usually, i see you in my hallucinations
when i'm too high to think about reality
but now, i see you all the time

during sunday afternoons sitting next to me on the floor reading the old love letters you wrote me

standing next to the fridge watching me how i make myself a cup of coffee to taste something else besides the taste of your lips

at night, you're even laying next to me and you're smiling at me like you used to

&' even tho my bed sheets were washed endless times after you've laid with me on them, they still carry your fragrance

and every time you appear anywhere by me
i start talking to you
i tell you how much i've missed you
i try to admire you as long as i can
'cause i'm afraid that at some point
i stop imagining you
forget about your face
that some day you become a blurry memory
inside my head
and that even the drugs cannot bring you back

stay

as I walk through the house
there‘s this familiar scent
it’s always around me,
always present.

a sweet air fills my nose,
so lovely, it smells like a rose

a flower that reminds me of home,
a fragrance that makes me bloom.
I smile when I notice,
it‘s my mother’s perfume.

- gio, 28.03.2020

Sometimes the Dead
by Michael R. Burch

Sometimes we catch them out of the corners of our eyes—
     the pale dead.
          After they have fled
the gourds of their bodies, like escaping fragrances they rise.

Once they have become a cloud’s mist, sometimes like the rain
     they descend;
they appear, sometimes silver like laughter,
to gladden the hearts of men.

Sometimes like a pale gray fog, they drift
     unencumbered, yet lumbrously,
          as if over the sea
there was the lightest vapor even Atlas could not lift.

Sometimes they haunt our dreams like forgotten melodies
     only half-remembered.
          Though they lie dismembered
in black catacombs, sepulchers and dismal graves; although they have committed felonies,

yet they are us. Someday soon we will meet them in the graveyard dust
     blood-engorged, but never sated
          since Cain slew Abel.
But until we become them, let us steadfastly forget them, even as we know our children must ...

Keywords/Tags: pale, dead, shades, shadows, fragrance, mist, vapor, fog, rain, forgotten, melodies, dismembered, tombs, graves, catacombs, sepulchers, mausoleums, graveyard, dust

Redolence
by Michael R. Burch

Now darkness ponds upon the violet hills;
cicadas sing; the tall elms gently sway;
and night bends near, a deepening shade of gray;
the bass concerto of a bullfrog fills
what silence there once was; globed searchlights play.

Green hanging ferns adorn dark window sills,
all drooping fronds, awaiting morning’s flares;
mosquitoes whine; the lissome moth again
flits like a veiled oud-dancer, and endures
the fumblings of night’s enervate gray rain.

And now the pact of night is made complete;
the air is fresh and cool, washed of the grime
of the city’s ashen breath; and, for a time,
the fragrance of her clings, obscure and sweet.

Published by Poetry Magazine, Poetic Reflections, The New Formalist, Carnelian, Little Brown Poetry, Poetic Ponderings, Poem Kingdom, Net Poetry and Art Competition, The Best of the Eclectic Muse 1989-2003, Romantics Quarterly, Sonnetto Poesia, Poetry Life & Times and Trinacria

Keywords/Tags: Sonnet, night, darkness, violet, hills, rain, fresh, cleansing, fragrance, perfume, clings, clinging, obscure, sweet, concerto, dance, dancer

I wanted to spread my fragrance like
Flowers do. Nothing I did wrong. Just
Strive to make me stronger enough.

Don't know where and why it ***** you,
As the way I am living my dream. You
Started to knit the invisible web of
Despise and slander for me with words.

Without any real facts your defaming
Words made my dreams full of
Nightmares and screams. I started
Fearing to consume which I adore.


My fragrance become poisionus gas
For my ownself to swallow tarped in your
Pointless whispers. Still, Do I need to let
You decide my life? No, Not any longer.

I am going to spurn your bruits
with my
Smile. Make you long for the thing which
Now you despise by achieving my triumph
As I wage a war of one, My armaments
Can't fail me now.

You are the whisper of love.
You are a thousand roads to kindness.
You are God's image and daily prayers!

You are the color of spring.
You are the fragrance of the flowers.
You are the smell of freshly baked cake!

You are all of the beautiful melodies of the birds.
You are the charming smiles on the faces of people,
Painted with a rainbow of inspiration and optimism!

You are the  twinkling stars.
You are the new dawn wrapped
with renewed promise; the sunshine!

Your soft words are a sweet song that touches hearts,
Makes faces glow with smiles,
And fills minds with hope and inspiration!

Hussein Dekmak