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Nickols Oct 2023
You smell like pure warmth, sweet and heady, like a muggy summer night just after a heavy rainfall; earthy. A wet cedar, woody scent with an undertone of citrus. You smell of home, a sheltered blanket of safety.
Zywa Sep 2023
Child's play can smell of

tobacco smoke, camphor, cat --


and burnt porridge.
"Klein seuntjies wat gespeel het die heeldag aanmekaar, dié ruik so teen die middag na twak en kiesieblaar, na wilde-als en padda en aangebrande pap, harmansdrup en paregorie, katjiepoetjie en janlap." (Alba Brouwer)

- "Little boys who played together all day, smell like tobacco and malva at noon, like wormwood and frog and burnt porridge, Haarlem oil and paregoric, cat's paw and jalap."

Tale "A Change of tongue" (2003, Antjie Krog)

Collection "SoulSenseSun"
Zywa Jul 2023
I rake the ashes

of the olive stones and I --


smell my homesickness.
Novel "The PowerBook" (2000, Jeanette Winterson), chapter "spitalfields"

Collection "Inwardings"
Leone Lamp Apr 2021
I caught a whiff of you
In your cloud of tobacco
It was a soft, subtle smell
Enough to call me back though

It tickled my nose
and my other senses
It wasn't floral like rose
It was just your pretenses

There was lavender burning
But that wasn't it either
It was sultry and raw
I don't know why I bothered

I couldn't rest my finger
I don't know what it was
Perhaps it was your eyes?
Burning down our love
My love and I have both dabbled in tobacco. I'm glad neither of us are that enthusiastic about it. I think I was always attracted to the intimacy of smoking more than the act.
~4/26/21
Ana Oct 2020
I've always preferred finding out what time it was by looking at the watches of strangers,
Preferably on a morning carriage where the forgotten time difference from fading holidays meet the eternally shaken bracelets
Strangers, on their way to an oversized office smelling like old tea and leftover birthday cake.

My eyes, moving from one being to the next,
wondering if they woke up in their own bed.
Disparate attires or obedient consumerism, smells of cologne and *****, unironed shirts and loose ties,
Remains of a night too quickly ended or of a morning that started off wrong.
Strangers, burning the courage to face the dread of small talk talk and mindless tasks.

A half hour turnover of faces, smells and stories,
Strangers, unknowingly sharing their lives with me.
BSween Oct 2020
.
On a sweet apple crisp cold day we walk
When the air is acrid with distant wood smoke
And bright Leaves fall with determination 
Creating the season’s rich tapestry.

I run to keep up
Your science makes me grateful 
For the rest 
I notice still
My loose-mitted hand tentatively held out 
To all manner of wonders that
My own hasty glances would have missed.

The stream, now  
A sweet musty rug of russet rot,
Rambling with red and black fodder
For urgent little colonies of foragers
Who wait for wonders of the earth to be passed 

There are days like this
Stopped
To sip sweet tea from your flask
The ecstasy of the smallest thing
Remembered.
Judypatooote Jun 2020
Sometimes we need something besides Covid19 and Protest's. So today sending you a thought...Can you remember special smells?

A MEMORY OF SMELLS, ARE THEY STILL THE SAME?

The smell of a newborn baby after a bath, all sprinkled with powder.
I don't think that smell will ever change.
A smell I will always remember...

My grandma Bertha would always smell like lavender.
I use to buy lavender soap, and hand cream because it made
me think of her.
A smell I will always remember...

My great uncle would make taffy, and one time I helped stretch it.
A smell I will always remember...

My mom would take me to dance class, and the building smelled
like Carmel.  Much later in life, I entered a building that had the same smell, and it brought back those old days.
A smell I will always remember...

When a storm was brewing in Lake Erie there was a smell of raging waters. A north eastern was coming - I could smell it.
A smell I will always remember...

The soothing sound of the motor boat passing by leaving the smell
of gasoline - why did that comfort me?
A smell I will always remember...

Walking down the beach, bear foot in the sand, and running across
a dried up dead fish.
A smell I will always remember...

My husband would always use Comet with bleach to clean out the
sink, tub and he would sprinkle it add a bit of water making it a
paste, and let it set for an hour.
A smell I will always remember...

Smell can bring back a memory, at least for me...some good, some bad, but these are a few of my favorite memories of smell...and when I smell them now, it sparks my memory, again...

by ~ judy
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