Dismal Days
All I know is this:
I am the front guard of the glorious country of my birth,
And over mossy berms grow riots in gourds;
I have forgotten the pleasures of mirth,
Having been on my steed,
Going back and forth along the Ill-defined border, many years;
And I have no inkling of freedom,
Only a gatherer of firewood,
Animal skin hoarder.
The fen freezes from December to April,
Then stinks all the summer long.
One day I came across some trackers,
Who hailed me at a distince,
Asking what border I guarded,
My lance pointed at them.
'Pray you, good sirs, heed my warning! '
But they informed me that my Kingdom was now defunct,
An old dream, an empty path.
Lowering my weapon then, weeping,
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poem by Stan Petrovich
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Exiled
They wouldn't tell me the island's name,
Just a shame I had to go.
No people were there, normally, only a boatload of hardy tourists,
Who may or may not have heard of me,
When for lack of anything better to do,
I inhabited a tree,
Making a gnarly disgruntled visage out of a broken branch,
And then blowing loud farting sounds their way,
As I watched them playfully look at one another and laugh.
But that got old fast:
I am never going to be a tree,
Not going to feel the air as they claim they do,
Or revel in the peal of thunderstorms,
As I watch envious and wait.
Soon the Emperor will call me back,
Probably to make an assasin out of me,
Like the time before;
It would be far better to get exiled
Than to see the final draw of the sword.
poem by Stan Petrovich
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Whose Boot Is It Anyway?
Alone & footless,
Sideswiped on the highway,
South of Grand Canyon,
The boot weathers the rain.
Whose feet had felt its pain?
The absent man hurdled from a car,
Dead, now a ghost among the juniper flat.
Gone now, but a pariah to his own left boot's wall.
A bum, a hectic gambler, a heretic,
Or just some dozing motorist;
Another question remains;
Was the little white cross sticking out of the pavement
His? Or was that happenstance,
Laced up to the top, some unlikely chance?
No man is here.
Yet a man was there.
A man who lost his life & line,
Leaving one boot as a puzzle to find.
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poem by Stan Petrovich
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Of Joy
it is the young, creaking and tangled woods
in a rising morning mist,
an eye alighted by the flash of amethyst;
and a galloping of a carriage conveying goods
to the town where I am welcome.
and my lover's quarelling mind alone
in her self-suffering thoughts
(that I also make my own) ,
to be with her there, together distraught
in the little town where we are celebrated..
death's doom sounds, above all the foliage
a greening penumbra of flagrant sound,
a rush of scattering birds,
where run wolves chased by inchoate hounds,
never, never to be carriaged
near the village where we prepare to die.
still our final stance is vivid
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poem by Stan Petrovich
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And The Rains Came
After a 100-day drought
Wringing the patience from everybody's pores,
The rain finally enshrouded the concrete city;
Strange hungry plants invaded odd corners,
And tales of woe became tales of defeat.
The cars & trams were uselessly
Bound in a fog that lasted sun to sun;
Peculiar denizens of the forest deep
Fell punctuating from the sky.
An epidemic of ricketts, were it not for
Vitamin D capsules, made way.
Some were not immune.
Posters of bowlegged young men
Sprung everywhere.
Dr. Armundsun invented a tea,
With the extracts of saffron, lavender
And rhinoceros' tear. That worked for a bit,
The he, too, died.
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poem by Stan Petrovich
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Deep Isolation Of The Shuttered Eye
the sea is deeply isolated:
as its overlord, landlord,
earthen constraint
stands in charge over it.,
seeking its own level,
unlike the land,
it is pushy for food
on an horizontal basis
primarily, but
with exception.
a dog is thrown into the sea;
maybe shipwrecked sailors as well,
out of element
they usually drown,
get eaten by sharks;
but what say there is
a vault of salinity
so great it solves
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poem by Stan Petrovich
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Kowtow Land
For what remains (precious little) ,
America is nurturing a generation
Of unemployed criminals; parents
Are to blame. Lack of education is the core. The love of
Gasoline propels us to doomsday.
I cry as the icecaps melt. Those dread dinosaurs and failed plants that provide fossil fuels are our failure. The
Country moves fundamentally to the right,
Two psychotic women at the fore,
And except for constitutionally exempt tyranny,
We will remain only partially stable. But America is ready to crouch. I have never gripped an agenda, but with this overweening motherhood
Of madness permeating society,
Blaming it all on a President who is only a part blamable,
The road is set.
The other side of the earth must lead,
But leading is too late.
There comes only the summer of our discontent.
poem by Stan Petrovich
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The Exchange
With nothing left to lose
I went high and far into nameless
Mountains, climbing a high hill,
And, exhausted, fell asleep in a lush park.
I awoke enveloped in a kind of mist
That somehow spoke in my head:
'I want what you have: bones,
Manly muscles, blood and pliant gravity.
'You want what I have: flight, freedom and eternal life.
'Say the word and we can switch.'
Barely considering an answer, I spoke into the fog, agreeing 'yes' to it.
Now for sixty years and more I have
Swirled among spires in canyons,
Overlapped evergreen forests, hugged
Lush parks, at times frightening campers.
Then you came along,
Strumming a guitar that caught my fancy.
I saw your beaded hair and your fashion glasses and
Your shapely female form;
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poem by Stan Petrovich
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Unbeknown
In my cavernous dwelling,
(A lookout tower or a cliffside cave) ,
I glare over the sea the wrong way,
Not the left way, as it should be;
Far sighted in eagle eyes,
Stinging from the fear of your sight.
Imagination stirs reddish moss
For hair, speckled hands soft to touch,
What face is staring at me there?
And, forever, without destination
Perth. About as far as a metro area can be,
As I home in this metroplex from Baltimore to Boston,
A steaming jungle of road rage
And the noise of relentless trafficjams
We do have great science and some
Poets of note, not no mountaintops
Of mirth and rattle, of shaking floors and flowers,
And mirth ridden beds.
But birds nest in my hoary head
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poem by Stan Petrovich
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Deep Canyon Tree
He had to climb out from
The blue canyon, a boulder
Chained to one leg,
As a communion or penance,
Into the ponderosas above.
But a thunderstorm evolved,
And screeching charges surrounded him.
And the empty spaces glowed.
He found his way out, now bleeding profusely
From the strangling chain,
And fell under old man juniper,
(South of the hiway) , who was very wise,
And spoke to him comfortingly:
'Do not fear death, young man,
For anything that lives faces its ending.'
'I fear the storm, ' he answered.
'Then shelter under my gray-green foliage,
And my somber berries shall protect you. Rub them into your wounds.'
The young man huddled,
Later finished his labor,
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poem by Stan Petrovich
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