Piyyut

Piyyut

Jeffrey Burghauser

The virgin’s papaya-bright, marble-cool kiss
Along with the lecher’s venereal blain
BELONGS TO THE ETERNAL,
BELONGS TO THE ETERNAL.
The silence-concealed, universal abyss
Producing the Villainous & the Mundane
BELONGS TO THE ETERNAL.

The kestrel upon the Arcadian seam
That separates fabrics of garlic & grain
BELONGS TO THE ETERNAL,
BELONGS TO THE ETERNAL.
The light that performs on delirious bream
That starving fanatics ensnare in the seine
BELONGS TO THE ETERNAL.

The instinct that spurs the victorious prince
To chisel a cross for the enemy slain
BELONGS TO THE ETERNAL,
BELONGS TO THE ETERNAL.
The furious gasp chaperoning the wince
Provoked by the sight of a spear in the thane
BELONGS TO THE ETERNAL.

The Genius of History gilding a throne
That’s fit for a bloody, unravelling swain
BELONGS TO THE ETERNAL,
BELONGS TO THE ETERNAL.
This poëm, although an embroidery sewn
Along the irregular edge of a stain,
BELONGS TO THE ETERNAL.

I hear it impend; the indelicate rod
That sunders the Sanctified from the Profane
BELONGS TO THE ETERNAL,
BELONGS TO THE ETERNAL.
My being, a busted rococo façade
Asleep in the shade of a towering crane
BELONGS TO THE ETERNAL.

IF I AM TOO WEAK TO BE GODLY, MY GOD,
AT LEAST LET ME BE MORE ROBUSTLY HUMANE.

---

Jeffrey Burghauser
Poet & Teacher

Jeffrey is a teacher in Central Ohio. Educated in the United States and England, his poems and translations have appeared in The Agonist, Appalachian Journal, The Asses of Parnassus, Iceview, Lehrhaus, Montana Mouthful, New English Review (where he’s a regular contributor), Quadrant, and The Showbear Family Circus. He is the author of Real Poems (2019), Still Telling What is Told (2020), and Understandings (2021).

Photography by Pawel Czerwinski