{"id":13676,"date":"2019-02-14T08:00:10","date_gmt":"2019-02-14T14:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/two-poems-by-james-penha\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T16:18:05","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T21:18:05","slug":"two-poems-by-james-penha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/2019\/02\/14\/two-poems-by-james-penha\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Poems by James Penha"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul class=\"wp-block-social-links is-content-justification-right is-layout-flex wp-container-core-social-links-is-layout-765c4724 wp-block-social-links-is-layout-flex\"><li class=\"wp-social-link wp-social-link-facebook  wp-block-social-link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/profile.php?id=61556140010887\" class=\"wp-block-social-link-anchor\"><svg width=\"24\" height=\"24\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.1\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" aria-hidden=\"true\" focusable=\"false\"><path d=\"M12 2C6.5 2 2 6.5 2 12c0 5 3.7 9.1 8.4 9.9v-7H7.9V12h2.5V9.8c0-2.5 1.5-3.9 3.8-3.9 1.1 0 2.2.2 2.2.2v2.5h-1.3c-1.2 0-1.6.8-1.6 1.6V12h2.8l-.4 2.9h-2.3v7C18.3 21.1 22 17 22 12c0-5.5-4.5-10-10-10z\"><\/path><\/svg><span class=\"wp-block-social-link-label screen-reader-text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n\n<li class=\"wp-social-link wp-social-link-instagram  wp-block-social-link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/boudin_mcneese\/\" class=\"wp-block-social-link-anchor\"><svg width=\"24\" height=\"24\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.1\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" aria-hidden=\"true\" focusable=\"false\"><path d=\"M12,4.622c2.403,0,2.688,0.009,3.637,0.052c0.877,0.04,1.354,0.187,1.671,0.31c0.42,0.163,0.72,0.358,1.035,0.673 c0.315,0.315,0.51,0.615,0.673,1.035c0.123,0.317,0.27,0.794,0.31,1.671c0.043,0.949,0.052,1.234,0.052,3.637 s-0.009,2.688-0.052,3.637c-0.04,0.877-0.187,1.354-0.31,1.671c-0.163,0.42-0.358,0.72-0.673,1.035 c-0.315,0.315-0.615,0.51-1.035,0.673c-0.317,0.123-0.794,0.27-1.671,0.31c-0.949,0.043-1.233,0.052-3.637,0.052 s-2.688-0.009-3.637-0.052c-0.877-0.04-1.354-0.187-1.671-0.31c-0.42-0.163-0.72-0.358-1.035-0.673 c-0.315-0.315-0.51-0.615-0.673-1.035c-0.123-0.317-0.27-0.794-0.31-1.671C4.631,14.688,4.622,14.403,4.622,12 s0.009-2.688,0.052-3.637c0.04-0.877,0.187-1.354,0.31-1.671c0.163-0.42,0.358-0.72,0.673-1.035 c0.315-0.315,0.615-0.51,1.035-0.673c0.317-0.123,0.794-0.27,1.671-0.31C9.312,4.631,9.597,4.622,12,4.622 M12,3 C9.556,3,9.249,3.01,8.289,3.054C7.331,3.098,6.677,3.25,6.105,3.472C5.513,3.702,5.011,4.01,4.511,4.511 c-0.5,0.5-0.808,1.002-1.038,1.594C3.25,6.677,3.098,7.331,3.054,8.289C3.01,9.249,3,9.556,3,12c0,2.444,0.01,2.751,0.054,3.711 c0.044,0.958,0.196,1.612,0.418,2.185c0.23,0.592,0.538,1.094,1.038,1.594c0.5,0.5,1.002,0.808,1.594,1.038 c0.572,0.222,1.227,0.375,2.185,0.418C9.249,20.99,9.556,21,12,21s2.751-0.01,3.711-0.054c0.958-0.044,1.612-0.196,2.185-0.418 c0.592-0.23,1.094-0.538,1.594-1.038c0.5-0.5,0.808-1.002,1.038-1.594c0.222-0.572,0.375-1.227,0.418-2.185 C20.99,14.751,21,14.444,21,12s-0.01-2.751-0.054-3.711c-0.044-0.958-0.196-1.612-0.418-2.185c-0.23-0.592-0.538-1.094-1.038-1.594 c-0.5-0.5-1.002-0.808-1.594-1.038c-0.572-0.222-1.227-0.375-2.185-0.418C14.751,3.01,14.444,3,12,3L12,3z M12,7.378 c-2.552,0-4.622,2.069-4.622,4.622S9.448,16.622,12,16.622s4.622-2.069,4.622-4.622S14.552,7.378,12,7.378z M12,15 c-1.657,0-3-1.343-3-3s1.343-3,3-3s3,1.343,3,3S13.657,15,12,15z M16.804,6.116c-0.596,0-1.08,0.484-1.08,1.08 s0.484,1.08,1.08,1.08c0.596,0,1.08-0.484,1.08-1.08S17.401,6.116,16.804,6.116z\"><\/path><\/svg><span class=\"wp-block-social-link-label screen-reader-text\">Instagram<\/span><\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>James Penha<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">__________<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"font-size:25px\"><strong>Uncle Ray&#8217;s Mirror<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">When, every Sunday, we arrived at The House<br>after the 12:15 mass for dinner with my grand-<br>parents and my mother\u2019s youngest sister who<br>lived there along with the eldest, Jo, the father\u2019s<br>favorite whose glass eye trembled in lieu of the real<br>one blasted with a BB by her brother when they<br>were kids, and her kids, my cousins, her husband<br>Ray sat without fail in the wing chair at the foot<br>of the staircase reading <em>The Sunday Mirror<\/em>. Not<br><em>The News<\/em> or the <em>Journal-American<\/em> sectioned<br>and scattered in piles throughout The House. No,<br>Ray looked into <em>The Mirror<\/em> like no one else. No<br>one else I knew read <em>The Mirror<\/em> . That was as queer<br>as his soft voice ever-so-slightly lilted with a sweet<br>Irish demeanored <em>Mornin\u2019 pal<\/em> in The House of Italo-<br>American passions expressed\u2014The RULE\u2014<br>only in English. I thought Ray looked like DiMaggio,<br>especially his calligraphic nose, enough to abut<br>The Family as long as he behaved himself. But he<br>didn\u2019t, disappearing for days and once for months<br>until again he sat in the wing chair with The Mirror.<br>My father, who couldn\u2019t wait himself to get home<br>every Sunday, shook Ray\u2019s hand <em>Happy<\/em> he said<br>to see him. But soon thereafter Ray was gone again<br>for good. That, much later, my mother told me Ray<br>drank too much and died in a fire in San Francisco<br>I forgot until last week when my cousin whom I called<br>on her seventieth birthday said she always thought<br>her father, like me, liked men more than Jo and had<br>some kind of a life beyond the wing chair, <em>The Sunday<\/em><br><em>Mirror<\/em>, The Family, and that lonely crowded House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">__________<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"font-size:25px\"><strong>Yellow Books<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\" style=\"font-size:18px\"><em>&#8220;Things have always impressed me this way.&#8221;<br>-Aubrey Beardsley<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">I had never seen an erection other than my own<br>before I snuck inside the book into which I heard<br>my father\u2019s friends laughing in the library<br>the night before. It lay still on the coffee table<br>under which I stretched my legs and riffled the pages<br>till I found and gasped at the prodigious phallus<br>emanating from the beautiful Spartan herald, inky<br>curls dripping round his visage and round his balls<br>as the old magistrate whose flaccid penis invited<br>laughter closed enough to kiss the head of the herald\u2019s<br>dick yet only tickled it with his index finger to make sure<br>it was real. I did the same. Lightly. Not to smudge.<br>I felt woozy and a dreamy mist in my underwear.<br>I closed the book and read its cover. <em>Lysistrata<\/em>. I knew<br>of the play from school. But these pictures! I flipped<br>the pages and saw farts and pussies and plenty of cocks<br>though none as handsome or huge as that herald\u2019s. I rose<br>and looked for the name elsewhere on the shelves.<br>Beardsley. Beardsley. Beardsley. <em>Morte d\u2019Arthur<\/em>\u2014<br>a work I\u2019d read. But not like this. A hermaphrodite?<br>tiny tits and dinky trapped within coils of barbed vines<br>daring to climb to inhale the rose\u2019s perfume? This could<br>be me. And why is King Marke who hates Tristram<br>because they both love Iseult gazing at the knight<br>with such longing\u2014Marke\u2019s finger extending just<br>as the old magistrate\u2019s\u2014when he finds him naked<br>in the wood? Because he saw at last all he wanted<br>to be? This could<br>be me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">__________<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">A native New Yorker, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jamespenha.com\"><strong>James Penha<\/strong><\/a> has lived for the past quarter-century in Indonesia. Nominated for Pushcart Prizes in fiction and poetry, his LGBTQ+ works appear in the 2017 and 2018 anthologies of both the Saints &amp; Sinners Literary Festival and the Seattle Erotic Arts Festival while his Raymond Carver fan fiction appears at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eclectica.org\/v22n3\/penha.html\"><em>Eclectica<\/em><\/a>. His essay <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/04\/17\/fashion\/gay-son-coming-out.html\">&#8220;It&#8217;s Been a Long Time Coming&#8221;<\/a> was featured in <em>The New York Times<\/em> &#8220;Modern Love&#8221; column in April 2016. Penha edits <a href=\"https:\/\/newversenews.blogspot.com\">The New Verse News<\/a>, an online journal of current-events poetry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>__________<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"438\" height=\"211\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/01\/boudin-logo-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-15484\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/01\/boudin-logo-1.jpg 438w, https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/01\/boudin-logo-1-300x145.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 438px) 100vw, 438px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-large-font-size\">&lt;&lt; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/2019\/01\/28\/spark-by-jed-myers\/\">Back<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/2019\/02\/13\/two-poems-by-joseph-sigurdson\/\">Next<\/a> &gt;&gt;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">To learn more about submitting your work to <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/boudin-submissions\/\">Boudin<\/a><\/em> or applying to McNeese State University&#8217;s Creative Writing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/mfa-application-submissions\/\">MFA program<\/a>, please visit Submissions for details.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>James Penha __________ Uncle Ray&#8217;s Mirror When, every Sunday, we arrived at The Houseafter the 12:15 mass for dinner with my grand-parents and my mother\u2019s youngest sister wholived there along with the eldest, Jo, the father\u2019sfavorite whose glass eye trembled in lieu of the realone blasted with a BB by her brother when theywere kids,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[254,17],"tags":[38,18],"class_list":["post-13676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boudin-2019-winter-edition","category-poetry","tag-jamespenha","tag-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13676"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22690,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13676\/revisions\/22690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}