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Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Rust and Bone

photo by Adrian Dorst of Tofino


"What's that smell?" she asked,
as the metallic odor,
rusty, like dried blood 
on an old knife-blade, 
distinct and Other,
like mud at the bottom 
of a primordial swamp,
crept across the motionless form
on the hospital bed.

"It's Death,"
I replied.
"It's Death."

22 comments:

  1. Oh, wow. This really packs a punch, Sherry.

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  2. Oh, Sherry...death does have a smell, doesn't it? I knew a nurse once. She and I met up with another person. When nurse and I left, she said to me, "She's going to die." She was right. She could smell death,,,,,, I could not, but she said she always could.

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  3. Very evocative description in the first stanza! And the ending is unsettling!

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  4. Oh my--you really got me with this one--the smell of death moving across the bed. Chilling really.

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  5. nice micro poem...yes, i know the smell of that death from working with the sheriff back in the day...blood on a k-bar...yikes...

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  6. Does death have a smell? I wonder. Rust does but rust is alive.

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  7. Sherry you cut that one clean through
    - the stench and stillness of death

    Excellent

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  8. Wow Sherry...you didn't hold back with this one. Love it!

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  9. The response is unexpected but sharp & true ~ Good one Sherry ~

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  10. Oh. Oh. Reminds me of an old shalom aleichem story about chasing death away by eating a bulb of garlic ... But this is the other way around. Took me by surprise. It took a full minute to recover before the association flooded in. Pow.

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  11. To the point and real. I like it very much.

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  12. This is powerful and full of emotion and rage. The smell of death clings and draws us into its snare. More to this than just a few words and lines.

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  13. Sherry, this packs quite a punch. A must read - way more than one time!!!

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  14. I like this Sherry. You did a great job with this prompt. I guess death comes to some after life rusts.

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  15. Oh...wow....this is one where my jaw dropped right down into my heart. Wow, Sherry, amazing. I think this one is going to stick with me all day...and probably more.

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  16. oh my goodness...this gave me shivers... wow... tightly put sherry...

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  17. the smell of death... heavy, tightly descriptive, apt comparison

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  18. Oh that's chilling, yes very tight, right to the chest...Nice!

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  19. Wow, kids, I thought this was just a tossed-off little snippet, but it seems to have had an impact. When our mom died, this smell did cross the space over the bed though - it had a metallic edge to it, which I just now remembered. Thanks for your comments, everyone! I so appreciate them.

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  20. Sherry, funny how those snippets can pack a punch. This one was right to the heart. Well done:-)

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