That Smell

It is recorded in a brain cell,
That one particular scent,
The bouquet of it stains,
As wine on a linen dress,
An ambrosia of memory,
Carrying its own fetidness,
Cloddish backhand of the past,
That stench waifs into consciousness,
One only need savor its tang,
The rankness of remembrance,
Not the perfume of passion,
Nor the musk of desire,
No, it is the foulness of battle,
The odor of fear, stale sweat, pain,
The stink of the jungle,
The rancidness of the rotting earth,
The bodies returning to dust,
Searing nostril burning smoke,
The sounds can be dismissed, but
Never the malodorous carcass of death,
An unwanted smirch upon life,
The vial is opened so easily,
Bacon cooking on the stove,
The smell of a gun oil rag,
A red fluid reeking of iron,
Road kill baking in the sun,
Obscenity permeates the nose,
That offending orifice of breath,
Then like a passing bullet,
It is gone until some noisome finger,
Pulls that mentally stored trigger,
Blasted by that one overpowering sense,
Wounded by the mind again.

Copyright: 2008, Donald Harbour