Category Archives: Found Poetry

While You Are Not Obligated, By Radiance Angelina Petro

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While You Are Not Obligated

By

Radiance Angelina Petro

(Using my own words as well as words

found in The Dictionary of Shipping Terms and Phrases,

by Edward F. Stevens, pub. 1947)

 

 

You are sufficient, seaworthy,

you have tendered time

its disbursements of grief,

your tears have perfected your sight

enough, you have recouped

the solvency of the spirit,

your manifest includes hope’s readiness.

 

Now, against all risk, enter outward,

for there is yet the safety of adventure,

and you now sail unenclosed waters.

 

Mooring ropes, as you know,

wear thin, and there are ships

drifting at sea, others are icebound,

nearly inaccessible, waiting

for the frost-feathered gull

to drop the notice of abandonment.

 

There are plenty of lighthouses along the shore.

What is needed are lightships willing

to take the lost alongside, to pass provisions,

to touch and stay, and lead them

to believe out of the starless night,

and into the harbor of taverns and song,

where they can, unladdened and free

of encumbrances, reinterpret themselves

back into the land of the living.

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

You and I, by Radiance Angelina Petro

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You and I

By

Radiance Angelina Petro

 

 

There is a swan, whose name

is ecstasy, sailing, with all the silence

of a dewdrop, across the dark waters

of the soul.

 

 

Her head bowed, she searches

for changelessness,

for the unbroken, for the secret

of unity conceived in the universe

and born of our Lady of the Stars.

 

 

She wants the most daring

oneness of body and soul,

she wants the adorable one

and all.  This is the orgasm

of her mind, this is her body’s

exclamation of wonder.

 

 

She knows her name is holy,

and she knows full well that a feather

can overturn the universe,

And so, she sails, as you and I

must sail, gently, almost

imperceptibly, pushing the air

elegantly behind her with her marvelous wings.

 

 

And she glides across the water, like

the moon moving though the sky,

her night colored eyes staring down,

deeply, into the revelation

of who she really is.

 

 

 


 

 

From Here On In, A Collage Poem, By Jennifer Angelina Petro

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From Here On In

A Collage Poem

By

Jennifer Angelina Petro

(Using my own words and phrases,

as well as some found in, “The Golden Ass,”

by Apuleius, trans. By Jack Lindsay, 1962)

 

 

I want to know everything

in the world.  Beyond

the narrow cast of reason,

that is where I am going.

I consider nothing impossible.

 

The hinges snapped

from my mind’s shutters,

and I am thirsty for every sip

of novelty.  I want festivals

of the flesh—the rare

and the marvelous.

 

If you want to go with me,

I ask you do not think,

to carry no convictions—

be like a newborn sun—wings

outspread, conceived by sea

and foam, fragrant as cinnamon.

 

Unwind your wants and desires,

listen to the rivers muttering magic

begun again anew in full brilliancy, as scars

of old wounds heal as you spirit

through leaves and fields, leaping, like

a goat high in the mountains.

Dionysus will be our guide.

 

This abandonment is the touchstone

of warm snuggery, of a luxuriance

of kisses, of bandying jests,

of uncrimping the soul, of a kind

of wild freedom that resounds

bliss through your every bone.

Everything you see

from here on in

is you.

 

 

 

 

 


 

Over Trails of the Sea, A Collage Poem, By Jennifer Angelina Petro

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Over Trails of the Sea

A Collage Poem

By

Jennifer Angelina Petro

(Using words and phrases from “The Man Who Saw Tomorrow,

The Prophesies of Nostradamos, translated by Erika Cheetham, 1973, along with my own.)

 

 

 

Like a shipwreck trying to hold on

to the reef, I lean this way and that.

Sooner or later, you will see great changes—

that’s what they tell me, but my eyes

are open only to old fantasies and wishes.

 

Beyond the river, raised by land and sea,

The act has been done.  Hidden in swampy marshes,

a monster is born, wild with hunger, and it knows my name.

It knows everything about me, knows I am trying

to see the shore through the mist, through the dark,

and he will wander far in his frenzy to find me.

 

And yet, even with the Rubicon uncertain,

a shadowy hope, which Providence scrounged

to sustain, rises, lifts my face to the sky.  The light

is stupefying and marvelous—the flashes of fire—

I believe that in this night I have seen the sun,

while the monster waits—knows I am coming,

knows I have moved closer to freedom.

 

And then, my wings and feathers fall at my feet,

and I know I must now allow myself to be carried

safely through the sky by birds of the celestial palace,

high away from the monster that will forever dog my steps.

 

I know a serpent has been placed on the shore.

I know snakes surround the altar.  I know

there will be rains and frosts.  I know the documents

on which are written what I should do next

are enclosed in fish, and that the secrets

of my future are hidden in the heads of salmon,

 

and yet, over the trails of the sea, a way opens,

and I am placed gently down, brought

to rebirth at the fortified harbor,

where lighthouse lights come through thunder,

to welcome me home.

 

 

 

 

Above Everything, A Collage Poem, By Jennifer Angelina Petro

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Above Everything

A Collage Poem

By

Jennifer Angelina Petro

(Using words and phrases both of my own

and from the book, “How to Study,” by Arthur Kornhause, pub. 1924)

 

 

 

Above everything

shift your position

from time to time.

 

Picture yourself

clearly.  Raise questions.

You might simply ask

yourself: “What is the essence

of what I want?”

 

Talk to yourself,

think around, draw

diagrams, feel

the intensity

of your desire.

 

What does this

light throw,

and on what?

 

Hold yourself to the work.

Your ability to play

is the important thing,

so is the gradual movement

towards the unexpected.

 

Be flexible enough

to make the necessary

revisions.  Acknowledge

frankly the consequences.

 

There is no controlling

the world about us, there are

interferences and irritations,

there will be moments

of perplexity.

 

So then, discover

pleasures and fascinations,

become absorbed

in some joy. Be your own

secret door.

 

There will be

things left undone,

you might feel pressed

for time, but there will be

 

delicious idiosyncrasies

in your thinking

and learning

that will be oblivious

to everyone else

except you. And you might feel

wonderfully mischievous

and smile.

 

Be ready to believe in variations

and embellishments,

and possibilities of ever new

thrilling blessings rising

from your body.

 

Once you get yourself

well started, remember

bliss is viable, and

as you change patterns and ways

of self-recitations:

be clear about this:

 

wonder does wonders.

 

 

We Found Ourselves, a Collage Poem, by Jennifer Angelina Petro

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We Found Ourselves

A Collage Poem

By

Jennifer Angelina Petro

(Using words and phrases from the book, “The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism,”

by Henry Corbin, 1962, 1971, in addition to my own.)

 

 

We found ourselves following the presence,

the insatiable object and secret of all—

the sun of the heart.

 

We went together, surrendering

the cartographic, the decipherable.

We moved through luminous darkness,

following the black light

through a region without any coordinates

 

until we came to a field of light,

and we gave birth to ourselves,

to a thousand theophanies

of every grain of wheat,

of every waving, ray of light

shedding in all directions,

 

where the ascensional

descended to the very place

where we stood, hand in hand,

orientated in time,

cherishing the earth of it all.

 

 

 

Irresistible Reassurances, A Collage Poem, By Jennifer Angelina Petro, Arranged from the Beautiful Words of the Beautiful Suzanne Snyder

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Irresistible Reassurances

A Collage Poem

By

Jennifer Angelina Petro

Arranged from the Beautiful Words of the Beautiful Suzanne Snyder

 

 

 

In a hammock behind the frog pond,

I’ve just made magical thoughts.

I’m coming back around to moments,

 

and feeling/sensing myself

and my surroundings

and letting myself notice: I am.

 

Gratefully. And it feels so good

to curate that experience,

with such intensity

I find myself wanting more,

and being as decadent as possible

with the wanting more—

 

for wanting is OK in meditation,

and in wanting still more.

 

Just because I’m quiet

it doesn’t mean my head is empty.

I am finding joy somewhere–

Here—I am taking peace in whatever form it comes.

 

Today, I found frogs and so many

pretty purple growing things (Yes—

that’s heaven), I listened

to their beautiful languages–

they all speak

with such excitement—giving me

way too many paragraphs

than I asked for—

but every sentence they speak

rings a chord in my soul–

irresistible reassurances

of how worthy I am,

and I wouldn’t change a thing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Habit of Thinking Light, A Collage Poem, By Jennifer Angelina Petro, From Words by Sam Lilley, from his book, “Discovering Relatively for Yourself,”

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The Habit of Thinking Light

A Collage Poem

By

Jennifer Angelina Petro

From words by Sam Lilley, from his book,

“Discovering Relatively for Yourself,” published 1981, with a few words by me

 

 

Light behaves in many ways.

It is a steady motion

full of fruitful suggestions—

some of them far more subtle

than others—but for all of them

the conclusion is clear:

 

We move through light.

 

And it’s all happening in outer space—

it’s an everyday experience

and a startling idea, with many

radiations intuiting the absurdity

of how the edges move,

of how we are traveling

towards the right and good,

with many little kindnesses

becoming the habit of thinking light.

 

The upshot of it all:

we are love’s out and back journeys,

we are not impossible conclusions,

we are instantaneous events

occupying small intervals of time,

imagining things in new ways,

we are dilations of light,

reaching towards the kind of together

where we surprise one another

with messages of hope coming directly

from the first flash of love and wanting,

that still carry us to somewhere,

to here.

 

 

In Love Play, A Collage Poem, By Jennifer Angelina Petro

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In Love Play

A Collage Poem

By

Jennifer Angelina Petro

 

(Using words and phrases from the Kama Sutra, translated by Alain Danielou; along with my own words and phrases).

 

 

One must put up with risks,

but there are benefits—such as paradise.

 

Time awakens that which sleeps—

that which is born of the sun.

 

When we enter the house of the soul

we will think we have entered a theater.

 

We must keep our aims in mind:

the whirl of pleasure,

the love play,

the kissing, biting, scratching,

the offering of ourselves to one another

as mangoes open for the eating.

 

Without being parsimonious of time,

let our amorous dalliance go journeying through flowery arbors

(love is easy in gardens on carpets of flowers).

 

Just as fire burns the dead, our doubts are consumed

in flames of our own making.

 

Let us manifest the invisible;

Let us float in eternity—a full-blown lotus.

 

Creation is born when hearts drum;

When vivid-sandalwood-scented answers embellish the night.

 

Let us mark the sacred signs on each other’s brow,

for love is not learned alone.

 

 

When We Delight, A Collage Poem, by Jennifer Angelina Petro

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When We Delight

A Collage Poem

By

Jennifer Angelina Petro

 

(Using words and phrases found in the book, The Art Spirit, by Robert Henri, published, 1923, along with my own words and phrases.)

 

 

Things overlap as memories

carrying one another

to other revelations

of ourselves.

 

Remember:

a triangle is moving towards us—

a passageway into rooms where we see beyond

the usual, where forms reorganize themselves

in infinite simplicity.

 

There are echoes everywhere

of the song within us—

marvel at it—joyous and clear—

the sense of all contained.

Into these rooms we carry what we know.

 

But we are not here to do what has already been done.

There are still more pages possible.

 

Even though our souls ring cracked—

we must tell of our trip around beauty,

we must tell of our wonderful drifting in and out

of the crowds, where dancers appear

perhaps as surprised to see us

as we are of them.

 

There is value in such revelations—

of being sketch-hunters of the least parts.

There are openings everywhere

when we delight in the constant hatchings.

We are moments of sky.

Nothing exists for itself.