Carsten Czarnecki - Hunter's Curse & Cure

With primal surrealism, poet Carsten Czarnecki serves as a guide into a sort of dark mysticism in his poem “Hunter’s Curse & Cure”. In this moody piece, the lines are quickly blurred between predator and prey. Flickering with themes of gritty earthiness, fear, violence, dreams, healing, and even sacredness, “Hunter’s Curse & Cure” is one of the poems included in Carsten’s chapbook collection Skull Music and was written in 2024.

Hunter’s Curse & Cure

follow these words like steps in the dark
think you get to play death like a drum
think this black dirt won’t stick to you
brother you’re drunk on the palmwine of terror
here you’re not dreaming when you dream
of choking on dirt
of being beaten like a drum
of losing your mind on a hunt, here
laid out on the forest floor
tied down with blackened sheep’s gut
tied down with black root & black rope
tied down till the poison drains
the poison that’s gone deep
now rise, stir, move about
follow this voice to where it’s darkest
to the old black cabin below, there
where the hunters do the healing:
see, you beat your head against a wall
see, what spills out is the god inside

Carsten Czarnecki

Carsten Czarnecki was born and raised in Munich, Germany, to Polish immigrant parents. He spent his formative years in Los Angeles where he attended L.A. City College and worked a variety of odd day-jobs, fighting every day to keep poetry alive in an increasingly bloodless world, and dabbling in various other arts as well (photography, film and theater). He has now settled just outside Malaga, in the heart of Andalusia (Spain), a land that still quivers with spirit.
Blog: https://carstenczarnecki.blogspot.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carsten.czarnecki/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@carstenczarnecki