Stan Petrovich
Stan Petrovich Poems
This is true:
In a state of meditation
(Straight)
I left both mind and body behind
...
Someday there will be all-fire,
Fire enveloping everything;
And also someday there
Will be a consuming chill,
...
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,
...
Wilson, Wickford and Dunne
Were gunslingers and lawmen
With a remarkable thing in common:
They all had half-brothers they needed to kill.
...
Life can be a little pat,
The limp handshake of a mounebank
Who steals you blind.
Life can be a poisoned substance,
...
In search of something real: to it it is nectar;
When we look for ink, paper and nomenclature;
For ours is a world of representation;
The bee's is a world of satisfaction.
...
I have lost my love of mankind, for his predominance and unstable
stewardship of our inadvertently unstable planet earth;
the errors that have occurred cannot be reversed: ask the polar bear,
ask the space junk falling on our heads. Ask the dreary sun
...
For you, my sweet;
an apple in your mind's eye;
a strudle in lieu of a pie.
We would, if we could,
...
i am stuck here
in some kind of walled-in pit;
had i legs & arms
i might climb out of it.
...
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.
...
Boneless beasts
Whose life is no more
Than a wabble in the succulence of plankton,
Far below light,
...
Ask why, if the maple trees get nervous
As the dry winds of October strip their leaves
And all are lost,
Do they fret?
...
Cloud Nine lived a life of fantasy,
Barely conceding the existence of Cloud Eight,
Who felt jealousy for Cloud Seven's
Silver lining,
...
A girl, a horse, a blinding beauty:
How many hands, feet, ankles
Did my roaming limbs do duty?
Further anatomy would surely rankle.
...
the bleeding baby seals
feeding the inuit are unimportant
the brokenlegged horse
lying & dying in the field at night
...
It is so stupid & sad
that 'poets' feel
that if only they invoke the word
God
...
the needles
it is a city in california
named after desert peaks that fly upwards
and pierce the cloudless sky
...
Interfering, yet definable
The dust covers my eyes.
I once saw brightly,
But now it seems I am always in the shade,
...
Stan Petrovich Biography
Appearing in a mirage, I wandered the Arizona desert for forty years, always alone, always lost. The heat takes its toll on verbs, not adjectives. There are not two ways to approach dehydration; only one, the one with symbols. Petroglyphs in rock show the way to live without presumptuous glory. Then, tired of the blistering sands, turning to my later years I longed for the sea. The green currents called. So leaving the Gila mirage-maker behind wound my way to Massachusetts, to watch the sea examine what it created, and to die.)
The Best Poem Of Stan Petrovich
Heracles
He was a massive storm:
He was never meant for the norm;
His missions were simple:
Slay the Nemean Lion. Slay the nine-headed Lernaean Hydra. Capture the Golden Hind of Artemis. Capture the Erymanthian Boar. Clean the Augean stables in a single day. Slay the Stymphalian Birds. Capture the Cretan Bull. Steal the Mares of Diomedes. Obtain the girdle of Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons. Obtain the cattle of the monster Geryon. Steal the apples of the Hesperides (He had the help of Atlas to pick them after Hercules had slain Ladon) . Capture and bring back Cerberus. (from Wikipedia)
But he ate the lion's gizzard;
He was quite the blizzard;
I was able to fight him,
But, oh, how I lost:
Into the frozen waters tossed.
Never again will I fight
Either hero or god:
They ground me under their iron-clad boots
Like sod.
Smitten with woe I beheld their glory undecided;
Hercules had won, had won uninvited.
Heracles was another name for him, at times, like Euripedes used
Instead, cloying, a forgotted muse;
All in the universe came together fused,
When I met him
It was not an occasional whim.
He towered
His eyes glowered.
Our hatred for each other flowered.
But hate only leads to defeat;
I lost, being the more hateful one, replete.
Those rocks on the shore were my watery grave;
Whose luck was a thing I will never stave.
Let us celebrate the coming of my death
As a thing happily brave.
Stan Petrovich Comments
More than just a man, Stan is a poet, a teacher, a philosopher, and a friend close to my heart. He has taught me so much, and he has inspired me, and many others to never stop learning, to never stop trying to reach for the stars. Always write, and always live.
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7/17/2026 2:40:21 AM # 1.0.0
Read some of your poems stan. Insightful and deep. I know the draw and openness of the sea. Any particular ones you can recommend I read will be appreciated. Captain Cur