A chinese lady told me a childhood dream: bottling up a summer smell and write a poem about it on the label.




A bottled smell

 

Sweet apple bloom

tainted the spring air

 

Lavender brushed my legs
in summer

Musky fallnotes
hung in morning mists

I ran and collected
them

bottled them up
stuck on white labels
and wrote my sense
of  bursting joy
in spring
of harvest delight
in summer
of the slowing motion
in fall

 

my cat reached
the shelf
where my bottles stood
and tipped them
smashing them
on the floor

 

my room
is pungent now
with fading apple
vaning lavender
and mulching leaves

 

 

and all the labels
stare at me
from the broken shards
of impossible prisons





Poetry by Teddy Donobauer
Read 910 times
star mini Editors' choice
Written on 2010-10-05 at 10:48

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Peter J. Kautsky
That's what we're left with after all -- our poems. Enjoyed this.
2010-10-14


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2010-10-11


NicholasG
This is an interesting poem Teddy. I know, in my case, the cat would have done me a favour, as I tend to collect things for posterity. The bottles would have risked becoming a collection.
Thank you.
Nick
2010-10-05