"odourless" poems
It is evening now, as moist and damp
as monsoon dusks can be,
and the lantern, it is shining away,
hanging off the ceiling. Now,
the bells ringing the vespers toll.
Elsewhere, celebrations have begun.
Sometimes, wails emerge, accompanied
by the chime of breaking bangles: yes,
glass is what makes the manja potent.
The lantern: it is what crickets
are to sound, to light in the nights.
But, it can only reach so far: built dim.
The fan slices through her smile,
and in the corners, shadows dance.
It's a wave, yes, light, and it bends at the
corners, but it doesn't handle slits well.
But it keeps attempting this every
monsoon night; through the rain, and
through the silence after the crickets
and people are done, reflecting off
ceilings, bending at corners, and
forming fringes where life is otherwise
just colourless, like the pouring rain.
(Oh not odourless though, the smell
of earth has entered into her pores)
Nov 2, 2014
Nov 2, 2014 at 2:04 PM UTC
eternally indebted to imagination for facts, educated beyond my intelligence,
reminded by memory, skewered through by shame,
the biggest negligence-- trust
humbled by an unseen odourless mass of guilt gas-- subdued, I succumb to the game
but even this shall pass, for oblivion is kind, not crass
on this you can depend
unknown how or when
for the clever, the headstrong, the deft
nothing's left
gone too long
gone forever
love bereft
Sep 21, 2011
Sep 21, 2011 at 12:14 AM UTC
words that are said are colourless and odourless,
we cannot touch, nor see them.
words that we type and write can be seen but not heard; and they still remain odourless.
But it's the words that we say and type, that cause the eyes to feel as though they're holding the seven seas; and the body to feel as though it has been hit by several guns.
These words blur the hearts rhythm and freeze the body, whilst the mind wonders where it's meant to go.
And where actions are combined with such words, death sounds so lively and oh so fun, to be at peace, to be whole, to be one. To finally feel happiness in our eyes, and love in our hearts, to feel joy in our body and excitement in our blood, to feel emotion in our brain, to feel peace, and not so insane. Hearing such words, can make death our life, and life our death.
Jul 6, 2016
Jul 6, 2016 at 6:33 PM UTC
The air might be shapeless, colourless and odourless,
But the winds, they always have something to show,
something to say, something to convey.
Today's winds told me about the coming rains.
They howled to complain about climate change.
They sang songs with the wind chimes.
Then they brought the smell of wet mud as it rained.
Just like yesterday.
The only thing that has changed is that they no longer
carry your scent.
They no longer carry the sound of your voice to my ears.
Familiar and yet so strange,
I guess that is why they are called winds of change.
Oct 4, 2018
Oct 4, 2018 at 3:17 AM UTC
My father could hear a fish diving into the depths,
or a bee lost in an odourless darkness
and every pump of blood
that kept us alive.
More spoke to him from the vacant-eyed creatures
than his own blood,
standing feet beneath him,
screaming but still silent for his loud disapproval.
My father lived with the sounds
of walls closing in on him,
blocking the barriers with the
thoughts of his children’s voices.
After William Stafford's "Listening"
Dec 16, 2014
Dec 16, 2014 at 4:37 PM UTC
I peeked down the corridor
and there within I saw
Nothing. Utter dark and null
devoid of bright or dull.
Recoil'd not I from the drear'
in holding back childish fear.
Of the Dark
My ear it crept closer still
towards the sound of zilch and nil,
nothing. Vacuous silence,
drumming steady absence.
Tempted by the resting rhythm -
absent metre and system.
.
Deepest cold pierces the nose
out of shadow its scent arose,
Nothing. Faint eau de toilette,
an odourless silhouette.
Made curious to explore
beyond what was heard or saw.
Impatience tipped my tongue
caution begging to be flung,
No More - ravenous nether
thirsting night tide aether.
Mouth salivates and perspires,
drowning in the lightless mire.
--
At last - I am one and none,
for I the darkness has come,
Senses suspended: sound, sight,
scent, taste, now touch the night.
No I nor we - no more ...
Solemn stately corridor,
Of the dark.
Apr 20, 2018
Apr 20, 2018 at 9:41 AM UTC
The eye of a newt
And the tongue of a man
A cauldron bubbles
To a witches plan
Venom of a snake
Tarantula fang
The odourless liquid
Erupts with a bang
Lavicious old hag
Cackles in the dark
In goes a nettle
And the fin of a shark
"Blood of the white worms skin"
"Shape into a poison dart"
"Release from the gates of hell"
"Fire into the putrid heart"
The incantation performed
A spell so potent in dread
Away from the witches circle
The knight now lies dead
Jun 14, 2016
Jun 14, 2016 at 6:09 PM UTC
keep knocking
cause i approve that sound
keep pounding
cause i hear the pounding sounding
through the metal in which i am drunk
and odourless
since i am long lost drowning
i'm minding my thought
since i am surveyed upon
and panic stricken
and panic sodden
then panic wrought
i'm scaling the walls
using the saliva on my scaleless paws
and the iris in my softening
in my frictionless gauze
is a lesion i was taught :
it's a pain to be about the task
i brought on myself
but here it resides ...
a vibration in thought
© Jon Thenes 2005
Nov 12, 2015
Nov 12, 2015 at 2:59 AM UTC
A storm is brewing:
everything is grey.
My mind is grey.
Grey as the forgotten sun.
Grey as a peacock on a pencil sketch.
Grey as the rainbow that lost its gold.
Grey as age and regret and pain.
Grey as your kiss on another man's tongue.
Dec 9, 2009
Dec 9, 2009 at 7:13 AM UTC
But deceptive blood-robed pomegranates
With their piteous decay, and sullen seeds
Packed as kids’ taut skins in sand-tinted crates;
With bloom, with ruin, and sweet as reeds
Them reeds naught know of plain parched mourn
As wails it and yields to their illiterate lips;
As stumbles then snakelike out— thin and worn.
Begotten unwanted, poorly fathomed, forgotten wisps
Of old, odourless leisured hours,
That scrubbed, so gruntled, and scratched the fruit.
Then white silks soft within parched blue days;
And no heirs birthed, sublimed the flowers.
Touch it; the crumple and crêpe is not yet soot
If it could bleed, it could bloom alive, ablaze.
Sep 29, 2021
Sep 29, 2021 at 1:59 PM UTC