator
taste: acid indigestion
touch: callouses
scent: body odor

This old acquaintance of mine,
across the street, reminds me
of the person I used to be:
the one with calloused knees,
who smiled
when the boys whistled
like obsolete steam radiators.
She always forgot they'd burn her too
and leave her
covered in their body odor and
broken promises.
The memories taste like acid indigestion;
I walk away before I'm seen.

Sight: horses
Sound: cackle
Touch: scars
Taste: cherries
Smell: grass