Christopher Munde

Fugu Liver in the Afterlife

 

Their senses keener now beneath fresh pelts
Where victims feel their old selves being mourned

Those lamentations misheard as commands
To carve up fish for those who dished up pain

So girls who boys once fed like baby birds
Here with their talons feed the boys in turn

Each predator from prey divided by
The sparest menu cutting board and bib

As for those same boys Saturn gnawed piecemeal
On death’s hind legs their father’s meal is served

Now while a rodent guides the stopped clock’s hands 
The maimed beasts scale their paralytic guests

They mother food between the frozen lips
Then watch with wonder muscles going stiff 

And out of feral habit puncture skin
Only to spit the blood back and instead

Employ the patrons’ fingers trembling with
Arrhythmia to cosset their soft forms

To ease this molt and navigate the fur
Till ownership is jettisoned like lice

Father; Ghost-Example

 

give [to the poor] merchandise
dear delay
demand
a delay
for a certain time debt
repay

soul bought (redeemed)
set at a very high price
stood alone concealed
bears witness their nails
sharp ground steel
earthly man wondrously gruesome
they were

shaped
the world wretched creature
prepared companion
loved always
property possessions
loved the earth

matins masses pain
glad sweet father
none of mine
following him always worked
trusted you not
at all

iron
glowing it seemed always
made heat iron
fire there
always alike burning
assigned father

*

pilgrim
[how] to pass
over them (i.e., the steps)
darkness
bears witness
eyes seemed
broader than valleys were
armed

two pillars apart
their cruel entirely
pure life perfect
acknowledge
their own
names
that one is named that other

without their prey
always ready growling together
boiling
one
refrain

from destroying a church
fire reached outside
butcher tools their hands
sickles knives their hands
honed

also
awe private parts
gnawed their thighs
justice requires/
forgives
righteousness
not even born died

*

well I know
impurity forges
hammers tongs
forges terrifying forges
melted
flaccid steel

son son safe
coals bellows flame
wonder surrounded
boiling brass

chief darkness principal
together
with regard
two kings lived in blood
the one of them was called the other

each hated the other

certainly a wonder
eyes raised shriven host
reproved
permitted
here ends
true copy

This poem is an erasure of Edward E. Foster’s contemporary English annotations for an anonymous verse variation of Marcus’ The Vision of Tundale.

Christopher Munde's first poetry collection, Slippage (Tebot Bach, 2019), won the Patricia Bibby Award, and his poems have previously appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Blackbird, The Literary Review, Massachusetts Review, Notre Dame Review, Third Coast, West Branch, and elsewhere. He is a graduate of the University of Houston’s MFA program and the recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize. Presently, he lives and teaches in western NY.