Seroconversion Cruising Grounds
Let’s workshop this poem about anal sex versus vaginal sex
scent of the day: Kyphi, by Olympic Orchids
Kyphi (2011, Ellen Covey)—a citrus-incense fragrance that priotizes minimalist depth rather than maximalist breadth in capturing ancient Egypt (more like, that is to say, a zoom in on a sunbaked funerary jar fragrant with mummification-ritual offerings as opposed to some panoptic survey of the landscape in which such offerings would be made)—
presents a mélange of ceremonial resins (powdered-almond benzoin, fossilized-honey beeswax, ethereal-lemon olibanum, book-leather labdanum, bitter-medicinal myrhh) whose fertile-crescent naturalism is deepened by rooty-earthy notes reminsicnet of Meo Fuscinuni’s Varanasi (aquatic-reedy calamus, baked-clay cypriol, musky-mossy spikenard) and pungent bazaar spices (cinnamon-camphor cassia, leather-hay saffron, lemon-eucalyptus cardamom, numbing-anesthetic clove),
the serious gravitas of such an ambery concoction (grave, though, in a desiccated-dust way rather than a bubbly-molasses way) given a counterbalancing bright animation by green aromatics (green-tea henna, gin-pine juniper) and a combo of spa-herb lemongrass rindy-rustic orange that—especially in concert with the central players (olibanum and myrrh)—impart such a quintessential orange-candy soda vibe that I can imagine that it is what Andy Tauer would have created if Gordon Ramsey (picture him pacing a Cairo-based Hell’s Atelier) demanded that he recreate Sacred Scarab or at least a fragrance deserving of the name in a speed challenge (“Fourty-five minutes, Andy—no synthetics. Now fuck off!”)—
the overall result being a spicy-resinous fragrance that, in addition to boasting a one-hundred-percent natural profile, contains some notes rather unique to my collection such as henna, a plant whose leaf dye was used in ancient Egypt (especially during mummy and marriage ceremonies) to give hair and nails a reddish-brown stain, and calamus, a psychoactive herbal constituent in the Kyphi incense ancient Egyptians burned for spiritual purification;
the overall result being, in other words, a spicy-amber fragrance that fits in the tradition of perfumes (Anubis, Spell 125, and Sacred Scarab are the main others in my collection) meant to evoke ancient Egypt in some fashion, coming closest perhaps to Sacred Scarab albeit with some crucial differences:
(1) although both present rich kyphi accords (labdanum, benzoin, olibanum, myrrh, juniper), Kyphi (given its sheer breath of defining resins, roots, and spices) nails the herbal aromatic olfactory fingerprint common to various recipes we have discovered on ancient papyrus (especially with the use of calamus) whereas Sacred Scarab (although including an red wine note and dried fruits essential to the fermented feel) nails more of a generic ancient-middle-eastern aroma
(2) although both nail ancient Egypt, Kyphi is much more zoomed-in ceremonial intensity upon a specific artifact of the culture (like an urn or a scroll or polished wood or sticky vault wall or, perhaps most accurately, the ash residue of kyphi incense burning, even the caked kyphi resin scraped from altar undersides like marijuana kief) whereas Sacred Scarab (deathscape and lifescape, dust and water, in one) zooms out beyond the incense char to give us the whole priestly-pharmacopoeia mindset and indoor-outdoor setting (diorama set design) full of libation pouring and body soaping and mummy wrapping and pelt hanging and grass growing and even water running (the blue lotus and calone combo evoking the Nile much more forcefully than any aqueous element that calamus brings);
(3) although both give a naturalistic feel, Kyphi is famed to be fully natural (surprising giving how long it endures) whereas Sacred Scarab clearly relies on synthetics (ambroxan and calone being some obvious contenders) and (especially due to the aldehydes) comes off much more performatively (a body paraded in couture-champagne celebration near a Nile lagoon instead of being rubbed by somber hands with oil and wafted with smoke in hushed temple sepulchers like in Kyphi);
(4) although both have leather elements, Kyphi is more focused on the aromatic side of things whereas Sacred Scarab gives us a richer more animalic leather for a greater tension between shimmering citrus extroversion (West Coast in US terms) and primal somber introspection (East Coast in US terms).
Seroconversion Cruising Grounds
A death corona of fecal sludge
pools at the hilt
of the continence-wrecker, waveform
contour fluctuating
with every pullback,
like a time-lapsed beach’s scuzzy scum line—
an inversion, demonic
as toes-ever-inward ballet,
of the life corona of cervical mucus.
"Seroconversion Cruising Grounds" is a profoundly unsettling and viscerally graphic poem that delves into themes of illicit sexual encounter, disease, and the grotesque intersection of pleasure and peril. It operates as a stark, uncompromising piece within the body horror lyric tradition, using explicit physiological imagery to evoke a sense of revulsion and discomfort. The poem's power lies in its unblinking portrayal of a taboo subject, forcing the reader to confront the abject and the biological realities of risk and consequence.
Formally, the poem is tightly condensed, employing a spare and precise vocabulary to create its disturbing imagery. The use of enjambment ("fecal sludge / pools," "waveform / contour fluctuating") contributes to a sense of fluid, almost inexorable movement, mimicking the "pullback" described in the second stanza. The central image of "fecal sludge / pools at the hilt / of the continence-wrecker" is a particularly potent and confrontational metaphor, immediately establishing the poem's transgressive nature and its focus on the violation of bodily integrity. The "waveform / contour fluctuating / with every pullback" is a chillingly clinical description of a repulsive act, lending a disturbing scientific detachment to the scene. The comparison to "a time-lapsed beach’s scuzzy scum line" further emphasizes the accumulation of filth and decay, linking the personal act to a broader, almost ecological sense of degradation.
Thematically, the poem is a meditation on the grotesque and the abject, specifically in the context of sexual encounters fraught with danger. The titular "Seroconversion Cruising Grounds" immediately establishes a backdrop of risk and potential infection (seroconversion referring to the development of antibodies in response to an infection). The explicit imagery serves to underscore the literal and metaphorical "contamination" at play. The climax of the poem arrives with the shocking "inversion, demonic / as toes-ever-inward ballet, / of the life corona of cervical mucus." This final comparison is a masterstroke of horrifying juxtaposition. Cervical mucus, in its "life corona," signifies fertility, creation, and the potential for new life. Its "demonic" inversion with "fecal sludge" not only signifies sterility and decay but also suggests a perversion of natural processes, a deliberate embrace of the destructive over the generative. The "toes-ever-inward ballet" adds a layer of unnatural contortion, reinforcing the sense of something profoundly wrong and deliberately twisted. The poem ultimately functions as a chilling exploration of desire pushed to its most perilous limits, where the pursuit of sensation intersects with the specter of disease and the violation of the sacred.
sexual transgression, body horror, disease, seroconversion, grotesque, abject, bodily fluids, anal sex, sexual risk, perversion, contamination, visceral imagery, taboo, erotic horror, biological decay, inversion, fertility vs. sterility, transgressive poetry, human sexuality, moral decay.