Introducing a new series of poems by Julian Matthews. Julian is a writer and Pushcart-nominated poet published in The American Journal of Poetry, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Borderless Journal, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Dream Catcher Magazine, Live Encounters Magazine, Lothlorien Poetry Journal and The New Verse News, among others. He is a mixed-race minority from Malaysia and lived in Ipoh for seven years. Currently based in Petaling Jaya, he is a media trainer and consultant for senior management of multinationals on Effective Media Relations, Social Media and Crisis Communications. He was formerly a journalist with The Star and Nikkei Business Publications Inc
Link: https://linktr.ee/julianmatthews
By Julian Matthews
She says I have started to get that old man smell – and I wonder which old man smell? Is it like:
a) that handsy uncle, after a few, who always insists on a hug at family gatherings, a mix of sourdough, mothballs and old spice, his mouth a maw of whiskey, stout and mutton curry leftovers, or is it like
b) those groggy men who hang out on their haunches on the kerb outside the neighbourhood Chinese medicine shop, swilling cheap liquor, coughing hoarsely, as you walk by, or is it like
c) when I was a reporter and covered those crash victims at the third class men’s ward at the government hospital, with pussed and untended ulcerous wounds assaulting my olfactory sense — unlike those classic movies, where the lead actress is always complimented on how great she smells, alluring and sensuous — while, maybe, I smell like just another old factory, a rusty, rancid, rat-infested one by an abandoned railway line, overgrown with lallang, where the strays pee on the sleepers, or like
d) the unshaven, homeless man I didn’t even notice until he approached me for a handout and was persistent, right up in my face, and I caught his eyes, vacant and cold as an empty boxcar, his expression cracked with pain, his mouth a yawning tunnel, his entire life derailed for some reason, and I, a little fearful and pitying him, remembering my own years in the wilderness, hastily handed him some loose change and made a fast exit before his smell hit me like a freight train. And then,
e) a time capsule pops open in my mind: I am on a train, an earnest child, imagining I am Hercule Poirot out to solve a murder mystery, excited by the chug, rumble and screech of my first ride up the east coast with my dad, sitting across him in the buffet car, seeing him calmly take out his rosewood pipe and indulge in the slow ritual of pipe-lighting, tamping tobacco into its curved bowl, striking a wooden match and letting it burn for a few seconds to let the sulphur off, cradling it protectively with his hand from the wind, as the cabin swung, this way and that, tobacco finally catching, the smoke infusing the air, inhaling and exhaling, extinguishing the match with a deft flick, the smell of his musky, earthy, fatherly odours – that smell, his smell, that old man smell – permeating my core, the whiff of the memory bubbling up, like the steam rising from the cups of hot Milo between us, then floating away in a puff of loss, grief and warm affection.
First published in the online literary journal Chewers by Masticadores, USA.
