UNDERGROUND VOICES MAGAZINE/CHARLES MUSSER


	UNDERGROUND VOICES: POETRY

CHARLES MUSSER

I Was Thinking I Would Write…

a poem about how the moon rises over strange fields
of silvered grass as a Great Blue Heron might rise from the marshes
asleep like the diatomaceous earth, so holy and glorious that foxfire glow
would catch its wings with upward-pressing light, lofting it into the vault of heaven

or how alone and solemn
I laid under the aurora borealis
on a wilderness beach, shattered and wild
in my youth, and the waves carried the wrecked hovel
of my pain away to the iridescent horizon, to the vast, living hunger
hovering and fluttering across dance-lit space, until my body ached, my hair burned up
in a conflagration that split the orange-riddled sky and cast my own blood and muscle out
with the hum and voice of burning, whisky-crazed, until my body split and thralled
on the eelgrass angles of light

or how the faultless form
and color of the lapis lazuli egg
in my palm reminds me of aikido's wind-drunk
grace, the remembered movement of muscles that coil
a perfect shape in the air, arced and circling the deadly intent of the body,
scribes all havoc with pure, streaming presence, as ice wraps the beveled edge
of the cornice, or the effulging creek seeks the ambit of choss, Hemlock, or break-edged stone

or how the lisp of the heart
can tell its own unearthly joy, in the pale, lemon light
of dawn, even now without words, without touch, with only the million
grassing thuds of the fields that its blooding beat upholds when we walk, unknowing
and unintended, toward our singular death in a white room of our un-chosen friends, lovers, country,
final pain, and time

but I need coffee, first. Maybe later. Maybe.

The Varieties of Religious Experience in Piñon New Mexico

1. Moma Mobly Muñoz' watermelon buttocks
plump three sizes on the pew, though few
have noticed since her knee-length dreadlocks
block the view; they attribute her tattoo
with plumping up her voodoo hammocks.

2. Silvio Rodriguez' dog declares in Greek
and Aramaic, although he slurs his vowels,
lisps his "s" sounds to a sibilating peak,
and drools his phi's and beta's with his growls,
lifts his leg and pees, then offers philological critique.

3. Father Juarez shot his wad of visions poking
Sister Santiago in the rectory with prejudice unholy,
a gallon jug of Gallo, a joint that he'd been smoking,
and his handy rosary he'd kindly dipped in guacamole,
blessed beforehand and thus not sin-provoking.

4. And God Himself is often just a wild coyote,
manged and limping out behind the General Store,
eating gobs of fat and moldy tacos, a peyote
button, and a handy rat or two, likes to bite the whore
for kicks, then blesses her like Don Quixote.

Charles Musser lives in Lansing, Michigan, and works for the American Red Cross. He's been
published in a lot of different venues, both pixel and print. He backpacks in wilderness
areas with his golden retriver, Benjamin, and has been known to suckle at the tequila teat
from time to time.