Shel Graves' Sensorium

Taste: ricotta cheese, cool, light tang and the contradiction of smooth grit texture Touch: my foot tucked comfortably into the crevasse of my knee and thigh Smell: roasted garlic, you both want to escape it and ingest it Sound: words repeated over and over gaining depth and layers, sinking in Sight: a yoga studio's cathedral ceiling Extra: inner quiet, abscence of thought and domesticity: on the United Nations International Day of Peace

Taste: an assault of butter, fortifing winter fats that linger on the tongue Touch: a thick seat cushion, sinking into a roomy chair Smell: a sweet, spicy stench on the front porch, the neighbors are cooking pork sausage or Kimberly-Clark is polluting again Sound: Tom Shear's voice rises out of the depths and shimmers, there's peace and power like an arching whale Sight: gliding over the water and seeing the rocks below through the light green shallows, a bird's view, a bright blue day across the ocean, this is like an amusement ride: taking the Sounder home along the bay on a Friday afternoon Extra: the cliche of a classic anxiety dream; and busy, anxious but with a half smile

Touch: a tuft of matted fur Taste: acid tang of red wine so potent it makes the glass cry and lures a dozen fruit flies to their death Sound: the blare of a horn, the straining of cellos Sight: corridors, of evergreen trees straight green sides into the sky along the gray car clotted freeway, framing a flock of crows that rise black arcs intermittently over the street Smell: the faint caramel, singed sugar, egg of flan Extra: a relief of adjectives, equilibrium - the sad press of unexercised days exorcised by good company

Touch: the taut triangle of the bow arm Taste: beans flavored with an anise gravy Sound: woot! woot!, attempting to make a purring catcall and not quite getting our tongues around it Sight: a splash of hibiscus tea, red and pink, and startling in the white sink. a glimpse of a fat woman in a car holding a corn dog in the mouth at an odd angle, also startling Smell: calming, sensual pine massage oil disconcertingly on the dog's head Extra: Hesse's Steppenwolf: "In reality, however, every ego, far from being a unity is in the highest degree a manifold world, a constellated heaven, a chaos of forms, of states and stages, of inheritances and potentialities." and "...it would be better for our country and our world in general, if at least, the few people who were capable of thought stood for reason and the love of peace instead of heading wildly with a blind obsession for a new war."

Touch: the rubbery cool tackiness of two thick coats of latex paint not quite dry Taste: cinnamon spiced cherries Sound: the stick-tearing of an envelope lifted from peeling tacky paint Sight: Montpeiler Red Velvet Smell: burnt sage to purify auras for the palm reader Extra: a dream of a room of water mazes: tunnels, shoots and slides. There is no way to get to the pool to watch the swimmers without getting wet.