Shel Graves' Sensorium

Taste: salt, water Touch: tepid water, bare skin Sight: She holds out her hand and the chickadee hops down the branch and lands on her fingertips.; white petals fingering the gray sky, the magnolia begins to blossom Smell: cinnamon bread Sound: two women, giggling over a child's antics: a cute, light, childlike sound; "Oh, look at the baby!" when there is no baby in sight; Paul Farmer, co-founder of Partners in Health, on NPR's This I Believe: Health Is A Human Right , "Of course such a world is a utopia, and most of us know that we live in a dystopia. But all of us carry somewhere within us the belief that moving away from dystopia moves us towards something better and more humane." Extra: buying a boule of mango bread, cinnamon rolls, scones, a dark chocolate scone with a lemon filling; taking off shoes to enter airport security; bike riding with a dog, it gets tangled in its leash

Taste: bitter celery Touch: the softness of new skin; cramped toes an angle of agony flex or spread to relieve it, and it returns impulsively as an ingrained habit Sight: a new product from Febreze, " Moroccan scented" laundry spray ginger and the markets of Casablanca says the ad copy, there is "Brazil" in a can as well; fingers poised on a lute, on the reed of a bagpipe, on the bow of a violin Smell: Thai massaman curry; pink rose perfume; Indian curry, a heady blend of cedar, mint, and tumeric Sound: cafe au lait not cafe ole; air moving through sculpted wood, a violin Extra: a face falling off, being arrested, losing face or, else, a singer in an Irish punk rock band

Taste — salt, of course — the gauze of it on my tongue, but also the oil slick metal under it, the residue of all the Sunday lives swirling by us. Touch — metal bar — cool beneath my hands, paint feathering, the lull of sea air and sun on my winter neck. Smell — I'm imagining it, I'm sure, the collective coffee whif from all the carried Peet's and Starbucks green circles and white-lidded sippies — Also, the irreplaceable beach drift — sand, the pickled sea, the rot of the pier. Sight — Ana, my four year old girl, points to the seal black surfers bobbing in waves, breaking through, drifting. The funny little birds that line the rail, peck at stray crumbs, make her laugh... Sound — Somehow, the ring of her laugh is all I can hear, even above the rush of ocean. Extra — I want to cement my mind to this pier, want to fix these senses, collage myself in them, but already, now, outside Northern California rain falls, the fire flickers and hums, the salt air is just a thu...

Taste: Fish, talapia, not as good as I thought it would be, a taste of the spoiled ocean just underneath, but the little wheat balls, dipped in butter, oh! my! Touch: my hand, your hand, both reaching for the dirty water glass to give the waiter, to refresh, make new, rejuvenate, a fresh start, my hand, your hand. Smell: saliva forms where cheeks can suck and hollow, tissues of anticipation swell, onion carmelizing in a pan Sight: my teeth in the spoon, checking for spinach, you are in the bathroom Sound: your words, divorce, another one, she’s left him for a woman, their little girl turns six and who gets to have the party? Extra: love’s candle between us, eye gaze, dark whispers, don’t look away, move toward the forking path where either journey ends in risk, so take the risk we do, together, stake our claim, find what’s at stake, re-claiming us. Senses courtesy of: Writer Ann Keeling

Taste: those tastes most pleasing to me, heightened, became intolerable; lemon and pine nut Touch: Palpable ovaries: "In thin premenopausal women, normal ovaries may be palpable during the pelvic examination." Sight: the elongated black Volvo 122S, the 120 Series, the Amazon manufactured from 1956-1970, driven by the theater director and one driven by Woodward and Bernstein in the film All the President's Men Smell: sour sheets Sound: "...the sibilance of satin cuffs brushing past embroidered coat skirts." — "A Musical Interlude," Suzy McKee Charnas Extra: falling in love with a photo of Lord Byron; a first experience with modern dance; in Belgium: the Manneken-Pis, dressing up statues, flowers for statues

This time, a visitor to the city leaves her senses: Taste: an Imbottito sandwich Touch: the fur behind my dog's ear Sight: a letter to my best friend Smell: a bud of Daphne wrapped in a six-year old's hand Extra: "Writing is: the science of the various blisses of language." — Roland Barthes ( The Pleasure of the Text ) Senses courtesy of: Writer Ann Keeling

Taste: the sour patch kids taste like Swedish fish, the plain strawberries taste sugared, the dill pickles taste sweet, there's no hint of alcohol in the absinthe, and the lime and the salt and vinegar potato chips crackle with an electric, intolerable saccharine: the effects of miraculin a protein from a West African berry Touch: the chalkiness of showered skin Sight: muzzles crossed and pointed like swords in a crest Smell: dill, vinegar: pickles Sound: names Selene, Clare; "having in his veins more liquor than ichor" p 202, The Island of the Day Before , Umberto Eco Extra: the exact moment of decision: not to be nice; encomium (glowing, warmly enthusiastic praise), oriflammes (an ideal inspiring devotion or courage), girandoles (ornate, branching candlesticks, radiating and showy composition)

Courtesy of: http://www.wordle.net

Taste: a pasty, cooked kidney bean Touch: Pain, scaled: Pain on a scale of one to ten with ten being the worst pain you have ever experienced in your life, the worst pain you have ever experienced in your life Sight: A man dressed as the Statue of Liberty, in a sickly green robe, the shade of oxidized copper, jumping holding a sign with an arrow that says, "Taxes"; a shell pink sunset falling over the snow-covered mountains textured by evergreen trees into fluffy looking mounds like coral; a pale crisp moon in a sky the opposite of shell pink, depths of the ocean blue; a square of flat salt and pepper ceiling in the speckled corner of which someone has hung a translucent blue mobile over the place where the patients all look up waiting; blue shadows and black holes, an ultrasound; blood, the color of Syrah, in two vials Smell: canned dog food like a stew that has sat out overnight Sound: Tasmin Little's Naked Violin , Bach, the difference between her own 1757 Guadagn...

Taste: At Balefire , a flight of red wine flavors that run down to the back of the throat and change there: fruity, smooth on the lips and tongue acidic in the throat, fruity on the lips and tongue complex and many flavored in the throat- Furion Cellars in Everett, 2006 Wicces Basium (witches kiss), Syrah, "a soft dark kiss of pleasure and flavor on the lips" Touch: paper thin skin, turning delicate wrists Smell: sweet, stinging, curious — a flight of red wine: fruity, acidic, complex; tingly, sour, fizzy like champagne Sight the middle school boy in glasses playing basketball outside his house with "Alive" blasting Sound: Eddie Vedder's ( He listened to the tape shortly before going surfing. ) husky, energizing and soothing voice, complex music tribal, rock, punk, varied rhythms; wind rushing, thrusting up under the shingles; the pop and snap of shoulder and wrist joints, circling, rising, lifting from muscle-bound bands Extra: the artfulness in complexi...

Taste: a thick warmth and end-of-harvest spice reminiscent of oranges: scotch Touch: a heavy drunk pulling you down into a leather armchair, let us talk now of safaris, "To Hemmingway!"; on introduction he takes my hand holding it for seconds and seconds, he is holding it chamois soft and it is growing, electrically, warmer. What will happen next? An Argentine Tango? I pull away, and wonder later. Smell: perfumed fragrance, three floral, chemical layers thicker than the average department store, the duty-free store Sight the nun in white with a bright pink habit flowing down her back; t-shirts: "Metaphors be with you.", " My Marxist Feminist Dialetic Brings All the Boys to the Yard" . Sound: conversation in an atrium, an indoor fountain burbles; space ray gun warbles, an airport vehicle backing up Extra: on his deathbed the World War II veteran is asked to remember, "What it is like to kill someone? What does it do to your humanity?" These...