Six Poems By Poet Peter Burzynski

Peter Burzynski is a first-year PhD student in Creative Writing-Poetry at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.  He holds a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a M.F.A. in Poetry from The New School University, and a M.A. in Polish Literature from Columbia University. 


In between his studies, he has worked as a Sous-Chef in New York City and Milwaukee.  His poetry has appeared on The Best American Poetry, Kritya, and Bar None Group websites as well as in the Fuck Poems Anthology. He has poems forthcoming from BORT quarterly and the Great Lakes Review.


After Common Era

& the world begins with a click.  
It’s the only explanation for why 

we ration thought.  & then it twitters 
out of control, trading thoughts 

for gossip & the things we would need 
to build a proper bone.  & it grows 

impatient with tongues & teapots.  
& it wants what it can have, what 

it can’t have, right away.  Then it breeds 
& that’s when we make windows 

out of sand & press images onto them 
with our feet. & it grows worn, but not 

old.  & it takes a lot of rock & grain 
to scrape, & harvest, & grow.  

& it will grow emptied, plucked 
down to the bone.  



Dearest Vagina (A Vagina Dialogue)

Hello vagina, I have written a song
to you, but must warn you that you are not
the only one.  I am always singing
to vaginas.  All of them like you
and all of them not.  Troubadour 
or gigolo, which is wrong?

I hope you dance with me vagina
because I’m better at dancing 
than playing the lute or the lyre.
But I can sing, vagina, you’ll see.
Tell me about yourself.
Do you have any hobbies?

I like to sew and play chess.
I’ve been called Hermaphrodite,
vagina, but you don’t know that
because you’re so poorly read.
What do you think of Modigliani
faces? Over-boiled, their faces look 

so terribly unenchanted by my own.
They would spit into the feathers
of my beard and leave me dripping
my fluid self from all my solid
pores.  They’re that cruel, vagina.
Do you prefer French or German

cheeses?  What wouldn’t you 
believe? Do you think I could live
in a snow globe? I’d be super then.
I’d eat powerkraut to keep me alive
and grinning.  The snow globe 
would be brimming with flower, 

heated, but there would be terrible 
storms of crayons falling from 
the sky. I’m frightened, vagina, 
some of them are still in their packs.  
I bruise like an old tomato. Death
will string us in the trees. But you need

not worry, vagina. The Baroque period 
has made you immortal.  You will live 
on by healing with your happy powers.  
You will push out princes and picketers. 
You will live by feeding your hosts 
their daily vitamins and small electric quakes.  
You, multi-foliate vegetable, will go on.



Six Kilo Freedom Fry

If you don’t like France
in your French Fry
just skip the potato
and drink the grease.




Unintentional Impressionism 

Looking down from the mountain
I see you robed as a courtly bovine 

Queen leaning on drapes of red 
and black, pushing against each 

other in the distance. I realize 
that you are oh so far away.




Vast Veranda 

Broken, friend, no more
swords, talons, tongues.
The birds haven’t woken,
we haven’t really begun
the scratching and the tugs.
Airy Aryan breaking his belt
at the buckle, waiting for 
the God-damned sun.



You're Well
Enjambed 

Apostrophe.

Damn
this poem is
good
like
peaches and whisky
soaked cigarettes
and little bags of coat hangers
named
you.