Shel Graves' Sensorium

Taste: apple pie and black butte porter, sweet yeast and hops and butter and cinnamon Touch: swaying on waves, tepid water and wind, chill on wet skin Sight: fluffs of fur like opening cattails; a towel Emperor penguin six-feet tall and grotesque, a mouse towel hiding under the sheets; greys and blues Alaska ocean, mist, fog, mountains and sky Smell: sweet ocean; chamomile, aloe, papaya, grapefruit - a facial Sound: sputtering gasps, humpback whales breeching; "Here, dear!" Extra: an apartment in New York City, driving around town; an orca leaping overhead; a peach dress with a princess cut and a flouncy tulle skirt worn to a high school reunion for artists

Taste: A vampire (Cape Cod plus Chambord): vodka, cranberry juice, lime, black raspberry liquor Touch: her plush cheeks and brow, a pink, powdery softness Sight: sedated she shrinks and shimmers becoming delicate and fey like in her hospital gown; "Given enough coffee you can rule the world" Smell: acrid pulp mill scent in a pocket outside an apartment Sound: Lost world music God Shall Be Praised, Music from Lune Convent , features music from a cloister first established in the year 1170; "The Wrong Side," Abney Park , "I run where the darker kids run on the dark stained streets where the black rain runs."..."I dance where the darker crowds dance in the pitch black clubs in a blood-stained trance."; muzzy: confused or muddled in mind Extra: timeless and timely knowledge, why we still read Plato, the last page of Critias , "They bore their vast wealth of gold and other possessions without difficulty, treating them as if they were a b...

Taste: dutch chocolate roasted almond cookie; mild sweetness fresh papaya, plum, honeydew melon Touch: Body awareness: Put one hand over your closed eyes. Reach your other hand out at chest height. Touch your actual chest. Reach your hand out at chest height.; prickly glide of a weeping juniper Sight: Telephone pole spellcraft: "May you have the life you want without taking from another, as may I." G.E.M.; a magenta spire of clover in flower Smell: new mown, alfalfa, hay, fresh clover Sound: A guitar strums, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," giggling Extra: precognitive cello music; The Tree Project living Ecotopia , "documenting the life and transformation of one tree from forest to fine furniture"

Taste: tart red grapes Touch: skin softened by kukui nut lotion Sight: a dark funnel cloud passes over the moon, a cat's eye slice of silver skimming the orb Smell: fresh verbena Sound: is affected by estrogen Extra: We belong in paradise: Why music touches us.; parcour; a glittery cookie cutout in the shape of a fairy, cream-filled, three-inches high

Taste: the sweetness of raw pecans Touch: damp ground, rough bark, sitting on the earth, under the sky, and beside a tree on May Day evening Sight: giraffe-like in jeans she walks, wobbling, on stilt-stick legs, knees bigger than the thighs swivel in, shrunken hips swivel out, jerking her off balance, an anorexic gait; sequined mules; a small space enclosed in reflective black tile; her hands, epees, describe fencing, from a distance, concentrating on striking a small square, a window focused on the tip of your chin, your neck, and your upper chest to the top of your heart Smell: sage smoke, fuel (paraffin and white gas) and cigarettes Sound: classical music: violins, drums, cellos from inside, a brain symphony playing into silence Extra: a dream: beating my fists against the orange floor in futile anger, a parody of passion