The Oldie: Old Smells
 

The British Food Compeition was unfairly weighted against the foreigner. Consequently all the winners were Brits. But the winner of the tea-set, bill Greenwell, is of course one of us. And I won too. Good for me.

Competition No. 126
A school in Liverpool is piping peppermint smell into classrooms to soothe pupils. It made me think of the smells of my youth - so a poem on the latter subject please. Maximum 16 lines. e-mail comps@theoldie.co.uk by 2nd July. Don't forget to include your postal address.

I remember a schoolteacher called Jim Gourlay long ago characterising the smell of a primary school as 'chalk and sweat and sour milk and warm piss'. No milk now I presume. And probably no chalk either.

Tell Bill we want a photograph of the tea set!

Mom's Broccoli
 

Mom’s Broccoli

Mom’s pasta plate would feed them all—
extended family and paesani.
Witty, she amused this mob,
and sang the Great Depression Blues
when she ran out of meaty bones
and boiling broccoli fouled the air.
As I grew up, she’d often groan:
Pasta with broccoli—months on end!
At dinner once, she told her brood,
It’s all they serve in pauper’s hell.
Then holding up my school report—
a string of Ds and Es, one C—
she signaled Dad to back her up,
but he kept chewing prime filet.
Nostrils flared, she sniffed at me:
This smells of future broccoli!

Ralph

GARLIC DAYS

When I was just a baby,
garlic filled the air.
Garlic, garlic, garlic,
garlic everywhere.

When I was just a toddler,
it was the case as well:
garlic, garlic, garlic,
was all that I could smell.

When I was somewhat older,
I thought it was a gift:
garlic, garlic, garlic,
in every breath I sniffed.

Those days are now behind me.
I wonder where they went?
But garlic, garlic, garlic,
remains my favorite scent.

The tea set is a chimera, Gail.


A SONG FOR SOMEONE

We might have made sweet lovers had we met:
the train was full, the smell of rain and sweat
made me self-conscious; she sat too far down
the car with only three short stops to town -
she held a magazine, I tried to read a book.

A single glance reflected in a pane
of glass, the image in reverse, her rain-
washed smile blurred. But as the train drew in
I watched her stand and brush her dress, begin
to disembark, not bother with a second look.

Well, not exactly a chimera, but not a tea-set either.

Beautiful poem, Holly.

Old Smells

My kitchen smelled of drying sheets.
My mother smelled of lemon sweets.
My nursery smelled of orange juice
And Bruce, my friend, just smelled of Bruce.

School smelled of chalk and milk and sweat.
Cinemas smelled of cigarette,
And so did buses on the tops
And so did lots of kinds of shops.

Newspapers smelled of printer’s ink.
The rag-and-bone man smelled of drink.
The coal-man’s wagon smelled of horse.
The coal-man smelled of coal of course.

The railway stations smelled of smoke.
My boiled eggs smelled of buttered yolk.
My grandma smelled of toast and tea.
Poor people smelled of poverty.

That last line is absolutely true I can remember it vividly. The smell was difficult to describe but parts of Edinburgh, like the Grassmarket really did smell different. I would like to know whether old newspapers smelled different too. I think they did, but one forgets.

Old Smells

My father's hands, my mother's chin,
the breadbox and the laundry bin,
the curios upon the shelf,
the doorknob and the house itself.
My mother's hands, my father's chin,
the breadbox and the laundry bin.

oh well
 

My parents were both hippy folk,
As gonzo as Anubis.
They lived to groove. They loved to smoke
Their jumbo hand-rolled doobies.

The household vibe was peace and love
And liberated joking,
While ganja vapours twirled above
A scene of constant toking.

Who can forget the ambient scent
Of home-cured marijuana,
A youth and adolescence spent
In cannabis nirvana?

It gave me such a special buzz
I left my parents huffing
The day I chose to join the fuzz
To get my dope for nothing.

I've been waiting for your smellies, Bazza. Neat one!

i'm back
 

Ta muchly, John. A week & a bit in the Cantal, then visiting a dear friend in a London hospice. Glad to be back with my cats & on the D & A trail.