Bristol
27 February 2013, the Milk Thistle.
David Briggs, Holly Corfield-Carr and Anna Freeman’s poems were inspired by Lutens’ Jeux de Peau.
O
Flicking through the foxed leaves
of a slim first edition you’re hooked,
suddenly, by a poem – deep enough in
not to clock the musk and moths,
decorous chime of the shop-door bell
or that she’s browsing, mutely,
the same shelves, not two feet away;
not to notice, that is, till the first atom
of her scent – of what she’s wearing
beneath what she’s wearing – detonates
in your brain, and the film behind
your eyes begins its soft-ticking spool:
grainy, 60s celluloid wherein you
are padding barefoot across the marble
floor-tiles of a Petersburg apartment,
putting aside the glass of candied lime
in chilled vodka because she’s caramel
and vanilla; you thumbing ivory buttons
through cashmere while winter tanks
roll towards Prague, roll towards dissidents
in cable-knit tank-tops, towards Chess,
slivovic and lebkuchen in cafés hard by
the soon-to-be shelled-out cathedral;
you in a two-shot framed by bullet-holes
in stonework – someone palming a roll
of film that develops, as you breathe,
to reveal it was you, all along, in furtive
conversation with that dead-eyed spook
by the cinnamon trays of a Venetian
spice-market stall; that he was directing you
to a meeting by the slim first editions
of an antiquarian bookshop
in the Jewish Ghetto, wherein
an atom of scent caused you
to look up from the last line
of a poem as neat as a Russian doll
into the dark almonds of her eyes,
breathe deep …
… go back under for more.
—David Briggs
Gliss
She scribbles sugar
and neon
until her signature singes
all of November.
She hands us her cindered nimbus-
on-a-stick, and flings us
to the waltzers
at the edge of the field,
where the burnt noise
of the fair hisses cold
in the long grass:
here, the air is heavy
with the weight of the night,
the heather, the soil,
the leather
of your father’s coat.
By the lacquered light
of the carousel,
you turn to ask the way home.
I begin
and a fox
dashes
silver into the field,
a fluency
of goldfish
flashing from her jaw.
—Holly Corfield Carr
A Rambling Introduction
This
is it –
all the times I’ve wondered why
I was born
with this noble beak,
nostrils that small children hide inside;
now I know.
This
is where it comes into its own.
I am one step ahead of the pack,
the everyday common sniffers.
I receive the package with eager hands
and quivering nostrils.
A bundle of black tissue,
layers and layers of it;
unravel,
unravel,
unravel,
reveal –
vials.
Two tiny vials,
wrapped as carefully as if they contain
something equally precious
and deadly,
something potent enough
to blow these noseholes wide open.
And God,
they are powerful.
The scent runs straight to the back of my throat
and crouches there,
rubbing against the walls like a cat.
I have to hack up a smell ball.
I back off a good noselength,
approach with caution,
following the noseworks code,
circling about with tiny sniffsteps
before I can hear
the sense of what it’s shouting.
Anyway,
Yes.
Here is my poem.
It’s called
This Poem Smells.
It is round,
it’s a round smell.
It pops up my nose in little beads –
marbles –
I always was tempted to poke marbles up my nose.
It’s quite retro,
plump.
Squashy marbles,
in a lemon yellow vintage dress,
licking butter off soft fingers.
It’s the end of rationing,
the oldest idea of luxury,
popcorn
squodged into balls,
arranged in some kind of basket.
It’s equal proportions of butter and flour,
then more butter cream on top.
It’s clotted cream arteries
filled with jam.
This perfume is all about
sensory baked goods pleasure,
the most ancient-feminine kind of hedonist.
It feeds me up,
and then rubs my tummy,
it makes me take the leftovers home.
This perfume collects teapots
and laughs up into my face,
while I drive it along in a sports car,
one arm slung along
the glass shoulders of its bottle.
It thinks I’m dashing,
and handsome,
it says admiring things
about my noble beak.
This is a perfume version of a 50’s sitcom wife;
her name is Franny.
She makes me porridge
with home-made jam.
I pretend she’s happy staying at home
and she never says a word.
She has dimples,
so it’s easy to pretend she’s happy;
even when she’s not smiling,
her cheeks are.
Except
her top lip is growing bristly;
I am suddenly getting an edge of wood smoke,
new layers of leather
and cedar –
this perfume is slimming down,
getting taller,
morphing its yellow dress
into an orange 70’s leisure suit for men.
It is baring its chest,
trying to get me to rub coconut sun-cream
onto its freckled back.
It wants to take the steering wheel
of the sports car.
It slaps my ass;
it hasn’t realised that it’s slightly metrosexual
because,
in the same way that this new masculine side to Franny
(Frank)
thinks Hawaiian shirts
are the epitome of casual style,
to Frank,
the buttery undertones just say,
Laid Back Guy.
I’m okay with Frank,
despite his casual sexism,
(he’d like Franny)
I’m okay with him,
because he is offering me a pot of fondue.
We’re going on a new kind of high-calorie ride,
and even as I twist myself up
in strings of cheese,
I take the time to notice
that Franny and Frank
manage to be simultaneously
clichéd old-school gender stereotypes,
and also one
rich,
dripping with dripping,
androgynous being;
a morphed ball of vintage scent
wearing aviator shades
and a pointy bra,
sharing an ice cream sundae with itself,
two spoons.
And maybe it’s this,
the blending of the gending,
the buttercream
slathered over
the gentleman’s library chair,
that pulls this retro scent
forwards, into now,
all over my wrists,
soaking into the cuffs of my jumper.
It’s been born Franny
and grown up to be Frank.
I intend to respect his choice
to live as a buttery man,
as long as I still get to drive sometimes
and he still tells me I am handsome
(he does).
He strokes my noble beak
with his moustache,
and I breathe in the smell of him,
the Franny-Frank cocktail
that leaves me hungry for cake,
strung all over with melted cheese.
—Anna Freeman
Bristol Haiku
The Bristol Haiku were inspired by Pell Wall Perfumes’ Sticky Leather Sky, and were all handed in anonymously.
Edging in the bar
Reflecting stilletto spikes
Liquid granite tiles
Harvest time is here
The wheat beats with the engine
Clean shirts mix with sweat
My pear drop vodka
Aged into a leather tang
Vanishes in smoke!
aeroplane window
glares my white distance from her
midori-musked tongue
That’s my Last Duchess
I didn’t mean to make
that so sinister scent
Clean dreams and opal skies
Carried back in time safely
Fresh in toddlerhood
Thinking it water
I sank the whole of the cup:
Holiday liqueur
Sleep loss once a night
Kitchen floor loves unravel,
Sweet duress, my youth.
Rich brown raw leather
Soaped soaked washed smooth.
Country polished seeps; envelops fumes
Waiting for melon
thirsty friends swelter in sun
swiftly, softly, cut.
and in the sine wake
of her turning hem, I hear
the old fragrance rise
Oh baby its on
you (and me) we have this oh
yes (to some degree)
Bonus Material
The first two poems, by John Clegg and Dan Simpson, were created for our Christmas special event, inspired by Nina Ricci’s L’Air du Temps. The third poem, by Lindsey Holland, was based on a scent by Kate Williams called Elixir.
Someone Missing
Tourniquet-tight bedspread,
sink, smudged mirror,
plinth of feldspar
useless in the waterjug,
pink soap worn to a plectrum.
Check the wardrobe.
Have the groundsmen comb the moor.
Decant the whisper
hanging in the air,
rose attar or rose absolute.
—John Clegg
Atomize
Atoms collide and crash into life
propagate from pulse points to air
beat scent tracks to nostrils
agitate synapses with sparks
cause neurons to blow fuses
overload networks with electricity
information transfer making limbic pathways glow red
wreathing cortices in fine smoke.
My body is lifted nose-first
pulled along invisible channels
drawn on by cartoon vapour trails
like the ones in The Flintstones
from a freshly baked pie
left on a window sill to cool.
The pie is not for me
but I take it anyway
press tongue to fruit-flesh
taste full-bodied on lips:
the ripeness of flavour in first blush.
Molecules loosen their bonds
drift into atmosphere and spread out
and with it childhood dissipates
diluted by adolescence
diffused in adulthood
brought back
by senses stimulated by smell.
—Dan Simpson
Cantation
Eye of amalgam
Tongue of snow
I want to believe in the midnight fair.
We skate on the river. It’s frozen to a cork
so thick they’ve lit bonfires, are toasting
marshmallows and chestnuts. A market thrums
with scarves, Cossack hats, a web of stoles. We queue
for portraits and cut-outs. Between the rows
a crowd has gathered at a microphone
which wraps their words into incantation
as wine and cider make petals on the ice.
Sting of cocoa
Cinder toffee stone
I used to think mostly of the apples
we noosed and hung from corner to corner,
that dodged our mouths, or jostled, turned
and knocked each other in the red of a bowl.
I didn’t know the origin. Stalks would twist
and we’d talk about ducking; the witch’s toe
was tied to her thumb. Even then the recipe
wouldn’t combine with an aquiline silhouette.
Root of frosted
Gall of crack
In a red and white tent, Victorian sweets
meet hints of Africa. You buy liquorice,
vanilla and treacle. I choose strips
of sherbet, strawberry and rooibos tea.
We mix them in our cauldron mouths
like words we spoke, once, and believed,
that slipped beneath our tongues and dispersed
in the wash of commuters’ melt and slurry.
Scale of slate
Tooth of clove
It’s purple on the hill, and the sycamore
has gathered lanterns. Figures masquerade
grotesque projections of horn-hoof-howl.
We never used to do this. The air
is a peppermint of not-quite-here, a linger.
From yellow windows, cats scarper
as voices conspire. November’s scratch
will claw through floorboards, find and cull
the final leaves. There is no midnight fair.
We pause at lanterns and carry our own
to the purple of the hill, to bewitch each other.
—Lindsey Holland
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