Shel Graves' Sensorium

Taste: champagne Sight: light of yellow, orange, and purple; pluot red; Steller's Jay, Cedar Waxwing , Purple Finch ; Butter-Butt Touch: a light touch on the seventh chakra Sound: sotto voce; "Q: What's a little chocolate between friends? A: More than friends." Smell: the dark-haired waitress' perfume; attar, crushed roses; Anastasia : Champa absolute, Civet, Dogwood, Fresh Snow, Green Tea, Honeysuckle, White Patchouli; flowering blue lotus Extra: the lotus meditation, a black pearl; she wears her hair hung in a snood of jewels, he wears his hair braided with gold chains and looped from gold clasps in a circlet round his head; "...for utopia to become a reality, each individual must have the courage to harbor utopia within.", "Love...is the Universe's soul — indissoluble and indestructible.", and "The world and all its forms belong to Eros, and when everything is ended love will persist." — "Gazelle," Rikki Ducorne...

Taste: nut oil sunflower seeds Sight: roseate sky; toes touch my navel in reflection; smoke spirals; ruby red Ginger Zinger (brilliant, blended beets) Touch: rivulets dripping Sound: vuvuzelas; "We Want Your Soul ," Adam Freeland Smell: orange chestnut smoke Extra: "The wise man lets go of all results, whether good or bad, and is focused on the action alone." — Bhagavad Gita "When I let go, my whole life becomes a work of art. My actions become beneficial to myself and others." — Rolf Gates, Meditations from the Mat "Have I walked long enough where the sea breaks raspingly all day and all night upon the pale sand? Have I admired sufficiently the little hurricane of the hummingbird? The heavy thumb of the blackberry? The falling star?" — Mary Oliver "there is nothing left in your memory of the fierce sea that lifted a wave and knocked down a dark apple from the tree. The only thing you remember is your life." — Pablo Neruda "...

Taste: green papaya Sight: chickadee; an "o"; an orgasmic guitar strummed below the belt, perpendicular, at an angle Touch: burning toes diving into shallow shoes Sound: singing underwater ala Peter Murphy; a scratchy whispered woman's darkness, it is not her usual singing voice; metal scraping on enamel Smell: citrus, sweet orange, bergamot; the cologne of a man in a muscle shirt upholding a six pack exiting through the automatic doors Extra: afraid of everything, in a box, in a cage; he will be 80, he is still logging; he's been married so long he thinks nothing of carrying her sequined black handbag across the street in sunlight