The Nose Has It

May the smellathon continue 😀 Here is a slightly edited version of a poem I wrote a few years back, to continue with the carnivale of the nose.

The Nose Has It

Couched potatoed I watch Nigella
mix up moist chocolate cupcakes,
the smell wafts
through the flat screen,
landing softly in my olfactory
factory.

Whiff of wattle flowers
transports me back
to where my brown school shoes
clipped to class
under the watchful shelter
of a yellow canopy,
and the water fountain
bubbled a simple tune.

Freshly cut grass
oozes aromatherapy
on the weekend,
enchanting our souls.
It’s a scientific fact
the smell of cut grass
makes you feel good –
here’s to Victor Mowers.

I can conjure your aftershave,
was it called
sweat and sadism,
which I haven’t come
across in twenty years –
you smelt that good.

When people talk about
the big flood of ’74
I can smell the rotting stink of mud
ripping houses and marriages apart,
sticking on walls for decades –
things take a long time to dry out.

Then there is the smell of hospitals
which pretty pictures on the walls
fail to cover
and bouquets of flowers
and baskets of fresh oranges
cannot mask,
no matter how much we wish
they did.

When I look into your eyes
I smell fear –
you may smell anger
in my pheromones.

Can you smell things on the TV?

_____________________________________________