The 5 Senses Poem Challenge

[Guest]

This is good. You seem to be taking lots of chances in your poetry now, trying on different styles and approaches, and it's moving your writing ahead in very interesting ways.

Thank you. I'm going where the words are taking me.

Looking now, I see I forgot 'sand'. Durn.

 

[Angeline]

Thank you. I'm going where the words are taking me.

Looking now, I see I forgot 'sand'. Durn.

Well go add it man. I won't tell anyone.

 

[ishtat]

The sound of Isa at midday is silence
kicking in as bushflies hide in shade,
the sun burns burns burns.

I step over to Mr Chan's for conversation
of polite nods and green tea stirred
with gestures of misunderstanding,
his thoughts closed to me.

While saffron crocus pushes my memory
to the cold murk of February England
and mother calls us in, to soup
simmering like us in the Isa sun.


See clearly
hear roller shutter
feel unfeeling
taste bitter(ness)
smell decay

Note. Mt. Isa is a mining town in the desert of tropical west Queensland.

 

[Angeline]

See clearly
hear roller shutter
feel unfeeling
taste bitter(ness)
smell decay

The red mist of anger cleared
so I'll try to remember kindness
as easily as the sour mornings
that followed nights in soundless
recrimination, days when the air
boiled with shouts I could
track time by the tears on my face.

Five oclock we fight, chew
on our bitterness, swallow it
with dinner I don't digest as I run
a child's bath. The battleground
strewn with legos, slippery with Mr. Bubble.

Walk the dog, shine the light
on every metaphor in our destruction,
but I love the way we mixed so gently
in the children every knife edge
of our difference dulled,
reconstitutes a better us. My senses
won't remember you as if the shutters
in the family room rolled open
to another world where I can't
feel what it really used to be.

Decay tastes like smoke, ashes
of a flame that once burned bright.



See Brown eyes
Hear Car on gravel
Feel Leaves
Taste Orange
Smell Smoke

 

[Guest]

........

 

[Guest]

See Brown eyes
Hear Car on gravel
Feel Leaves
Taste Orange
Smell Smoke

Grave Robber


You don't see me, not really
though I remember every
facet and glitter of your brown eyes.

I buried old things in a dead grove.
Rotten oranges pungent,
could still be tasted on the thin breeze.

You didn't go any further, but followed.
Your car's tires rolled over gravel
until the road ended and more.
Leaves crunched under my bare feet
though, it was April,
noon, and raining;

how appropriate, always raining
in cemeteries. Always, like crows
sitting on head stones, glaring.

Funny, not ha-ha, but how
barbecue smoke made my stomach growl
while all old things lay corpse-white
and naked, deep down in that hole.

Though, I could see it glowing,
a sick, sick reminder of a limp cock.
Let's rot and forget, I already started.




See : shells
Hear : seagulls
Feel : mucky sand
Taste : salt
Smell : low tide

 

[champagne1982]

See : shells
Hear : seagulls
Feel : mucky sand
Taste : salt
Smell : low tide

Nautilus, clams and snails litter
this mucky sand left as the waves
pulled away the wash to leave
salty memories on my tongue
the flavour of low tide scented
air on which the seagull voices
swoop down to flip on a vacancy
sign to let us know there's room
for a bigger hermit in this shell.

See: darkness
Hear: peasant screams
Feel: clammy
Taste: bitter sweet
Smell: popcorn

 

[Guest]

See: darkness
Hear: peasant screams
Feel: clammy
Taste: bitter sweet
Smell: popcorn

Frankenstein with Boris
and Mae, flickers
on my big screen HDTV.

This popcorn butter,
Kettle Corn stuffs my nose
but I can't taste salt,
I am deaf to it, bitter sweet
coats my tongue as fresh panic
alights with the mob torches,
searching for the monster.

I get clammy as black and white,
black and white fades to darkness.
Peasants scream
and I want too, although
breath escapes me with hyper
awareness, where I need to

Stop. Go back, I missed Boris.



See : a Robin
Hear : someone running a shower
Feel : bare feet on cold floors
Taste : coffee
Smell : rain

 

[Tzara]

but I can't taste salt,
I am deaf to it

This is a really good line, J. Or phrase, most likely. I like it for a lot of reasons.

It's transmodal, which is cool. Probably what I really like about it. Elegant. Which is ditto.

Just a comment, of course.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

See : a Robin
Hear : someone running a shower
Feel : bare feet on cold floors
Taste : coffee
Smell : rain

wing shadows the foggy glass
embracing you in its hush
in your chest are carols to spring

that sing drive with me in the desert
for the sky is full of purple and you can smell
rain in the evening, babydoll

I steal over chilled tile like fog
called to you, to that ionic storm
that branches over my neural net

in one hand is the round white cup
of steaming french roast
stealing your spot under the stream I offer the cup

and you sip its gold, ready for the jolt
then we're slipping on soap bubbles, steam
rises our prayers to Inanna for seed




See: shoulderblade
Smell: mosquito repellant
Taste: lips
Feel: lake water
Hear: good fortune

 

[Anschul]

See: shoulderblade
Smell: mosquito repellant
Taste: lips
Feel: lake water
Hear: good fortune

I've just gotta get on on this one:

North Carolina Summer

Night falls easily in the southern summer,
Under the trees by lake's edge,
Boughs bend low in the sweltering dusk,
Waves languorously lick the shore,
Skiffs bob slowly on the moor.

She comes to me softly,
Padding barefoot over fragrant moss,
Her lips--soft, sweet, and pure
Whisper hello to the evening,
Then brush my neck, my spine,

Fingernails gently rake my sensitive back,
Jangling nerves between bone and skin,
But wake me to her risen passion.
I gaze into her eyes, smile, and then
I take her gently in the sticky shade.

Bodies close, sweat rises, drips,
From noses, elbows, foreheads;
Hearts beat fast, faster, together.
Tonight only mosquitoes witness my good fortune.
After, she whispers, "Off."


See: sailboats
Smell: cocoa butter
Taste: coconut
Feel: sweat
Hear: carnival barker

 

[CeriseNoire]

See: sailboats
Smell: cocoa butter
Taste: coconut
Feel: sweat
Hear: carnival barker

He hates the sea now
though it was his first love
and brought him his second;
the one who giggled,
when she licked salty sweat
on his skin.

And she
tasted of coconut milk and hope
soon to be lost
when she
left nothing
but the cocoa butter scent
of her hair on his pillow.

Her sailboat bound for adventure,
deaf to his pleas,
she faded
on the horizon.

He hates the sea now,
as he stands on the shore,
futile screams,
a pathetic carnival barker.

 

[Guest]

This is a really good line, J. Or phrase, most likely. I like it for a lot of reasons.

It's transmodal, which is cool. Probably what I really like about it. Elegant. Which is ditto.

Just a comment, of course.

Thank you. I don't think I've ever received an "elegant" before.

 

[Guest]

He hates the sea now
though it was his first love
and brought him his second;
the one who giggled,
when she licked salty sweat
on his skin.

And she
tasted of coconut milk and hope
soon to be lost
when she
left nothing
but the cocoa butter scent
of her hair on his pillow.

Her sailboat bound for adventure,
deaf to his pleas,
she faded
on the horizon.

He hates the sea now,
as he stands on the shore,
futile screams,
a pathetic carnival barker.

I like this challenge. Quite a few wonderful poems have been born out of it.

Cerise, I can't follow your emotive sensory poem without your 5 Senses list.

 

[CeriseNoire]

I like this challenge. Quite a few wonderful poems have been born out of it.

Cerise, I can't follow your emotive sensory poem without your 5 Senses list.

Oops.

See: smiles
Hear: cries
Smell: croissants
Feel: sticky
Taste: cherries

 

[Guest]

See: smiles
Hear: cries
Smell: croissants
Feel: sticky
Taste: cherries

Deleted


See: A picket fence
Hear: Door bell
Smell: Tension
Feel: Fur
Taste: Milk

 

[Guest]

........

 

[annaswirls]

I always want to do this challenge, Jamison, whenever I visit, and am very often impressed with the work here but I can never bring myself to it. Thank you for keeping it alive!



My brother's doorbell batteries are dying.
It whines out my arrival.

I am stuck, damn it! How do you smell tension?

"Another writing assignment?"

Yeah. Smell tension? Maybe it is some new cologne.

I help myself to the milk in his fridge and
search for something sweet.

Five minutes later, he returns
with the black and white photograph
from the old house.

Picket fence, white paint peeling,
we are all lined up with Mom and Dad.
My mother looks disgusted. Her shoulders
seem to tighten under my father's touch.
Tickles the cat curls at my ankle.

Now I smell it.




See: rebar
Hear: loudspeaker
Smell: teen spirit....no no no sulphur
Feel: stone in shoe
Taste: copper

 

[champagne1982]

See: rebar
Hear: loudspeaker
Smell: teen spirit....no no no sulphur
Feel: stone in shoe
Taste: copper

Rave

Dance madly down in the plaza
underneath that condo complex
rebar forms some kinda grate
that keeps the sound out
the bass rolling off the trunk
bounced from the woofer
of the loudspeaker. Sex
smells like sulphur
a little taste of hell
and teen spirit coating
the tongue like copper plate
and dancing even though
there's a stone bruising
my foot and drilling a hole
through my shoe.

See: peanut butter
Hear: ventilator mists
Smell: antiseptic
Feel: burning itch
Taste: cookies

 

[sassynyc]

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

She rests on her sandalwood scented
sheets plump as the flesh of pomegranate
with sweet ripeness those globes hang
pendulous and fertile with seeds
as plentiful as the sand that moulds
to footsteps on the shore and lips
stained red with the juice she tempts
with words like kiss me on her breath.
_______________________________

write this poem:

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

morning

Legends of Jazz
creeps through the speakers
filling the hollow spaces
between their suspended words

he melds into the vinyl chair
a slow burning cigarette
between thick fingers
releases tendrils of smoke
dancing the bossa nova overhead

the smooth formica beneath
his calloused hands
wears tattoos
of a million mornings like this
his coffee and lazy cigarette burns
her tea and her tears

bleach wafts through the air
burning the fine hairs in his nostrils
the ripe scent of her avoidance
she cleans maniacally
in hope that one day
she will scour his fingerprints
from her heart
her soul
the cerebral space
in which she lives

she claims her place
at the wretchedly beautiful table
one more tea bag to add to the scars
she peels a grapefruit
bittersweet heaven
she savors the first bite
languishing in it's sweetness
discarding the pith

and for the first time today
she looks at him, not through him
reaching across the table
and the miles between them
she touches his hand
________________________________

write about:

taste-ginger
touch-bamboo
sight- an unsuspecting skinny dipper
smell-freshly cut grass
sound- the still sounds of night (indoors or in nature)

 

[Anschul]

I always want to do this challenge, Jamison, whenever I visit, and am very often impressed with the work here but I can never bring myself to it. Thank you for keeping it alive!



My brother's doorbell batteries are dying.
It whines out my arrival.

I am stuck, damn it! How do you smell tension?

"Another writing assignment?"

Yeah. Smell tension? Maybe it is some new cologne.

I help myself to the milk in his fridge and
search for something sweet.

Five minutes later, he returns
with the black and white photograph
from the old house.

Picket fence, white paint peeling,
we are all lined up with Mom and Dad.
My mother looks disgusted. Her shoulders
seem to tighten under my father's touch.
Tickles the cat curls at my ankle.

Now I smell it.


See: rebar
Hear: loudspeaker
Smell: teen spirit....no no no sulphur
Feel: stone in shoe
Taste: copper

WOW!!! I smell it too!!!

 

[Guest]

taste-ginger
touch-bamboo
sight- an unsuspecting skinny dipper
smell-freshly cut grass
sound- the still sounds of night (indoors or in nature)

Caned

Poolside, in a 5-star Somewhere,
the crickets chirp in time
with the chck-chck of sprinklers.

A night breeze slides across my chest;
then along comes Jasmine and cut grass.

The hotel garden commandos
had attacked, made art out of hedges
instead of falling soldiers.

She feeds me wry smiles
and candied-ginger as I shift
from seat to seat. I can't settle.

Sweet, yes? Does it go with the pain
or does the pain go with the sweet?

She doesn't give me time to answer,
the last I see of her is a red caned ass
disappearing beneath the chlorine blue.

I know how she feels. Yes, yes, yes.
I paid for the bamboo treatment too.



See: Red blooms
Hear: Crying
Smell: Cinnamon
Feel: Heat
Taste: Pain

 

[Anschul]

See: Red blooms
Hear: Crying
Smell: Cinnamon
Feel: Heat
Taste: Pain

Picking Day

In the intense heat
Of a blazing Saigon morning,
The rag-headed farm women
Gather the fragrant cinnamon bark
That feeds their crying babies.

A bitter tingle on the lips
Of tag-along tots in pain
Signals the days of harvest;
Before the perfect red blooms
Of the cash-crop poppies.


See: hot-air balloon
Hear: ocean
Smell: lilac
Feel: sunburn
Taste: spearmint

 

[BooMerengue]

It's late; I'm really tired. I searched for something to practice on and this seemed like a good STC. So here's my effort...

See: hot-air balloon
Hear: ocean
Smell: lilac
Feel: sunburn
Taste: spearmint

Another Trippy Day

A Dragon shaped hot air balloon
rose gently from the coast
and carried me to touch the Moon
and kept me there til half past noon
as ordered by a Ghost

Who's proud mien was hidden by
the bright rays of the Sun
but I could see His twinkling eye
so Dragon turned and swerved to dive
and Ocean shouted "Run!"

I felt the Sun burn hot on me
The Wind whipped through my hair
astounding me with memory
"I met this boy once, by the Sea!
Our passion took us there!".

He took me in a Godlike way
his spearmint breath so sweet.
His hands turned me to modeling clay
I was a Goddess for a day.
I knew my heart complete.

But Dragon drifted toward the land
as sadness filled my heart.
He turned and lightly took my hand
and settled me upon the sand.
I knew that we must part.

He turned away; I saw his soul
and walking toward the sea
He turned before he reached his goal
before he squandered all control
and tossed a gift to me to me.

He drifted toward the rising moon
and disappeared from me
but in my hand I held a boon
the scent of which caused me to swoon.


A freaking lilac tree?!?



I told you I was tired. Took me an hour and a half.

Good night.

Oh. Just in case.

See: Seahorse
Hear: a cheering crowd
Smell: beer breath
Feel: scratchy
Taste: Bijou (hope she doesn't mind.) In my head/out my mouth. That's me.

 

[BooMerengue]

I'm bumping this cuz I was hoping at least one someone would say "Oh, Boo. Pathetic!" or "Oh, Boo. Nice try, but do this!" or "Oh, Boo. Go back into hiding!"

C'monnnnn, Mon!!