by Jeffrey Burghauser (January 2026)
Narrator:
Inside a slum on Tridium,
When Christ subdued the tomb,
A shocking brute, grotesquely mute,
Was twisted from a womb—
–
A human womb; a splintered loom.
The luckless womb that bore
This thing of sin resided in
A melancholy whore,
–
Who, in a mood so well endued
With blasphemy & wine,
Beheld the charms & oafish arms
Extended by a swine—
–
A ruthless pimp & stupid imp
Impatient for a friend
Sans kin or kith, a woman with
No honor to defend.
–
And after fights & drunken nights,
Unreasonable scorn,
Ferocious shrieks & forty weeks,
An Azazel was born.
–
From far & nigh they came to eye
The animated clot
This vulgar whore was made to pour
Upon a filthy cot.
–
This living frame of thrilling shame
Was quite the thing to see;
A balladeer produced a drear
Somatic inventory:
–
Balladeer:
With fissured smears in place of ears,
Its brow & scalp are tried
With little rips. His meagre lips
Are on his face’s side.
–
Upon his back a spongy, slack,
Malign excrescence grows,
That Satan molds to reddened folds
As if it were a rose.
–
O thing of night! The monster’s right
Leg, rendered waxen dead
As if by war, is oddly ór-
Ĭéntĕd to the head.
–
His chest is dense with these immense,
Hepatic-seeming cysts,—
–
Narrator:
The poet penned.
–
Balladeer:
_______________His arms extend,
Presenting handless wrists.
–
Narrator:
A preacher came in Heaven’s name,
Impatient to concuss
Us all with love of God above,
Soliloquizing thus:
–
Preacher:
Where Nature’s art neglects her part
In wielding proper skill
To shape aright each living wight,
Behold: it’s Heaven’s will.
–
For mercy, Lord, with one accord,
We, terror-stricken, call:
“This ghastly show on earth below
Personifies the Fall.”
–
If God or Fate could here create
A thing so monstrous
Whose passion wrought no evil thought,
What shall become of us?
–
We gather round the twisted hound.
To all of those who see
And blankly shriek, O make this freak
A living homily.
–
O make the mean & near-obscene
Proximity of this
Forsaken brute an institute
And sobering abyss—
–
A sobering abyssal thing
That goes about in pride
Who says to each within his reach:
–
Devil:
_______________Approach, and look inside.
–
Monster:
Yes. Look inside. But there’s no pride,
Just overwhelming pain;
No gleam of God; just rotting cod
Inside a tattered skein.
–
Table of Contents
Jeffrey Burghauser is a teacher in Columbus, Ohio. 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.
Follow NER on Twitter @NERIconoclast
One Response
IMMIGRATION AGENT
Pass through, pass through,
UK and USA welcome you.
No matter such deformities afright,
We have the money and the skills to make aright!
No matter if you’re Satan’s Spawn,
Pardon whilst I suppress a yawn,
You will gaze back and shout a pray-er
In praise of the hapless taxpayer!