Peter Burzynski

CONTACT:
Email: peterburzynski@icloud.com
Website: https://peterburzynski.com           

BIO:
Peter Buzyński earned a PhD in creative writing at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He holds a BA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an MFA in poetry from The New School, and an MA in Polish literature from Columbia University. He works as the book center manager at Woodland Pattern Book Center in Milwaukee. Burzyński is the translator of Martyna Buliżańska’s This Is My Earth (New American Press, 2019) and the author of A Year Alone inside of Woodland Pattern (Adjunct Press, 2022). 

In between his studies he has worked as a chef in New York City and Milwaukee. His poetry has appeared in jubilat, The Best American Poetry Blog, Thin Air, Prick of the Spindle, Thrush Poetry Review, MAYDAY, Your Impossible Voice, RHINO, and Forklift Ohio, among others. He is the son of immigrants who call him on the phone every day.

PUBLICATIONS:
This is My Earth by Martyna Buliżańska (New American Press, 2019) (Translator)

A Year Alone inside of Woodland Pattern (Adjunct Press, 2022)

Poetry

Lung Butter

I was six or seven
when I imagined
Pontius Pilate
as some kind of Red
Baron-looking villain.
I later learned
that there were no airplanes
or even aeroplanes
when Barabbas walked
this earth. I ran
around the kitchen
punching the air
further puncturing it
with biplane engine
noises. I ran until
I coughed up a slimy
yellow rectangle
and admired its shape
against the corn silk yellow
of cracked linoleum.

Today, twenty years
have gone by and I’m
watching my niece
attempting to stand
like a human in her baby
body. It isn’t fair
to be a plucked bird
calmly testing each spoke
of the padded aviary.
She found a way out
rolled falling to the floor.
Her baby head throbbed
with a little baby
goose egg sprouting red.
Earlier she was sleeping
in the bed like I imagine
a turtle sleeps in its self.

Originally published as a Woodland Pattern blog post

The Fearful United

You’ve been born

out of too much hugging

and happenstance. You

need to accept these facts,

accept the place you call

home:  halls filled with hungry

birds and flags perpetually

frozen, at half-mast.  A cavalcade

of crows attach corncob feet

to the awnings above doors.

You’ve been looking for windows,

but windows are portals for rapists

and raccoons. You’ve had enough

of both. The bitter twittering of hand

upon hand shows a careful eye

who you’ve been, what you’ve seen,

where you’ve failed: the pagan gods

won’t take your grain. A man broke

You held electricity as if it were

an infant’s neck.  Your sister helped

you scream.  You sat on a toilet seat

for weeks hoping the bathroom lock

wouldn’t break. It had no need.

Doors can’t seep.  You’re shrinking

as the sun grows thin.  He’ll be hiding

while you sleep.  You don’t trust

the moon, you see femininity as weak.

She’ll outlive your doubt, break your

glances upon beaks.  Birds have reptilian

zeal. You know they love to eat.

Birdsong comes crashing. Sleep it off

You know art is faltering. Your body

sweats knowing the distasteful

manner of its girth.  Breasts belong

to debutantes and daises, not to men

who bleat and build and weep.

Originally published by Crabfat Magazine