Petrified Mouth
petrified mouth
Posted on March 11,2011 by pseudoprometheus
words formed before flowers–
the grumblings of thunder
the screeching lightning
eons of rain pouring
made the sonorous poetry of the earth;
bleakness of the plains defined the
sadness inherent in our thought;
all that was uttered was eventually gained:
pressed between rock and flower,
testament of the light syllables
as boulders dropped the bombs of novels
as men were dying of thirst.
until they knew the word for water
and could point it out
with the slaking of tremendous thirst
they whetted their appetite to name things;
between forefinger and thumb
the writhing scorpion that will be eaten;
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poem by Stan Petrovich
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Heavy Pup
They sang it was so
Even witout words,
That Malakui, the Brightest One,
Had a pup conjoined.
We celebrated for many years.
We worshiped the oscillating stars
And their constant cousins,
Granfather Moon,
The Blood Star and the
Roving Lion Pair.
I, Himantiab, was the man
In the jungle moving,
Who first the little ones observed.
In my loinclout they laid hands upon my shoulders,
Brought me down to my knees,
And when feeling my face and lips
I first heard their song without words,
Their song of lights in the newborn gaseous sky.
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poem by Stan Petrovich
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William S. Burroughs
After he scored & injected,
he wrote t was like sighng in a warm bath.
He was paranoid,
being both priest and doctor.
The rght-wing dystopia is not only
concerned with narcotics,
but especially with godlessness.
They thrive.
They foam against big government,
but to enforce their hell
a government very big there must be.
In their horrid hearts the want a return to slavery,
like the 'Founders' had slaves.
This clown Santorum
piling on the anti-sexual slogans,
is a walking stick of
an anachronism. HE is really for
The Empire of the Ants,
all honor to Him. Against
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poem by Stan Petrovich
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Planet Woebegone
In some galaxy (we call The Sombrero) ,
On a planet soon to be swallowed whole
By its red giant sun,
A huge rock formation,
A caricature of a human face,
Lay.
Its brow, eyes and mouth
Were not carved by the typical forces
Of rain and wind and sand;
The were extruded by the organic might
Of deeply embedded molecules.
After a thousand centuries the brows bent down;
Another thousand and the eyes lit up;
Finally, from the mouth, a deep cadence,
A fugue of sorts
Joined its newest neighbors
That encircled the planet, top-to-bottom,
Or side-to-side.
They all sang a chorus of woe,
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poem by Stan Petrovich
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Love's Isolation
In the sorrowful past,
When Love theoretically conquered all,
I found myself wandering in a forest
Of reeds, lost & unloved.
Finally she & she came along,
Marriage was in the works
But it failed miserably,
Childlessly.
I entered the stage of rebellion
(cf Camus' insightful The Rebel):
Drinking and drugging were all
I had on my hands.
Then along came my current wife
Of thirty years
And we flourished in money & timeless love.
I can watch her now, burrowed in bed.
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poem by Stan Petrovich
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Eyes & Voices
I
The two eyes emanate rays,
Thought a Greek philosopher,
Who also smelled the Minotaur,
Stinking as he watched an outdoor play.
While the Chorus chanted
And the audience cringed,
Oedipus put out his eyes. singed,
As the meaning was being ranted.
'Mother, may I? ' the theme evolved,
To suggest a thing or two,
Such as the motherly master glue,
And symphonically the cringe devolved.
II
In the desert, my protagonist focused,
The searing heat boiling his head,
Until of dehydration he was dead,
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poem by Stan Petrovich
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Gunnery Range Camping
It was illegal, but I and a buddy
Made camp on a gunnery range in Yuma County, in May
Of a certain year, when it was Already 115 degrees F., and,
At sunset, over the backdropp of some unnamed butte,
I watched a vulture carrying a snake in its talons,
High in flight.
That day, hiking alone to the south,
I stopped to take a drink from my canteen,
And looking up, locked eyes with a mountain lion.
She was watching me from atop a rocky ridge,
Only about twenty-five feet above,
And was indifferent.
The night was indifferent as well,
As we drank strong drink
And listened to an AM radio broadcast of a basketball game
From Phoenix far away. The Suns lost.
Insects divebombed into our cups and Stevie Wonder music played.
I had aligned the truck-bed with candles,
As I had previously aligned a cleft
In the scorpion-infested badlands of Anza-Borrega.
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poem by Stan Petrovich
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Funnyman in the Morning
As the dew settled
And I lay reaped with sadness
After another lousy day of distressed spiralling
And burst hopes;
I settlerd in my vile bed,
Then deciding to raise my weary head,
I remoted the TV.
A fellow of comedic standing
Was delivering dirty jokes
Hidden between the lines
Like Swift or Milton or Shakespeare,
Who all fell into hefty humour
When it came to the jokes
About VD, farting or holding a poop,
Uncontrollably.
My mood quickly abridged,
And, sitting up, I smiled
For the first time in weeks;
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poem by Stan Petrovich
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No Peace in Suicide (1979)
Grandiose, spread-eagled, he is lofted from the window
Only for his head to bond in a pool of blood
-Never ming the five kids in the blowing snow-
This man's last act was a thud.
Women, they say, prefer pills,
While men a pearl-handled pistol.
Either effectively kills;
You become a self-defeating missile.
Once I drove high into the rainy mountains
On the Navajo Resevation
To compose a final note of my intentions,
And end it all, final anti-insurrection.
But that old ball point pen kept skipping
And the note was illegible.
I threw it nto the pine cones dripping
And tried to think of things more tangible.
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poem by Stan Petrovich
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Farewell
the city is sinking - i have measured it
it is on its last legs - though i treasred it
you few who stood agape & rebelling
you may now found a new city where one had been sitting
only i implore you look fpr the higher ground
because if words are rendered that does not make them sound
you must draw from the greats that preceded you
otherwise you will dish out a pedestrian stew
no one alive - poet or lumberjack - can stop learning
bent as he or she may be the midnight oil burning
words or axes must be sharpened with time
to fell a great tree or snare the perfect rhyme
as for me, i am going abroad
i am leaving the groups with one final prod
it will so much for the better i presume
to find likeminded poets who give spacious room
we will accomadate
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poem by Stan Petrovich
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