PERVERSE issue 4D
Neiva
De Siqueira
Scalpello
Obbo
Sears
Hullo there,
Here is the fourth part of PERVERSE issue 4 - a spicy start to the week! I keep thinking I should write grand long editorials (maybe I will at some point) but for now I just want to let the poems do the talking. Enjoy!
With warmest wishes,
Chrissy
PERVERSE Editor
(FYI if you are reading this on a mobile phone, it may be best to turn the phone sideways. Some of the poems are displayed as images, so make sure you’ve clicked “show images” at the top of this mail. If you'd rather read these poems in a PDF you can do so here, along with previous instalments of this issue.)
Bruno Neiva
After after
after Terry Eagleton
latex should be fun slip a knife you and your friends would do just as well vintage swept the globe the most tasteless wallpaper cinderella’s slipper erotic hardware or the floating signifier silent about the bermuda triangle crack paddy fields crop circles the same figures can be seen from one end to the other bodily habits boxes chic or the floating signifier holding heads in water for long periods of time so it was rumoured de haut en bas in the guts and genitals a kind of homoeopathy draw up a balance sheet it is true to misquote how the old tummy is getting along the bad old days pigeon fanciers belle-lettrists faute de mieux the bar who decides where the lines end completely at a loss a free-for-all as suggested before drying toothbrushes at night former miss world impossible to localize being a giraffe taking an early morning swim might somehow get you into trouble
E.R. De Siqueira
Agustín Goes Commando
Peter Scalpello
fruit bowl
Obella Obbo
chicken nuggets
i’m not ashamed to say I’ve touched myself
to the thought of taking you into my mouth
i’m least afraid of telling you I love you
in fact, it’s the fearlessness that brings me unease
my preying eyes begging for the sensation of your skin
i shudder
tenderizing my muscles to better serve you
there’s something about the release of your presence
that makes my bones ache
to rebuild themselves
into an image you crave
i’m sorry for my wanting
i’m sorry for the way it will misshape my longing for you
it is authenticity given eden
it is freedom
crisp thoughts of you fall like flakes at my waist
my tongue is wet with your juicy memory
your eyes voice smile still stained on my fingers
i can’t help but lick them clean
Ben Sears
Dry Spell
When it’s been a little while,
and confidence has been affected,
I remember a Roman Emperor saying:
‘It is no more than the friction of a membrane,
and a spurt of mucus ejected.’
Contributor Notes
Bruno Neiva
https://brunoneiva.weebly.com/
Bruno Neiva is a text artist and poet.
Note on ‘After after’:
“‘After after’ is a cento after Terry Eagleton’s After Theory presented in the form of an inner monologue.”
E.R. De Siqueira
http://erdesiqueira.tumblr.com
E.R. De Siqueira is a Latino poet from Brazil. He read English at UFMG, currently pursuing an MA in Literature. Poetry works have appeared in Mein schwules auge – My Gay Eye – Berlin Edition, Magma, harana poetry, Hawai’i Review, Tenebrae: a Journal of Poetics, and others. He tries to avoid (sometimes successfully) writing ekphrastic lyric poetry or mentioning Frank O’Hara in every poem he writes.
Note on ‘Agustín Goes Commando’:
“This poem is part of this series I call #camboys. I was inspired by the explicit eroticism which is so latent in the works of Dennis Cooper, Wayne Koestenbaum, Bruce LaBruce, Slava Mogutin. After reading Cooper’s series ‘Boys2brelocated’, from his most recent book of poems, I started to explore the language of amateur porn cams and chat rooms, writing a kind of ekphrastic lyric poems about amateur & porn models.”
Peter Scalpello
https://twitter.com/p_scalpello
Peter Scalpello is a queer poet and sexual health therapist from Glasgow, currently living in East London. His work has been published internationally. His debut pamphlets will be published by Broken Sleep Books in March 2021.
Note on ‘fruit bowl’:
“The poem was written out of the irony and existential conflict of my professional role, versus my capacity for compulsivity and contradiction. As both a therapist and a therapy client, I question hypocrisy in therapeutic dynamics, an association critiqued in the body. I attempted to reflect this sense of visceral rejection and the power of proximity in a ‘queering’ of the sonnet form; impulse, curve and cycle; the fruitless penis.”
Obella Obbo
https://twitter.com/obellaobbo
Obella Obbo is an emerging writer from Maryland currently doing Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion work. He studied creative writing in undergrad while working towards his Masters in Clinical Psychology. He works to integrate mental health and healing into his artistic expression while engaging with the complex work of identity development.
Note on ‘chicken nuggets’:
“‘chicken nuggets’ is a classic unrequited love poem, but more about the reckless lust for someone with whom you share a close intimate bond. It plays on this deep yearning, but it’s also fun, sexy, and very casual.”
Ben Sears
Benjamin Sears is a poet based in the Vale of Glamorgan, south Wales. He’s interested in nature and philosophy, as well as dreary, mundane and bleak things. He works in environmental policy and as a bereavement volunteer.
Note on ‘Dry Spell’:
“I’m obsessed with Greco-Roman philosophy, and Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations is a trove of inspirational and eloquent stoic quotes. I love this quote because although it’s not particularly eloquent or inspirational, it does provide some comfort for those of us weathering a ‘dry spell’.”