The Smell

by Lou Stone Borenstein
dedicated to Edgar (yes, that Edgar)

A time ago, some years or so
An issue of morality
I can recall untimely fall
‘Twas someone small’s fatality
For this event had taken me
So it would be, so it would be

Yes, in this scheme of some fool’s dream
To raise esteem of rarity
Had pressure pressed and unrepressed
Led to the rest that had to be
To raise esteem of rarity
So it could be, so it could be

And in this malice of search for palace
Or some such similarity
There stood a guest who stood quite stressed
I will attest that it was me
I stood in search of sanity
So it would be, so it would be

And alas it was to pass
That something should come over me
For entered here a smell so clear
That then did steer so viciously
In through my nose, this I can see
In memory, in memory

So astounded by smell unbounded
Only by mortality
I then there stalled, for so enthralled
To think this scald would someday flee
And cease to be so near to me
In memory, in memory

It was here where that waft of air
Had nearly taken over me
I could not shake nor barely take
For my God’s sake, such sensory
Such as this that stayed with me
In memory, in memory

Now in this coma each aroma
Hinted of that smell with me
No sight nor sound nor feel that’s found
Could quite astound like this did me
For this brought upon misery
In memory, in memory

As bell did toll, through nasal hole
Entered my soul in misery
The stench so strong of something wrong
Could not be long to stay with me
Yet seems was the odor’s decree
In memory, in memory

And that smell of which I tell
This tale of troubled history
On ninetieth or first of breath
I wish its death and normalcy
For still the smell is here with me
In memory, in memory