Ode to the Odious

by Kyla Houbolt

Because what else is there to do?

Oh you can think of many things,

is that so? Well, I’m not you.

Here I am, trying to enjoy

the whine of a leafblower and already

you’re quibbling about my title.

And you’re not even real! I imagined you!

You are probably one of those people

who say “without the unpleasant in life

we’d never know or have the delights” and

how do you know? Is there anyone who has

experienced fully the absence of utter suck

for long enough to, what, get bored

with the sunset? With love even? Of course

I mean the right love, not that kind that

clings and stalks which is not love at all

and sure, how would I know without the contrast?

Enough of this argument in which I have

found myself contending against my own

title. There is a chemical in the makeup

of odors and scents which by itself

is loathsome, redolent of excrement,

but which is necessary to the finest

and most expensive perfumes, those of

rose and rare floral components. Without

that stink, they fall flat.

Stink on, ugly old world, give us more

and gnarlier challenges to love, give

us the most twisted perilous road

to peace, give us a hatred that comes

to a very end, turns on itself,

dissolves, withers away, alchemizes

into the life giving shine of the Sun.

Kyla Houbolt is a poet and gardener living in North Carolina, USA. Both “Mr. N+0” and “Ode to the Odious” will appear in Becoming Altar, New and Selected Poems, forthcoming from Subpress Collective in the fall of 2025. Website , Bluesky, (she/her)

Image credit: Hilma af Klint (Swedish, 1862-1944) The Swan, No. 12, Group IX-SUW (1915) Artvee.com