Day 27 — book sense part 1 + book sense part 5

Been in my head (my nose mainly) for a while. A simple poem about a much beloved part of bookerying. The Poetic Factoid is in fact, a Negative Factoid.

*****

bibliosmia 

as books age
they begin to break down
the paper breaks down
the ink breaks down
the cloth breaks down
the leather breaks down
the binding breaks down

what break down means
in this situation
is delicious little bits 
of book bit
drift off into the air
& into our noses

these exquisite scents
are special fragrances
capable of forming
spiritual connections
within our brains 
primarily because
i have it on good
authority that — 
old book shops are 
exactly what
heaven smells like

if i could bottle it
& make it a cologne
1. i’d wear it every day
2. i’d make a mint
cos all bibliophiles
love the smell of books

*****

Day 27 Factoids — thankfully not a word

bibliovore

while we bibliophiles
adore almost everything 
to with books
the way they look
the way they feel
the way they sound
the way they smell
(sweet angels above —
that sublime scent)

thankfully we don’t
get off on eating them

Guilty Pleasure or Blatant Disregard for one of our Most Valuable Assets?

On Day 15 of NaPoWriMo15, I posted that I only had (by my conservative estimate) 2,376 books left to read in my life. Over the last 2 days I have perhaps wasted one of those books by flicking into a work of pulp fiction adventure thriller technobabble; an airport novel; a bestseller in other words, read by millions. Sure the characterisation is thinner than the paper it’s printed on, the dialogue clunks along like my first car did & the plot, well actually the plot was a bit thin in this one — which is a shame, cos that’s kinda what you read these type of books for. Evil brother & sister wanna restore the Ottoman Empire, blow up Istambul, find Christ’s sandals — sorry dude, but I need a mite more than that…

In order to try & salvage some redeeming merit from the six or seven hours I gave to this brick, I have created a short yet whimsical piece of poesy.

The author, whose name will be revealed shortly, seems to think the only way to communicate emotion is through the eyes (this only gelled into realisation for me on pg 210, after which I started to take notes heehee).

For this exercise I replaced all sight related words with scent related ones. See mate, you can communicate stuff with other senses …

*****

Clive Cussler Nose (Eyes) Best

some worked (well one did):
his nose instantly flaring in horror

some sort of work (varying degrees of sense & successability)
his nose lost and soulless
cold determined odour in Marie’s nose
a scent of anger searing his drowsy nose
a stern sniff from his dark nose expressing his will
tall tall pale-skinned men with hardened dark noses
the red-nosed anger in the man bordered on the psychotic

one was poetic, if strange
falcon-nosed man

some were silly in the original, & remain so
he would sniff at Dirk with rage, then his nostrils would pong over into a thousand-mile whiff
he calmly smelled back at her with a scenting nose that danced above a deep scar on the right side of his jaw

& one was so silly in the original, no change was need
a dull light seemed to burn through Dirk’s eyes, though his lids were tightly closed

*****

owen___the_nose___wilson_by_rwpike-d39der7

PS Happy Birthday Buddy