toejam

A hard yarn twangs the tension and fires its broad arrow out of a grim space of Old Australian smells: toejam, tomato sauce, semen and dead singlets the solitary have called peace but which is really an unsurrendered trench.

1987, Les A[llan] Murray, “Aspects of Language and War on the Gloucester Road”, in The Daylight Moon, Manchester: Carcanet Press Limited, published 1988, →ISBN, page 85

devils like elvis & pat boone who never duck-walked back in the alley with you & bo diddley, little richard & the fatman from new orleans all yall slapping down songs meaner than the smell of toejam & rot-gut whiskey breath back there, in them back rooms

1991, Quincy Troupe, “Poem for the Root Doctor of Rock n Roll”, in Weather Reports: New and Selected Poems, New York, N.Y.; London: Harlem River Press, →ISBN, page 165

I clapped along sedately during the aarti, constantly making sure my pallu stayed over my head, but somehow, I couldn’t get myself to pray. The fact that there was a definite smell of toejam lurking below the incense didn’t help.

2010, Anuja Chauhan, chapter 10, in Battle for Bittora, Noida, Uttar Pradesh: HarperCollins Publishers India, →ISBN, page 296