The 5 Senses Poem Challenge

[Piscator]

sound: scraping
scent: something faint
sight: something moving
touch: stone
taste: anything light

sound: Bach's piano concerto in D
scent: diesel
sight: a sunset
touch: warm stone
taste: fried onions

Tempus fugit

The phonograph gives a faint hiss
as the penny stacked needle scrapes
deeper into the vinyl, but it doesn't
matter as I'm lost in the machinations
of Glen's impossibly long fingers in their
frenzied movement across the keys
as D slides to A, then back again
but always minor.
A sip of vino verde washes away
the last of my onion ring indulgence
although a faint aroma of petrol remains
but that is minor.
Outside, geckos press against the stone
wall still warm as the red sun sets and
the evening's first bats flit across the
horizon. A most picturesque scene
although lonely without you
but that is minor.

sound: robin at 5:00 am
scent: lingering aroma of sex
sight: rain against a window pane
touch: fingers lightly cupping a naked breast
taste: morning mouth

 

[Lyricalli]

sound: robin at 5:00 am
scent: lingering aroma of sex
sight: rain against a window pane
touch: fingers lightly cupping a naked breast
taste: morning mouth


Robin sings at dawn
to the pit-pat rhythm of rain
pinging against glass
beginning to glow with a grey sun

He reaches for me again
long slender fingers teasing
a nipple still aching
from fevered nips and pinches
just a few hours before

My smell still lingers
on his hand
the scent of us hangs in the air

A gentle insistence parts my thighs
as he slips inside
my lips resist
sharing the mingled taste of morning
and him
in a waking kiss


sound: scraping
scent: liquor
sight: someone giving in to temptation
touch: leather
taste: dark, bitter chocolate

 

[Remec]

Playtime

sound: scraping
scent: liquor
sight: someone giving in to temptation
touch: leather
taste: dark, bitter chocolate

Her body gently rocks the table
upon the wooden floor, but I only hear
the scraping of flesh as it rubs
back and forth against
the leather bindings around her
slender wrists, subtle little ankles,
and shapely, enticing, hips--I
almost could see myself being brought
from spectator to participant,
lowering my mouth to indulge lips
and tongue in the their desire to
feast on the sweet taste gone sour
of dark chocolate bar allowed to melt
in the ever active heat between her legs,
I bring my snifter up and let the
cloying scent of my evening's aperitif
distract me from such active thoughts.
Time enough for that later,
when she is brought to her limit
and beyond.




sight: convertible
sound: accordion
scent: something pleasant
taste: something unexpected
touch: something unwanted

 

[KatieJones]

sight: convertible
sound: accordion
scent: something pleasant
taste: something unexpected
touch: something unwanted

It's Just Not Done

I hear them long before I see them
their voices rising. Floating dialogue balloons
that pop, spraying poison words into the mouths
and faces of unsuspecting commuters
waiting for the L. I look over the edge
of the platform to the parking lot below and see a grey couple
in a convertible only they could afford, failing
to suppress forty years of irritation.

She is playing the map
in her hands like an accordion
that releases its paper notes
of annoyance. Occasionally she hits
him like he’s a high hat in her solo.

He’s had enough, climbs
toward the trains. Neither of them sees
the lilacs, the bees, the sun, that life might be easier
alone.

She throws her instrument and pride into the backseat, realizing
he’s getting away. They snipe
until they are level
with the afternoon crowd
and instantly dry swallow mutual disgust
and smile. The only sign of animosity
is a slight stiffening
of his spine when she takes his arm.

Two small movements
that say it all.


sight: laundry hanging outside
sound: voices
scent: something natural
taste: water
touch: something sharp

 

[KatieJones]

Sight- a carnival
sound- a familiar voice
scent- metal
touch- something hard
taste- cigarette

On the Carousel

A poster for a long gone carnival cartwheels
through the empty street. From the bus stop
bench I can see faces of clowns
trying to escape from the crumpled paper
bringing me back to melting candy
cigarettes on my tongue. Our so cool
strut interrupted by the shout
of a barker to either pay again
or get out the haunted house. I remember

running until fear dissolved into giggles
that made me lose my balance
my bare knees hitting the sidewalk.

I remember swiping my finger
into the blood, smelling iron
before I sucked it off
but as the bus pulls in front of me
I grab my umbrella and laptop bag
and once forget
when all of life’s problems
were simple
and solved with a little spit.


Sight- rocks
sound- something alive
scent- something strong
touch- something wet
taste- fruit

 

[cherries_on_snow]

Sight- rocks
sound- something alive
scent- something strong
touch- something wet
taste- fruit[/QUOTE]

We ski along the pinnacles shadowfingering Quesnel
until we stop for apples. You cough. We bend.
Fleece wicks air pantiless confessions.

Your brown arms stab new ice,
and I follow.

You called last week. I will call tomorrow.


sight: a laughing dog
sound: hurdy gurdy man
scent: rainbarrel
touch: paint chip
taste: something warm

 

[Angeline]

sight: a laughing dog
sound: hurdy gurdy man
scent: rainbarrel
touch: paint chip
taste: something warm

Twilight in Suburbia

Shake is laughing, showing teeth
as dogs will, his tail going
like a three-speed fan and I run
after him because he steals tomatoes
from my garden. The rainbarrel
smells like autumn, wet leaves
and decay, the scent of change.

I have paint chips in my pocket
to show you, pastels for a baby's room,
but you don't care. You never do
if it's my idea. The ice cream truck
sounds like a calliope coming
to our block, like a hurdy gurdy man
coming, like a circus I would run away
and join if I could. Later

I sip hot chocolate. It's sweet
and warm, but not enough
to melt the ice inside me.


sight: someone you love
sound: bells
scent: oranges
touch: something dry
taste: chocolate

 

[Tzara]

sight: someone you love
sound: bells
scent: oranges
touch: something dry
taste: chocolate

Rock and Roll

When the truth is found to be lies
And all the joy within you dies
—Darby Slick

St. Catherine's was tolling early mass
as we lounged around in our underwear,
the coffee growing cold, the newspaper
strewn around the room as if we expected
an invasion of parakeets infesting
the house. You poured a bit more juice
into your Mimosa and the scent
promptly sat me down in that Costa Mesa
condominium where the pool always
needed cleaning and my skin always felt
like Death Valley in July. But you brought
me back to Seattle with that last truffle,
the one you saved from last night,
the one with a little lavender in it,
and now in the background Grace is singing
Don't you want somebody to love, don't you
Need somebody to love, wouldn't you
Love somebody to love, you better
Find somebody to love
And I do and I do and oh, yes and I have.

Sight: Open country
Sound: Insects
Scent: Burned vegetation
Taste: Cheap whiskey
Touch: Sweat-stained leather

 

[greenmountaineer]

Sight open country
Sound insects
Scent burned vegetation
Taste cheap whiskey
Touch sweat stained leather


Lord, Give Me a Sign

Lil stood on a street named CICADA
at the intersection of OAK,
some founding father’s idea of a joke,
that hadn’t any to shade her baby
in a dust bowl town along the way
coming up short of LA
in the seventeenth year of the cicada.

You can hear them when the sun goes down
and the bikers put on their Harley jackets,
pile out of a diner called “EATS”
where they like onions burnt in their beef,
before they get on their sweat-stained seats
to ride to the desert to hear the males
scrape their staccato come hither sound.

“You’re father, Sean, showed me was Adam
who gave the apple to Eve
after a night of cheap tequila
when he dared me to swallow the snake
all the way down to the bottom,”
she said to her son on the wrong side of town
where there was a “WAITRESS WANTED”
in a diner known only as “EATS”



Sight mountaintops or skyscrapers
Sound any appliance
Scent moldy closet, barn, or cellar
Taste Jasmine tea
Touch pinching a candle flame out

 

[Tzara]

Sight mountaintops or skyscrapers
Sound any appliance
Scent moldy closet, barn, or cellar
Taste Jasmine tea
Touch pinching a candle flame out

New Apartment in Seattle

Our dishwasher sounds like a skyscraper,
A building in which Less is More,
Dictated by Modernist architects.
Some mountaintops are our top floor.

The closets are moldy and way too small.
They smell of the damp and the sea.
They're lit just by candles. Ouch! Pinching out
Flames—how we brew Jasmine tea.

Yea, we are the Fortunate. We have homes,
They're expensive, and tall—but they're ours.
The Homeless are strangers, and dangerous.
We'll remember them in our memoirs.

Sight: Some kind of roadway.
Sound: Birds or internal combustion engines.
Scent: Something artificial: William's 'Lectric Shave, Chanel No. 5, fresh asphalt, etc.
Taste: Your soda of choice.
Touch: Denim. Especially, though optionally, really tight denim around someone's thigh.

 

[Angeline]

Sight: Some kind of roadway.
Sound: Birds or internal combustion engines.
Scent: Something artificial: William's 'Lectric Shave, Chanel No. 5, fresh asphalt, etc.
Taste: Your soda of choice.
Touch: Denim. Especially, though optionally, really tight denim around someone's thigh.

Where the Hell is Milo?

We don't need us no goldarn GPS.
I have a map of Maine and you have eyes
to travel off the pre-marked path, oh yes
and this road isn't shown. It's a surprise.
Two lanes and green encroaching on each side,
no traffic here but us: no cars are seen.
Do you, my dearest, yet regret this ride?
Look what approaches from the walls of green--
a wild throng of turkeys, feathers fluffed
come gobbling, a'pecking at some chaff
while inside the fake pine scent's getting snuffed
by comic smoke we toked (drink Coke then laugh),
your hands rubbing my denim covered thighs.
They gone?, I ask, for all I see are skies.



Sight: hearse
Sound: something that pops
Scent: exhaust
Taste: booze of your choice
Touch: hand

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Skipping down the open lanes of youth
without a care, make no bones about it
nearing the hearse end
brings trials never imagined.
The exhaust from travelling too fast
through youth fills the nostrils
and chokes the very soul.
Freeing the champagne cork
of congratulations echoes futilely
back down through the years.

You see my pain,
reach to touch my hand
and I cry.

Sight: birds bathing
Sound: distant laughter
Scent: cooking
Taste: marzipan
Touch: goosebumps

 

[greenmountaineer]

Sight: birds bathing
Sound: distant laughter
Scent: cooking
Taste: marzipan
Touch: goosebumps

A Change in Climate

It’s your vacation home on the ocean
you bemoan the loss of and the porch
where you no longer grill your supper
or host the occasional party
with finger foods and marzipan.

Why even seagulls don’t come
to eat the food scraps left, or drink
from rain pools not there anymore,
since the ocean wears away the sand
and foundation that gives you goosebumps:
to think you’ll have to spend all day
every summer in the city.

Meanwhile half a world away,
Trie^`u takes his family
by foot on the Ho Chi Minh trail
and prays there is a factory
because where once his grandfather fished
as did his father before, there isn’t
a village to fish from
since his house isn't there anymore.

In the night distant laughter grates
like French nails on a blackboard
from your closest neighbors, the Barringtons
who don’t invite you to their parties
on their pile driven deck next door.

Could it be you’re not High Anglican?
The clothes you wear, perhaps the car?
Maybe you shop the wrong store?
Or could it be the highbrow look
Evelyn gave you on the 4th
in a lapse of memory when you swore?

Sight: boat
Sound: worn out brakes on a car
Scent: Old Spice after shave
Taste: pizza
Touch: leather upholstery

 

[KatieJones]

Sight: boat
Sound: worn out brakes on a car
Scent: Old Spice after shave
Taste: pizza
Touch: leather upholstery

Bench Seat

When we pull into the parking lot
the brakes complain
with the rest of his car.
Vents fail to lower temperatures
but instead mate
borrowed Obsession with Old Spice.

In the window I look into my own eyes
not ready
to see
what’s in yours.

Lights from the ferry cut the night
and outline leather seats
still
warm
from the sun but warmer still
from bare thighs just below
jean shorts. One final drink
to wash the taste
of pizza and cherry gloss
from my lips
before I feel
a universal tug.

Unchecked.

We meet
in the middle
skin to skin
ready
to wear darkness.

Sight: bridge
Sound: moving paper
Scent: bakery
Taste: something unexpected
Touch: metal

 

[Angeline]

sight- moon
sound- car on gravel
scent- a lovers clothing
taste- something cold
touch- coarse

Old Orchard Beach

$10 Parking is free
late at night when the moon
breaks through fog that hangs.
We crunch right in and the LeBaron,
renamed the Love Baron, sinks
and wheezes to a halt. We scuttle
out toward the clouds. The wind
rages and the ocean answers
with thunder.

The boardwalk is shuttered,
wheels hushed, rides dark.
We shiver on the sand, laughing
and running away from the fizz.
This is the best time with no one
but the moon to see the dumb
show of our love, the freedom
and the folly of it, two old fools
on the beach kissing, talking
with our hands like we do.

The scent of patchouli mixed
with your skin still rises
from your jacket on damp days
like these. Sometimes I feel
your bristly unshaved face
so close to mine. Sometimes.

Mikey gave us french fries
for nothing just because the hour
was late, closing time. We doused
them in salt and vinegar ayuh,
sat eatin 'um in the Love Baron.
They were cold but everything is
in Maine soon enough.

~


sight- wildflowers
sound- crying
scent- thyme
taste- you choose
touch- something oily

 

[Tzara]

sight- wildflowers
sound- crying
scent- thyme
taste- you choose
touch- something oily

Weighing the Heart

Ancient Egyptians used thyme for embalming.
Linda used to rub it along my brow
as a kind of blessing

until I told her I smelled like
a lemon tree whose fruit had not been picked,
fruit that was dying,

nearly rotting on the limbs. I was angry
when I said it and it made her cry, silently,
her body shaking like a ridge

along a slip fault dropping into itself.
Here at altitude, looking across
a meadow spiked with lupine,

blue and white and violet, I hear the sobs—
little racking coughs of sorrow,
now my own distress, my own despair.

I stare at the mountain. Cradle the pistol
slick with its sheen of fresh oil,
wonder how bitter the gunpowder will taste.


Sight: open road
Sound: tinny music, as from a 1960s transistor radio
Smell: bubble gum
Taste: either cigarettes or cheap liquor or both
Touch: felt or taffeta or nubbly wool

 

[Angeline]

Sight: open road
Sound: tinny music, as from a 1960s transistor radio
Smell: bubble gum
Taste: either cigarettes or cheap liquor or both
Touch: felt or taffeta or nubbly wool

Seaside Park

Anticipation is sand spied roadside,
but the rest is pine trees, black
ribbons spooling into Tom's River
where the backup crawls and fills
the car with scent: Bazooka Bubbles, sweat
and Ambush perfume. It's not till past
that rickety bay bridge that surf roars
and bells ring, sausage fries.

On the beach everyone has a radio.
I'm A Girl Watcher vies with Dancin
In the Street. Debbie glistens
with mercurochrome and baby oil,
but I have Coppertone to sizzle
and tan till dark when I'll lose a dare,

French kiss Gino who runs the Swiss Bob
and has the breath of death: booze
and Lucky Strikes, but later I win big
felt-covered dice when the wheel
hits 16. Maybe this is how it feels
to be a woman.






Sight: some piece of furniture
Sound: any specific song
Smell: fried food
Taste: cola (in whatever form you choose)
Touch: something forbidden

 

[Piscator]

Sight: some piece of furniture
Sound: any specific song
Smell: fried food
Taste: cola (in whatever form you choose)
Touch: something forbidden

This broken down leather covered Lazy Boy chair
which my wife bought from her 300 lb cousin
when he was moving to Texas doesn't fit
with the rest of our furniture, and I long to
junk it but she won't let me.

It still smells of onion rings and on hot days
it's sticky and I can almost taste the Royal Crown
and Crown Royal whiskey that his highness
sipped while watching WWF on the tube or
listening to the Stones' " Paint it Black" over
and over again on his too loud stereo counsel.

I'd love to junk it but she won't let me
because it's all she has left of him.


Sight: the downstream vee as you approach the rapids
Sound: rushing water
Smell: ozone
Taste: electricity
Touch: the paddle in your hand

 

[Tzara]

Sight: the downstream vee as you approach the rapids
Sound: rushing water
Smell: ozone
Taste: electricity
Touch: the paddle in your hand

Upper Clear Creek, Near
Idaho Springs, Colorado

the air smells sharp with ozone,
tastes like an electric shock—

one that runs along your limbs
like eagerness or anxiety

that you try to keep from turning
into dread at the churn

of the water, narrowing
down to a slot that will drop

you into the rush among the rocks,
the roar like a rough blanket

thrown over your ability to hear
Michael shouting dig hard,

dig hard as you cut and fin
the water, thick as gelatin,

clutching the paddle like it's your life
that the river is trying to suck

out of your wet and aching hands



Sight: abandoned machinery
Sound: something metallic, clinking in the wind
Smell: oil, kerosene, or some other petroleum product
Taste: either a cigarette or dust or both
Touch: something extremely smooth

 

[KatieJones]

Sight: abandoned machinery
Sound: something metallic, clinking in the wind
Smell: oil, kerosene, or some other petroleum product
Taste: either a cigarette or dust or both
Touch: something extremely smooth

Alone in the abandoned
fields of my grandmother’s farm
I lean into the wind, hoping
to hear my name
float through time. To see
familiar eyes
inside the glass
teeth and splintered crosses
of empty frames but there are no faces
only hollow darkness in the windows
of what has devolved
from home to house.

Without the living
anchors of life
dust blows
into my eyes and mouth
always moving
in contrast with the forever
parked tractors and rakes
whose exoskeletons have been claimed
by the unquelled green. Their metal bones
smooth and faded, faintly smelling
of the diesel they bled
long ago. Looking up
the rigging of the flag pole
clinks
clinks
clinks
without its sail, counting the seconds
until our narrative dies
and all our headstones sink
into the soil.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Dave's Fill'er Up Beeville, Indiana

They used to call it
“ Last Chance Outa Here”
before the ghosts took over.
Rusted jalopies, paint a memory,
litter the scrub behind the building
that’s barely there any more.
The two pumps, Regular and Premium,
stand side by side but distant
as if embarrassed to be seen together
in this state of dishevelment, still wrapped
in the perfume they didn’t choose that will
never fade. Premium’s nozzle hangs loose
playing a monotonous tune in the hot wind.
Percussion is provided by the flapping Camel
sign nearly worked free from its crucifixion
after years of trying. Here’s an antique stone jar.
Moonshine? Molasses? Sand blasted
to a satin finish. It is our souvenir.


Sight: a wedding
Sound: arguing
Smell: cooking food
Taste: fizzy water
Touch: something prickly
.

 

[Desejo]

The other woman's dream

There could have been
dancing
Men shimmying hips

joy punctuated in index fingers
stabbing
kebab scented air

We might have awoken
to sparrows
arguing in fig trees

sips of last nights Perrier
fizzing like salted alkaseltzer
on our tongue

our tongue

your morning beard
a thousand and one
needles

marking me
as yours

++++++++
Sight: sunrise
Sound: fan
Smell: heavy perfume
Taste: vinegar
Touch: Plastic

 

[Tzara]

Sight: sunrise
Sound: fan
Smell: heavy perfume
Taste: vinegar
Touch: Plastic

Lost Weekend

When I woke, the sun was just rising
above the horizon, round and red

as a glass of grapefruit juice. My left cheek
was stuck to the plastic sheet we'd laid

down on the floor and my mouth
still sour from the vinegar in the cheap dressing

I'd been drizzling over her hips
last evening like a tyro at a salad bar.

The smoke had cleared out, though—at least
she'd left a fan running with its little

white noise purr—but her Shalimar still wrapped
me in its heavy coat of scent,

giving me a headache and I knew I needn't bother
to check my wallet, if she'd even left it,

but that didn't really matter since I'd boosted
the credit cards anyhow and I could feel the screwdriver

still in my back pocket so I could hotwire
that Country Squire in the parking lot, switch

its plates and make it back to Pomeroy
at least in time for lunch.



Sight: A figure or figures in the distance
Sound: Wind or aircraft noise
Smell: Dust or pollen
Taste: Whiskey
Touch: Steel

 

[Angeline]

Sight: A figure or figures in the distance
Sound: Wind or aircraft noise
Smell: Dust or pollen
Taste: Whiskey
Touch: Steel


Stormy Weather

They're blurry in the distance,
these ghosts of late grow mythic

when the wind is blowing trees
to a frenzy of whipping branches.

The clouds are full. It's foggy
outside and in me so I can't see

my ghosts, just the outlines, vague
shapes I render clear in memory,

but we all know it's not the same.
If I drank I'd pour scotch neat

and let it burn some warmth
into me. I'd touch the sink, anything

made of steel, tell myself I can
be this strong again even as more

ghosts join the gray line
that has become my horizon.

Maybe pollen precipitates this fug.
Maybe it'll rain tomorrow.




Sight: Traffic sign
Sound: Music
Smell: Smoke
Taste: Water
Touch: Netting (mosquito net, fishnet, etc., you pick)

 

[greenmountaineer]

Mt. Marcy

The sign said 3 miles to the top,
too late in the day to go hiking
that far, but what did we care?

We had our transistor radio
and listened to Billy Joel
to no one there but the privy

where no one else smelled our brand of smoke
or tasted our canteen water
in our busted mosquito net tent

until the tequila sunrise
on this the shortest day of the year
whose night was long enough for delight.

Taste: hamburger
Smell: diesel
Touch: a shoulder
Sound: Mozart
Sight: sundress