Scent Verse is a poetry project curated by Basenotes writer Eddie Bulliqi that seeks to explore scent language and metaphors by publishing poems from contributors across different industries that either take scent as their inspiration or are very evocative of smell.
If you are interested in being involved, please send a direct message here on Basenotes.
May
by Tom Wimbledon
Does all desire
End like
This
The Rose hip
Bitter fruit
Of beauty’s sweet bloom
Whose preservation
Only serves a saccharine
Swelling of the throat
The flower torn
Will testify
Through olfactory concourse
To our previous nature
In Süskindian observance
Forgotten truths
Are remembered
The veil
Of linear time
Discarded
As the bell’s peel
Collapses
Ask,
As the ancient
King was asked
‘What
Then
Will you do?’
Is this the
End of
All desire
Prone
Green and aching
The season passed
Without encounter
Or situation
A pall of Royal velvet
Pulled high
Around the neck
A heavy curtain
Drawn with
Much discussion
A pith of lacy
Dignity spat at
The briefest longing
Bowls of acrid
Powders and
Cut Figs
Celebrate Venus’
Arching dread
Her baking surface
Turning
Much
Too slowly
Archetypal scar,
Prehistoric stone.
