Tag: Honeysuckle

On a chipped porcelain tray edged in worn gold and dotted with tiny painted flowers, a glossy black volcano rises where a perfume bottle might stand. Molten lava glows in oversaturated reds and oranges, spilling thickly over its sides and pooling across the tray. Around it, elegant glass perfume bottles—amber, blue, and crystal—remain poised and intact, their refinement contrasting with the central eruption. Created and described by ChatGPT for “The Woman in the Perfume Department Asks What I’m Looking For.”

“The Woman in the Perfume Department Asks What I’m Looking For” * Poetry * Annie Przypyszny

aromatica poetica March 3, 2026

Something brash with a touch of bashful. An active volcano hushed by alpine snows, or some other less aggressive sister of cinnamon. But that’s for special occasions: my twenty-ninth birthday, my second twenty-ninth birthday. For everyday, I want to smell like a sixteen-year-old girl at the beach. You get what I mean— Like a saltwaterlogged corsage; like honeysuckle forced to walk the plank; like gardenias flung amok in a mid- summer sunshower. I remember hearing from some old man that …

The Rose stained glass window of Chartres Cathedral in France has provoked dreams of dispensation in the minds of worshippers for nearly eight centuries with its beautiful flower and saint motif.

“Recess” and “Dispensation” * Poetry * John Muro

aromatica poetica March 31, 2023

Recess Morning at last giving way to mid- day hours when we descended onto the schoolyard like a squabble of greedy gulls in worn white shirts, clip-on ties and plaid suspenders. Solemn decorum of early morning mass, with its luminous vernal pools of stained glass, pasty amulets and cleaving scents, now set by, we worshipped, above all else, speed and the ability to elude capture, covering the tideless expanse of asphalt as if they were on a slip- stream to …

A stone sea wall stage set with ghostly images of fuse box panels projected onto each of the three walls. In a lower corner some sand collects on the concrete floor and above the walls are blue skies and a distant seagull. By Alabaster Rhumb for Andy Slater soundscapes.

Waves & Dust & Sparks * Soundscapes + Poetic Text Descriptions * Andy Slater

aromatica poetica October 21, 2020

Memory Waves (Anchor Beach, Woodmont, Connecticut) Before storms the water rises and the trees bend. The dry sand spreads as if fingers forged branches. From the spot I watch and listen from the air is rich. Sea salt spray fro, the east and honeysuckle from the west. The helicopters spin from the trees as the wind picks up and launches domestic smells in arbitrary directions. The synthetic lemon fresh from a laundry room exhaust ,multiple households’ supper, and a rusty …

The Liars’ Asylum by Jacob M. Appel book cover tiled thrice.

‘The Liars’ Asylum: Stories’ by Jacob M. Appel – Review

aromatica poetica May 22, 2019

Some of the flora and fauna in Jacob M. Appel’s The Liars’ Asylum are real and others are made of painted silk and wire, but they are all as vibrant and memorable as the cast of characters whose lives they ornament. In this story collection published by Black Lawrence Press, Appel explores themes of love, disillusionment, and just getting along in the human condition, which is always difficult whether you are an orphan teen or a middle-age transporter of incapacitated …

“Honeysuckle: The South’s Favorite Weed” an essay by Gretchen Gales

aromatica poetica August 24, 2018

As a child, my grandfather showed me how to pick and drink the nectar from the honeysuckle that grew on the outskirts of the woods. After plucking it from the bushes, he showed me how to pinch the green ends and draw the nectar out. I always loved finding the blossoms with the most nectar and pouted in disappointment when I would find duds, tossing them to the ground. As an adult, I still reflect on honeysuckle’s influence on southern …