Penning Perfumes Volume 2

by Claire Trevien

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