I know where I stand
Familiar with where I fall
My brand of delusion
Tells it all

Secretive emotions
Inside vivid fantasies
A devotion to us
That no one sees

And you can tell me it's over
I'll play along
But, Lover, I never left you
Even though I'm wrong

I left you inside pain
Pain I caused
I'll refrain bringing it back
But never forget what was

I still smell your skin
Taste your body
Remember within
Nothing seems to stop me

the smell lures you in.
all you want is food
until you're suddenly
fighting for your life.
you can never catch a breath
without someone behind you.
because when you rest
for even one second
that's when they strike.

Whoah! A stinky ****
In an enclosed room!
Out we go…
To pure fresh air
Ozonal
With a hint of salty sea.

Smell that fresh-cut sappy grass,
Those rustic woods
An acrid hint of fox
Dog and cat
Someone’s perfume lingering in the air.

Things are cooking:
Bacon to **** for,
Baking bread,
Spicy curries
And glorious fish and chips.
Roast beef and lamb
Fast fried food
And coffee
Pervades the air.

Garden blossoms
Traditional roses.
I finger a mint-leaf…

But something is burning!
Ah!
Not the same as the smell of rain.

But don’t ask me.
Ask instead those dogs and cats
With their super-sense of smell.
For Max the Labrador Collie
Always inspects my feet
And heaven knows
What he makes of
That.

Paul Butters

© PB 14\4\2020. ("Fast fried food And coffee" added 18\4).

He is probably one of the few people who still carry a handkerchief wherever he goes. While I wash and dry his clothes under the scorching South Asian sun, his handkerchief safely finds its home inside those formal pockets. Wet and divine.

I was always told my hair texture was bad.
So here comes the white cream.
The white cream is chemical hell.
I can smell it as I write this.
As I got older I realized the white cream took out more than my curls and coils that the Man upstairs scribbled for me.
It took away my temple hairs. It took my chances of having hair past my shoulders.
But the white cream never took my curiosity.
My never ending curiosity of what I would look like if the white cream never took my real hair from me.
My real hair, which was, is, and never will be “bad.”

half asleep i carefully place
lemon slices on top of all the walls and sprinkle
tea tree oil around the door
i read it wards off
sadness
or cockroaches

my roommate complains of a familiar smell
and we discuss the insurgence of nostalgia
against the monarchy of the endless march of time

the way the what could have been gilts
the grass we walk through with guilt
towards happiness

i’m singing “off with the heads
of the things i can’t forget”
tiny feet in the passage whisper

“no one has crossed a meadow
& emerged with clean feet”

i remember cursing dew as a child
for dirtying my shoes as i walked to the car
and slowing me at the start
of races i was never going to win

out in the corridor i encounter the king who
doesn’t move as i raise my foot
only laughs and says

“a cockroach can survive a week
without its head
and a memory much longer”