Two Ghazals

by Jeffrey Burghauser (July 2020)

Liebespaar, Otto Mueller, 1919

[1]

Air is heavy. Nothing we discussed remain.

Save me. Neither the unjust nor just remain.

Save me from lapsarian arithmetic:

Lust erases lust, and only lust remain.

Poet, open up your heart, where nothing that’s

Heretofore’d & insofar’d & thus’d remain.

[2]

“By the banks of what does she bask?” Of Persian ink.

Praise must be the crowning task of Persian ink.

Poet, tilt your verses to the passionate

Savior bleeding like a cask of Persian ink.

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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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