Man Smells

by

Peter Valentyne

I hopped on the M11 this morning right into a blind man’s snuff box. After finding a single seat on the sunnier side, I did what most mass transit riding somnambulists do and pulled out my phone and began scrolling through my morning emails; Old Navy Card Member Exclusive: $5 leggings, Mayfair Carpet Tiles Labor Day Clearance, Grubhub Up to 35% Off local Restaurants, Facebook: Chocolate Waters added a new post…When someone I’d not seen got on and passed me in the aisle smelling like beauty personified. “Wow! What was that scent?”, my whole body enthused. I fear I began to visibly sniff, (my inhaling a mini-inquisition of it’s own), as my mind rifled through it’s catalogue of cross-pollinated odors. Unsure if the perpetrator had been a man or a woman, I was free to imagine myself traversing the city in a similarly splendiferous alchemical cloud. If whoever they were were still on the bus at 82nd street, I was determined to follow my nose straight to the source and ask the bearer whatever was that intoxicating (cliche I know) perfume or cologne they were wearing. One could imagine that this was what angel wings betrothed to faint cedar and fresh gardenia blossoms must smell like, a scent that could recalibrate the soul and reinvigorate the weariest spirit. As I was contemplating my somewhat gutsy scenario of identification, other smells began to intrude. Across from me on the left, taking up 2 seats was a disheveled worn-looking man who had just unwrapped a meat sandwich from it’s silver sleeve and released from it’s clammy cave an aggressive stink of wet dog and greasy onions that blared through the body of the bus and assaulted my nose as if my entire face had been shoved against a dirty dog’s damp rear end. “How can he eat that?” I quietly beseeched, as though I might actually become vicariously ill via an obnoxious airborne stench. Think second-hand smoke! Do smells carry germs on their tiny invisible backs like atomic particles? I thought of changing seats as I subtly sniffed my shirt to see if the stink had begun to permeate the fabric. Where had my angelic gardenia and cedar smell gone? It was being drowned out by this filthy little man deigning to eat his revoltingly greasy breakfast mystery-meat-on-a-stale-roll-from-some-squalid-Greek-deli sandwich. I tried not to picture him pulling it from his crotch or having had it tucked beneath his sweaty armpit before climbing aboard the M11 to contaminate us all. Suddenly I couldn’t escape the greater reality that my nose had over-thrown the hierarchy of my perceptions, usurping it’s precedence in the pecking order of my body’s own multi-sensory GPS.

That’s when I left my body and began to smell each passenger without leaving my seat. It was like flying in a dream, only I was traveling simply by steering via the snaking stream of my mindful inhalation. I found I could easily go north, south, east, and west by simply following each recognition that flooded my nostrils. I could tell what my nose was looking at without benefit of any actual image before my eyes. There was the twenty six year old male hustler with poppers in the pocket of his Wrangler brand faded blue jeans, a cold cologne diluted by sweat, he just having smoked his third cigarette before boarding, a faint salty, last night’s gizz smell that was barely a yellow shadow on his T. 

The Chinese lady with the little girl who’d obviously come from the dry cleaners and was letting the girl chew on a piece of cheap chocolate to keep her from humming. The lady had chop suey on her breath and a mothball odor emanating from her cotton knit handbag which was a hand-me-down from her dead mother. She had just that morning painted her daughter’s toe nails with a dime-store quality lacquer. Pink, I think.

The elderly couple towards the back of the bus that smelled exactly the same, both sharing that unmistakable “old man” smell. He had a prevalent denture odor and she had on a sweater that had the faintest scent of rose perfume. On further inspection, the old man’s socks were the chief culprit of the fetid aroma that practically drowned out his wife’s own floral capitulation. 

I decided to turn my nose on myself. What evidence existed totally out in the open that would reveal my own present journey? Before I could self-examine to see what I might ascertain purely with my nose…I smelled the sadness of a 63 year old man.

September 2nd, 2019

The Shadows 

of Things Unseen

The night arrives
always in reverse,

and with it 

dreams 

like undeveloped negatives

in a space reserved for shadows.

These shadows 

relive our lives

in spite of any

lack of light.

In fact,

they need our light

to remember their purpose.

Otherwise they go on

despite us, without consent,

without consideration,

autistic phantoms

with no sense of scale

or discretion.

They’ve no qualms 

in dragging us by the hair

into danger,

into embarrassments,

into shame, into longing…

They never think twice.

They always come 

after the facts;

facts they won’t hesitate 

to use against you.

Can you understand me

if I say your light source

both casts them out

as deftly as
it brings them down,

their vividness

in proportion to

your own luminosity.

But here’s the catch:

Your joy is their misery

and vice versa. Why?

Because intensity

and contrast

is how they 

take their measure.

They view us as perpetrators

because we so often 

are trying to un-live them.

Dreams are their way

of getting even.

In their neck of the woods

your name 

has no power

to describe you.

You cannot ignore 

their existence

and get away with it.

You may not even be aware

or remember how your life

is nightly being appropriated.

The only thing you can do

is wake up, 

but your waking

is hardly an end

 to their dominion.

They find their way 

back to you

as they live in 

perpetual disregard.

They don’t need your

acknowledgement,

let alone your approval.

Your helplessness 

enables their control.

Your unconsciousness is their Globe,

a stage to enact 

their occasionally

degrading dramas.

You are their hostage,

as are your friends and family.

They always enter 

by doubling back.

They push you out 

into a full fledged production,

with no lines, no costume,

not even a proper contract.

They have their way with you

without the slightest consideration

as you are 

their unlikely star.

Despite this, your fame 

doesn't go to your head

because there is never

an audience

to approve or disapprove

of the production

unless they’re 

meant to be

part of the play.

Tonight, you find yourself

making love to the enemy

for secret documents

despite the fact that

no information can save you.

Anything without 

emotional resonance 

is considered detritus.

Only so much muck.

Did I say that

belongings have no agency

unless they’ve been
designated as props?

Your wardrobe is often your own

and only meaningful in so far

as it reveals your vanity.

If every night is the lifespan

of their last day,

then ask yourself:

Who are they?

Peter Valentyne

September 1st, 2019

The Gentle Monstrosity

of a Silk Flower in Winter

It was at it’s best

wanting nothing,

coveting nothing, 

desiring nothing.

Only then

was it

at peace,

the creation

of a mad man’s

urge

to re-make

his world.

Look closer

and you may see 

it as a Picasso

in a ghetto,

a Monet

in a slum.

Ferociously alive 

in a world

of banal 

conformity,

it lives as

 pure poetry

openly weeping

in the marketplace,

unable to

sell itself.

It feels things

with grotesque

discomfort.

Nothing matters more

to it than love.

Yet as it’s seams

dissolved

so did it’s sex

wither.

It’s purpose

stank with a whiff

of desperation,

appearing

as lust-less

as a

middle aged

adolescent

lurching

like Byron

when he walked

towards the woman

he loved.

It’s red eyes

stay sore

in their sockets.

Everything

calls for bravery

as it takes in

too many

impressions

all at once.

It's implanted

heart and mind

are busy

sorting

the truth from

unforgiving facts.

Though it had been 

created

to reflect

the real,

(beauty was it’s maker’s

original intention),

despite being sewn

together from

patterned parts,
it would live forever

like the gentle monstrosity

of a silk flower in winter.

To survive

this world

it found it

necessary to

accept it's state

of artificiality;
without a signature scent

labels are

slippery things,

inadequate to
describe their possessors.

To it

grown people

seemed like

aggressive

sunflowers.

Children unnerved it;

tiny blanks

with too much 

courage.

It found it dreamt

far more than

it lived,

as if it’s

daily habits

were 

overshadowed

by a more

lurid fiction

embedded,

no, abandoned

by an

indifferent gardener.

Every possibility

rattled 

the cage of it’s

soft encasement; 

a living casket in

mock burial of an 

undigested seed.

Now it had begun

to have thoughts.

Here was it's first:

What if

existence

is my exile

and nothingness

my home?

Peter Valentyne

August 30th, 2019

Day for Night
in Marienbad

i

No shared past
has ever existed

save through a love

that defies the literal.

All else are but
painted shadows.

Inconsistent ones at that.
Obsession encompasses both
sun and moon
simultaneously. 

In Marienbad,
discrepancies co-exist

corridor by corridor
in gradations of glorious
black and white.
Here, it is
always
day for night.

Would that there be

a right way to navigate
as I am no tourist,
nor am I a guest.

In Marienbad, we are
either beyond time

or hopelessly beholden to it.

Don’t expect clear answers.

Instead, look for clues.

This is not a game
if we can never lose.

 What pleasure can be found

in incomprehension?

For instance, in Marienbad,

narration is likely to
take the shape

of incantation;
one's own artifice of memory.

We return to the same details

as to a wound 

that has metastasized

into an immaculate scar.

We are allowed

to witness
its steady manifestation,
like a rose exploding
in slow motion,
petal after petal,

corridor by corridor

of baroque emptiness,

an architecture of mind

in service of a wild heart.

Eerie tracking shots

reveal speechless stilted actors,

chess pieces with statuary faces,

lifeless tableau vivants

having fallen silent
in unison.
We are either

X or A
as we
wander these halls;
as if we were

the only two
people of significance

amongst extras in
someone else's dream.

ii
Sometimes in the night
I turn over in bed
and my body gives
off subtle sparks
in the dark
as though I were
dry kindling
or a bit of flint.
Would that they were
signal flares,
though there is
no such thing
as rescue.

In Marienbad,
unresolved desires
long to resolve.
Victims and perpetrators
have been known to
swap places
for a better chance
at understanding each other.
Discernment is deferred
until light of day.

We are our own
narrators,
disembodied voices
willing to take on every sin;
inner voices
that lead us on
through labyrinthian passages
of both construction
and destruction.
This place is for
getting to the bottom
of me, you, us.

On this night,
my first love
returns to accuse me
of destroying his life.
Knowing my way
around
will help me
negotiate release.
How else could I live
with what I know?
That is,
I, who am versed
in the Marienbadian
language.
I take the offering
of pear nectar
and slowly
return to the
other light
of day.

Peter Valentyne
August 21st, 2019

Visitation

(for P.G.)

I think you could

single handedly

keep the world spinning

in its place.

So full of God

are you

that you contain 

every room

you enter.

The evidence of your love

is everywhere;

everything knows 

you are here.

This morning after

your visit,

I rose early

to find myself

crying on the couch,

a tremulous quiet

still held onto you,

as if the unadorned dawn

had memorized 

your plaintive perfume.

I sensed my own past 

was ahead of me

while the cat lay cleaning

her paws with perfect

self regard, her

quotidian gesture

my sole

anchor to the moment.

Already there were a dozen

things I longed to do.

The most mundane

chore was to be

enjoyed anew.

I could feel the morning 

breathing

as though the world itself

were taking a mutual breath.

Or was this God pulsating

in the eardrum of my soul?

Something, I will say,

momentous

 had occurred,

maybe even shifted.

I knew now

that just being alive

was reason enough for joy,

that there was infinite possibility

in the smallest, seemingly

most insignificant thing.

It was as if I’d been in pain

a very long time

and hadn’t even known it,

and then the pain lifted

and I was reminded what

the world was meant for;

everything required loving

and the privilege

was mine,

no, ours,

 to feel.

Peter Valentyne

August 18th, 2019

The History of

What Without 

How or Why

First crocuses,

asparagus by the railway tracks,

rain on one side of the house,

birch eyes,

wet abandoned webs,

long lost faces in dreams,

an emphasis on the psychological in a b&w film,

colorful Indian mandalas,

the realization that a particular thought or way of thinking is harmful,

people out in the world not staring at their cell phone,

the yearning to create something,

love of beauty for beauty’s sake,

a monster’s loneliness,

basil,

things that will never come again,

poems that write themselves,

adult vulnerability,

how my cat taps her tail across the keyboard,

a rainy day after a week of relentless sun,

the sound of crickets on the 41st floor of a high-rise,

a smell that takes me into the past,

accordion jazz,

not wishing things as they are were different,

a nap that revives,

not knowing what I’ll say or write next,

memories of summers on Isle au Haut,

every snow that ever fell,

moving my furniture around,

wondering how I will die 

and where my energy will go without me.

Peter Valentyne

August 13th, 2019

Dear Life

With my pillow as a flotation device,

I hang on each night for dear life

knowing I’m sure to lose the same

battle for wakefulness.

I always go under.

Submerged in the dream,

the first thing you should know

is: there are no rules

down here. Also,

children are played by adults

suffering secret addictions.

People you know 

may often be portrayed 

as their opposite.

For instance,

a kind acquaintance

becomes a bully,

an old enemy

turns 

unexpected accomplice.

Don’t be startled, but

here, sexuality is fluid.

A man is never just a man,

which should tell you:

the heart is transvestite. 

Here, 

resurrection is a way of life,

and we are often

after mother’s approval.

Tonight, she is played by

a woman in a bad wig.

Tomorrow in broad daylight

she may well be

a familiar face in the FE’s

frozen food section

stocking up on broccoli florets.

And forget about scale.

You won’t be able to tell

how important a thing is

because everything that happens

is pitched at the same frequency.

Existence is never NOT at stake.

Small feelings appear BIG

as in a car’s rear-view mirror;

far things seem near.

Try looking for something:

an object like a spoon…

something you can take back

with you.

We are all thieves here

in search of evidence 

that might prove 

any of this matters.

In the same way

I must find a way

to make this poem

matter for you.

Yes, you heard right.

We are all thieves 

even while nothing

in our dream 

can be stolen.

By the way, did you notice 

there are no devices here?

Characters use themselves

to communicate. 

All they want

is to make the most 

vivid impression;

for that

they insist on being

their own art forms.

Oh, and you can be sure of one thing.

Later you will want to drag

the night down into day

because it is impossible

not to want more possibilities

once you’ve lived

expressionistically.

And now you begin

breaking up again,

your hand turning to ash

as you touch the river.

In no other reality can you

so easily add yourself

to the world.

Peter Valentyne

August 11, 2019