Shel Graves' Sensorium

Taste: nutty, mash balls of black-eyed peas, eaten on New Year's bring good luck (but when?) Touch: wet hands, water, dog slobber, administering the potassium bromide Smell: cinnamon, egg, butter, raisins — warm zucchini bread Sight: bright red skin tight pants on the boy, so punk!; Loretta Lux photos of perfect, creepy, children Sound: assonance: plait, saint; onomatopoeia: snorfed — Carol Guess reads from Tinderbox Lawn Extra: Vast Active Living Intelligence System, VALIS by Philip K. Dick; phylogenic memory=memory of the species; wishing for a world in which fans clamor for poets to take requests when creating their set lists for readings

Taste: unsweetened raspberry jam Touch: bundled Smell: cinnamon, maple, egg, bread in the morning - french toast Sight: a man in a blue body suit; the cubed amethyst colored glass looking up at a city street from inside a Steampunk-esque underground Seattle bar Sound: picking a mandolin Extra: Aerobotron — experimental art and modern dance cleverly passing as cabaret

Taste: St. Germaine's Elderberry Liqueur in champagne with huckleberries, an Inaugural Toast, with Optimism Cake , maple flavored truffle and chocolate ganache Touch: the smooth champagne flute Smell: mint tea, black tea, oolong tea, green tea Sight: sunlight in water, glints at the top of each shingle catching the light again and again in a random pattern; drops falling from the barren tree branches adorned in falling beads of white light; the berries float through the fizzy lifting drink in the glass Sound: Lesotho fatsi la botata rona in classical movements, Daniel Carr's composition Extra: a dream that takes place on watery floor tiles

Taste: overly sweet tartness, citrus Touch: slimy, a sisal sponge soaked in stale water and lye; dripping juice on chin, cheek and fingers Smell: a hint of patchouli in the wood-burning smoke-tinged air as if the whole town were trying to disguise its love for pot Sight: the Gothic implications of a rusting wrought-iron fence; if the manikins are so chic dressed in torn shopping bags, why must I be enticed to buy the expensive clothing inside the boutique? Sound: the rhythmic printer's raspy hum, hum, hum Extra: the hot air balloons float down the sides of the canyon painted with the claws and faces of cats leering like the demons in Japanese fairy tales; running ahead of the men in white holding their strings looking up at a scene like Burning Man, where everything at eye-level is coated in a matte of white alkaline dust but the sky remains strikingly blue and the colors in it are vivid, I race ahead of the balloons so that I can hear the sound a magnificent swoosh, a flock ...

Taste: tart berries in winter Touch: lumpy shifting coffee beans inside a foil bag; the sting of cold, the sting when metal unexpectedly strikes a knuckle, the sting of metal and cold together Smell: oppressive singed metal, an electric heater Sight: bluish headlights peer through the night and fog on the rain soaked freeway; the thirtysomething women modern dancers in long men's shirts and tights creating a carefree summer's day on stage in movement Sound: bluegrass, twangs, strings, banjo, and husky, vibrating male and female voices, the men have mustaches, blue jeans, pot-bellies, and wild gray hair Extra: amrita, the nectar of immortality; seismic shaking inside, in the belly, fission — betrayal; locating feelings in the body: horror in the gut, false hope in the shoulders and feet, true promise in the head and heart; how the heart is the only body part without which we immediately stop

Taste: the light sweet sour of fresh pomegranate Touch: the crisp, smooth-sided, fluid-filled packets with slim seeds inside Smell: a room cloyed with cinnamon potpourri Sight: shades of blue across the darkening winter sky and the silhouettes of fir trees Sound: "Because he's a Spartan!", "And in the sequel they start a punk rock band.", a male quipping in the row ahead, making his girlfriend laugh Extra: The Sleeping Gypsy by Henri Rousseau. A self-taught artist Rousseau started painting in his forties to critical review. The jungle scenes he’s best known for are works of pure imagination. His sources were illustrated books and visits to the zoo and botanical gardens in Paris; These three gray hairs appeared in grad school, his own teaching high school English.

Taste: sugar coconut, sugar peanut butter, sugar dark chocolate, sugar milk chocolate, sugar butter, sugared cashews, peanuts, and almonds. It's all sweet, sweet. Touch: slip feet and torque knees walking downhill on snow and ice Smell: winter, ice water, tinged with a faint odor of earth Sight: crème and burgundy red on a winter wedding dress; a small crème house with burgundy shutters on the same street Sound: the stream trickles at the bottom of the cliff through the snow; a voice flat and slow and absent of pride ("I was part of that.") versus a voice high pitched enthusiastic; "On the day it came out, all of my friends were reading Harry Potter instead of hanging out with me; on my 18th birthday." said the (male) barista (I want to say barister, close to a judge.) Extra: Keep doing the things you want to be able to do, this includes walking and raising your arms overhead; "The idea of the elephant is imperishable." artist Gregory Colbert...