Geoff Munsterman

Geoff Munsterman is a Plaquemines Parish native who has been performing poetry in and around New Orleans since 2002. Of his 2013 full-length debut collection, Because the Stars Shine Through It, poet John Kinsella said: 
“Geoff Munsterman has lived and written his way, but always with the shadows, ghosts and energy of the place he comes from. In painting what can be a harsh truth, a strangely beautiful honesty emerges in which the coast, the river…meld with characters who live in their positives and negatives.”
Since he began reading with Esoterotica in 2014, he has crafted for our audiences erotica infusing that strangely beautiful honesty with the seduction of the shadows from which they live. He writes of Louisiana always, but also writes of the home that is his body, and all of its carnal cravings. An acclaimed editor and book artist, he likes ampersands, making ice cream with his lover, and talking about poetry for hours. He prefers to be asked before being hugged.

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Razorback

The wolves raised me as their own—
runty, unqualified for the hunt.
It wasn’t hunger. Hunger some nights
seized my belly bellicose.
The kill felt wrong, hunger alone
never enough motive. Fear,
first inhabiting olfactory then it
writhes along the spine, flares
through blood like a lineage
of drinkers until it decants sudden
in lifted irises. The fear is apex:
she says Yes but once she does
regrets it, wakes to wolf tracks 
blistering her ribs.

If you want my primal, I need to hear
a lot of Yes—dig it in my shoulder blade,
bite it in my neck. Yes to hair-pulling,
Yes to teeth, Yes to a fistful of ass cheek
& punctuate that Yes with a handful
of fist pulling my fingernails deeper
to your skin. Let your Yes be the torch
against my wick. Grunt Yes if it
hurts to breathe. Struggle to hiss
that Yes through climax—
clustered ripples
unhinging cortex
as they clutch
& come undone
or else an affixed tameness readies its return.
You are always in control. For some,
it’s too much burden, or not 
their kink—but it can’t be me. 
You are always in control. You 
are always in control.

It’s the only way I know how to make 
this passion oasis—to build at town’s edge
a sanctuary where howls dissolve
like mouthed caramels, their terrors 
candies in a crystal dish. Because wolves 
attack too often. I know it—was raised 
by wolves to be a wolf, have capacity 
for tackle, maul, consume. So 
much that I sometimes fear 
I’m disguised as human: wolf 
in Dirty Coast & cheap Adidas.

If wolf is what you want from me
here’s what I need from you:
convince me I’m right. Convince me
it’s safe to be a wolf with you,
that we can be wolves together
—all claw & snarl & tugged
tufts; slaps, sweat, salivation,
howling Yes at moons both
full & slender, calling out
until we find our pack.