Surgilube (Round 7)
Let’s workshop this poem about how a nurse's jerking off a patient can serve to restore our faith in the future of humanity--yes, even against the swelling tide of bureaucracy.
scent of the day: Homa, by Prin
Homa (2020)—a rotten-green chypre as unsettling as the Icelandic hákarl (fermented shark) that famously made Anthony Bourdain recoil (its Arsalan-level challenge quotient solidifying Prin Lomros, for better or worse, as the Chuck Palahniuk of perfumery)—
takes the Thai-cuisine framework of Chypre-Siam (airy-bright kaffir lime leaf, jasmine, civet, benzoin, warm spices) and, swapping oakmoss for a just-as-good-if-not-better caricature (bitter-earthy galbanum and spikenard evoking forest rot, fungal-rooty myrrh and mushroom and costus conjuring damp soil), tosses in a quirky melange of ingredients that bring the composition in an unmistakable goat-curry direction that makes its leather cousin Varuek look clean:
various curry spices (cinnamon, black pepper, clove, ginger, turmeric, cardamom, cumin, nutmeg, fennel) plus various a greasy combo of costus and goat’s hair and ghee that make it hard not to think of at least some sort of wooly ruminant especially when coupled with the oud duo (Assam and Lao) that, while focused is less on the mildewy rind than on the overripe cheese itself, is quite close aroma-wise to what we get from the Cambodian-Trat oud combo in Arsalan (the scorched-earth smokiness of Laotian oud bringing acrid-mineral tones of engine grease, tar-encrusted sandalwood, sunbaked bandages, and lacquered teakwood; the barn-floor pungency of Indian oud bringing fecal-hay tones of, cumin-flecked compost, smoked leather, infected cyst cheese, and musky goat pen)—
the overall effect, for all the dry-down’s elven glow of silver (almost the same shimmering grace of Zoologist Squid, except here we get the dank-leathery loam pit in which a mentholated witch fire burns rather than the inky-aqueous brine of a sea concocted in a simulation by extraterrestrials to help us feel more at home on our Vega star system travel), amounting to a fermented and feral concoction that, while situating us in a forest scene (unwashed goats, some wandering around and others mere pelts drying in the sun) where the air of overripe pastes and bitter-aromatic herbs and warm spices and heated fats suggests a slow-simmering curry in the background, ultimately plunges the nose into charred and ashy greenery deep enough to evoke a pyre ceremony of some earthbound tribe:
an ass-sweat loincloth people not only who burn the weirdest incense bundles (herbs, pinewood, frankincense tears, myrrh resin, and tons of goat hair all tied together and lit and wafted about like Santeria rosemary-thyme-palo-santo bundles, only here after being soaked in urine and then sundried), but also who are embedded (like hoarders in their house trash) in a dense and immersive stank of carnality (cowpat hyraceum, sunbaked-piss civet, shower-due jasmine, scalp-sebum costus, dried-sweat cumin, perineum-ass musk, barn-dung Indian oud, heated-hoof Laotian oud, and rawhide castoreum).
Surgilube
Pent-up voltage jacked out of their bedridden loins
by a matronly yet militant grip (clinical, but only where
it counts: in resolve), shearing twists of friction more
often than not spicing the empathetic up-down (two high
one full, two high one full, a few fulls, and back again,
only—balls beaten up by collateral grace—less careful
in the down stroke); blankets thrashing too savagely,
muffling the gooey macaroni of amplified insect scuttle
too pitiably, to be anything more than formality, a titty
with luck kerplunked out right at the merciful moment;
quivering relief wiped down with a damp rag inexplicable
in its near tong-worthy warmth, hummed song soothing
the aftershocks of nether bluster (but rarely slipping,
despite the mess, into baby talk detrimental to dignity)—
CCTV footage confirms too many overworked angels
in scrubs (pink, blue) for us to lose faith in humanity
just yet: a gentle current of scented nurses, some saintly
enough to hush even the most insistent eyeball nudges
to bedside wallets (“Ssh. Just relax now.”), dishing out
farmer clemency upon the marooned in their charge
(old men unvisited, young men mummified in casts
leaving their every itch an immersion into stoicism),
ensouled people (more to them than mere billing codes)
left glowing (“Dad never looked so happy in his life!”).
Too humane (weaving in moans) to be called “heretical,”
too violent (biting their own lips) to be called “tender”—
such helping hands, their Kafka-tributing nerve to piston
(glop glop glop) right under the fluorescence of compliance,
safekeep the flickering hope that true respect, true TLC,
might survive bureaucracy’s metrics-transfixed crusade
to chloroform all rawness and spontaneity, to cauterize
even tenderness far from taboo, for the sake of ensuring
a safe space embalmed and bleached by smiley protocol,
a space right out of the unwet dreams of HR personnel:
where the good must say “unalived” instead of “killed”;
where “honey,” “sweetheart,” “darlin” are problematic
endearments, contraband if cooed by privileged mouths;
where it is “problematic” for office men to gather too long
around the water cooler, historical epicenter of patriarchy;
where office doors must gape open despite visitor tears;
where discourse must follow call-center script, bloodless
(matching the mandated wall paint of anti-anxiety beige);
where handing over extra shelter blankets to the battered
requires a four-page “Exceptional Supply Request Form”;
where burn-unit aides get put “on disciplinary notice”
for exceeding the 240 second sponge-bath limit, a hand
trembling to be held immaterial to “efficiency metrics”;
where “employees and staff are hereby strictly forbidden
from bringing in food without notice,” lest it “blindside
those of us dealing with chronic caloric over-indexing”;
where at least two caretakers must be present to prevent
breaches, even just leaning in too close to listen better.