Five Shorts

by Jeffrey Burghauser (May 2023)

Lonely Man on a Dune, Max Liebermann, 1914

 

1

Although I’d hesitate to go so far
As to say that life’s a bitch,
It’s certainly no gentleman.

 

2

Life is like encountering a ghost:
Only fully frightful if experienced alone.

 

3

Extinct love is rather like
Long-superseded science.

 

4

Nobody’s forgotten quite so
Completely as a librettist.

 

5

Today it feels as though my wife
Is merely out of town;
I then remember that my life
Is like a town … a town.

 

Table of Contents

 

Jeffrey Burghauser is a teacher in Columbus, OH. He was educated at SUNY-Buffalo and the University of Leeds. He currently studies the five-string banjo with a focus on pre-WWII picking styles. A former artist-in-residence at the Arad Arts Project (Israel), his poems have appeared (or are forthcoming) in Appalachian Journal, Fearsome Critters, Iceview, Lehrhaus, and New English Review. Jeffrey’s book-length collections are available on Amazon, and his website is www.jeffreyburghauser.com.

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