Shel Graves' Sensorium

Taste: plum and honey, crushed plums squeezed into juice dripping into honey: mead with juice, a braggot Touch: a sweat drenched shirt Sight: faint pink, plum-stained light Smell: cherry blossoms Sound: "The church it was huge. It was like Costco."; a mantra of preventative medicine : "orange, okra, kiwi, red pepper, apple, cucumber, tomato, avocado, zucchini, blueberries, strawberries, green pepper, raspberries, butternut squash, pumpkin, blackberries, mangoes, eggplant, pear, watermelon, cranberries, acorn squash, papaya, grapefruit, peach" Extra: allowing synchronicity in, encountering the book the woman in the hospital waiting room says, "Will change your life."; the diet books and the nutrition books are kept on different shelves — Why do people talk so much about diet and so little about nutrition? Why do health care centers advertise heavily?

Taste: fried egg and soy sauce Touch: the softness — down, bunny fur, silk — of her head is her super power. It saves her from a life of cruelty and hurt, the one thing that makes people reach out for her gently when in every other way she would be abused. It would not be the same softness mounted. It exists only in animation becoming in the moment of death dry and dull. The softness fades when her soul departs. Sight: his hash marked scarred and freckled forearms, claws, scratches, bites: the veterinarian; grief condenses in her forehead, hangs heavily at the corners of her eyes, drips down the crevasses in the lines around her mouth and pools in the pout of her lower lips Smell: a cherry cigar; sweet, wet, mown lawn and wet, soiled dog fur Sound: "What, are you stupid?" "Well, the last time I was in treatment..."; Ecclesiastes 7:3-5 "It is better to spend your time at funerals than at festivals. For you are going to die and it is a good thing to think ...

Taste: Mold, Dry Fungus, Unbleached Cotton Touch: Sticky, wet, cold yet confident Sight: Rain before it comes, humidity without the heat, Moisture overclouding the sun Sound: Classical impatience, veiled concern in a vernacular known for indifference Extra: I am the tax woman who just returned from a run where I raced the rain. My mouth is dry and my fingertips are cold, but my passions run high. Senses courtesy of writer Natasha Oliver. Read some of her works at http://www.natashaoliver.com .

Writer Ann Keeling has started her own catalogue of the senses at http://annkeeling.com , Coming to My Senses: Perceiving the World Through Stimulus

Taste: burnt sugar, molasses, licorice Touch: slick skin Sight: a handful of sparkling blue-green folded hemispheres Smell: fetor: sour, putrid epileptic dog piss Sound: baying, bass drums, growling, moaning, didgeridoo, whining, synthesizer, echoing voices, discomfited dogs and plaintive pleas, "Help me.": the vet's office and Apoptygma Berserk Extra: She is the woman who holds them down while he draws their blood. On sight, he howls and backs away. The wild, unpredictable, instinctual animal even in a Golden Lab.; She sheds her eyes' skin.; grotesque penguins, insane graves, monstrous mounds, alien exoticism, viscous agglutinations, opalescent haze, igneous manifestations, cryptical darkness, blasphemous tunnels, austral worlds, and degenerate murals — H.P. Lovecraft, "At the Mountains of Madness"

Taste: berry-tinged gelatinous sugar, "Famous for Pie!" Touch: raindrops: the cold, large splashes that fall from awnings Sight: black, black, teal, red, white, white, white, cherry red, forest green, orange — a row of cars, matchbox size, seen from a high rise in downtown Bellevue Smell: apple cider, a barrel of organic apples outside the co-op Sound: Daft Punk, "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger," and The Cure, "Forest," at the same time, timelessly Extra: 400 Philippine eagles remain. Question, "What is the minimum number of animals needed for genetic diversity?"; the $500,000-$9 million, 43 story, downtown condominiums being built by 800 immigrants. In the lobby, she wears shiny patent leather heals. He wears designer jeans with embroidered pockets. At the end of the day they will look down on everyone. Going down, in the unfinished elevator, the men speak Ukranian and Mexican on opposite sides of the machine and wear hardhats plaster...

Taste: carrot dip with harissa , a North African hot red sauce or paste made from chili peppers and garlic, often with coriander and caraway or cumin. Touch: feeling the spring thaw from the inside out, the first warmth of the year Sight: a green Cadillac hearse; She has Edward Gorey beauty: a perfect, round face with pink pursed lips and long straight hair.; She has calves shaped exactly like Jack's Sally in The Nightmare Before Christmas , an elongated thickness. Smell: tea, an earthy peat like a rainforest floor Sound: The sound of trickling water from behind an office wall. He's typing on the waterfall keyboard. Extra: She says, "Why don't you just not think about it?"; He says, "Shouldn't you be at home drinking champagne and eating bon-bons?"

Taste: lemon cream-cheese filling in blueberry blintzes Touch: spring air Sight: a wealth of houses, a neighborhood street lined with cars; a lilac colored sky; a man in a motorized wheelchair with protruding blue belly pulled by a reddish dachshund Smell: the pine scent of the lobby at Salish Lodge; an urban street: warmed grime and urine and a video store scent drifting out on to the street: moldy, melting plastic Sound: ambient music, jazz, and violins, a fireplace fan Extra: The three times he was in Paris at three very different, significant times of his life.; cabbage and corn flour versus infinite variety aka spiced mango dipped in chiles and chocolate

Taste: Irish Whiskey, watery coffee Touch: legs sore: stomping, jumping; neck sore: headbanging; pelvis sore: rough sex, and music Sight: He sits on the edge of the stage and all the hands below, come up fingers splayed over his soaking wet skin.; She cannot control her body's movements. Arms clutched around chest. Chin propped in her hand. Momentarily still, but then she must go forward in line and everything lurches. Smell: the doorman's cologne Sound: pre-teen skater boys, the leader: "What the hell?" The little brother: "He was choking me!" The leader: "So?" Extra: A neural artist: http://www.brainwavechick.com/