My nose is not with me
even as I felt for it
on my face, it is not there
yet I see the gore putrefying
under the noonday sun,
all around the busy square
without the putrescence
it seemed somewhat appealing.

In the place where I stroll
at the cobbled city hub,
by the banks of a viscous river
unsightly with scraggly lilies,
among urban fecal flotsam
yet without the redolence
my mind anticipated
it looked lovely.

It had an insistent charm,
that I was seeing, feeling
but not smelling,
life couldn't be so bad
without having to smell
the sordid realities at the
edges of our existence.

Eddie Roa

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/don-t-smell-the-roses/