Monthly Archives: September 2016

Considerations, by Jennifer Angelina Petro

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star-soul-flower

Considerations

By

Jennifer Angelina Petro

 

Consider the Spanish word, Sol,

And the English word, soul.

Notice their intimate closeness,

Notice the soul is a little sun giving light

To the entire solar system of the body,

Notice how warmth spreads within you

As you realize you are a part of a universal,

Dancing constellation.

 

Consider the words, soil, and soul.

Notice their intimate closeness,

Notice the soul’s rich darkness, full of roots

And seeds, forgotten bones and hidden rivers,

Notice how coolness, damp with earth, eases

The weight of carrying so much.

 

 

 

 


 

 

The Center of Your Soul, by Jennifer Angelina Petro

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The Center of Your Soul

By

Jennifer Angelina Petro

 

 

 

You needn’t worry summer is stepping back;

You needn’t do the same; inside

Spirit has been gathering

Embers of the sun and the harvest moon

And placed them in the hearth of your soul;

As winter’s shift trundles over

The hillside and drapes itself

Over eaves and shutters, the space

Around the chimneys remains

Warm and where winter birds roost

To shake the frost from their wings;

Summer will always be there surrounded

By springtime in the center

Of who you are—there will always be warmth—

Now work—pretend you didn’t hear what I just said—

Go–collect the kindling of your desires,

Rake the dry leaves of your disappointments

And heap them together with whatever

Things you didn’t do this summer

And set them on fire; there is wood

A plenty in the forest of your worries—

It is there for a reason—you are

Not harming anyone or anything

When you illume the soul—winter silences

Autumn’s dazzling carnival, autumn

Diminishes summer’s return, and spring—

That fragrant season of dew-dappled light

Lives forever by the force of your own will

Coupled with mercy from heaven

In the center of your soul.

 

 

 

 





 

Transcendencies, A Transgender Manifesto, by Jennifer Angelina Petro

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Transcendencies

A Transgender Manifesto

by

Jennifer Angelina Petro

 

 

We are all transcendentalists

Seeking to live above duality and paradox,

We are all transcendent,

Shining across space and time in clouds

Of oxygen and carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen;

Each and every one of us transcends

Something, or someone, or somehow

Or someday—just to be able to stand here catching our breath—

We transcend and we become—

It is as simple as that.

 

Our blood streams are transcontinental,

Our lives holy translations of spirit and soul,

And if we are lucky, we sense ourselves being

Transcribed onto the pages of the world

And can take comfort in knowing

Our lives are written, revised, edited, and published

By storylines far greater than ours—

 

We are all transfigured, like Jesus on the transmountain

And then resurrected to life everlasting

Every time we transcend ourselves to become ourselves–

Life is nothing but a series of ongoing

Transplantations and transferals of fluids and spirit–

We transmogrify our way through life–

And time is transinfinite—shifting over and ever through

Many transhistorical points of references

That are increasingly transcultural and transhuman, and

Full of blood and wishes—

Everything we do, say, or think

Is transformative, setting events into motion

That change us and our world—

 

We are all transients and haven’t a clue—

Even beyond our so-called beliefs, where or when, how, or why

We will be transformed and/or transported

To otherness, to other transpossibilities—

 

Our spirits translocate and love transelevates us—

We are transpirited and our souls translucent,

Transmissible, and transoceanic—-

Why not rejoice and dance with one another

And love the best of who we are?

 

Yes, I am transpierced with pain,

Yes, I have been transplanted inside

And the ground softens with every step;

Yes, I am transpolar and songs and poems

Come aching to be transubstantiated into form through me,

And yet, even as I move through a series

Of neverending transversals only to find myself

Transported into more hatred, ignorance,

And shadow-driven insecurities of the white men—

I am still here—I have not given up yet—

 

I transilluminate boundaries

That no longer have solid meaning—they never did,

But now monsters are waking up to the truth that gender

Is not fixed—it is transfixed—and no longer the transaxle

Of a tired binary sustained by them—the white men—

Whose own genitals they never truly know,

Or love, or transform into possibilities without shame—

Even though everything about people like me is transubstantiated

By living, breathing experience—for here I am, and yet I am told

I do not exist—I am told I do not deserve to exist—

Even though everything exists based on continuous

Transformations of spirit and body,

And long, transcendent series of moments

Spilling into other moments into which we are all

Given choices to hurt or to heal, love or to hate,

Explore or destroy—and the occurrences of transpeople

Hurting anyone are rare—for true transpeople

Understand pain as few others do————-

 

What makes you think you can transpose

An already faulty belief system to justify or rationalize

Your unjustifiable and irrational actions and laws?

 

Do you really think humanity will not eventually wise up

To your genocidal ways?

 

Be ye transported into a land where transcendencies

Are accepted as commonplace—because, in actuality,

They already are—

 

We all transmute oxygen and water

And food into our transubstantiating metabolisms—

Everything we do is a transaction of time and space

Body, mind, spirit, soul—no matter how far we move

From one another, we are all transactors,

And our breath transoceanic, and our lives

Transferrable with one another’s—

 

It will happen despite your barbaric ideas—

I will not be transfixed by your gaze—You

Who cannot think past your own shadow—

I am a living transmission of messages

Who illuminates your small mindedness.

 

I am not here to inspire some kind

Of transcultural revolution—

I AM a revolution—I am

Transfiguration transanimated by my every movement,

And I live as a thorn in the side

Of the white man who has lost any ability—

Indeed—if they ever had any—to transmute limited thinking

Into growth, evolution, wisdom, common sense—

Love and true, “Christian” charity—

The Jesus transfigured on the mount does not know

Hatred—no matter what Paul tried to tattoo

Onto him—Jesus was transgender—transforming

God-seed into woman-flesh—

And back again to seed and flower for all eternity—You can know this

With all certainty, if you will only look past your own

Untouched, unloved, unabused genitals—

Jesus came to transfigure you and to set your limited beliefs on fire,

Jesus came to give you a transfusion to flush out

Your hatred both of yourself and of those

Who truly live as he suggested—steeped in the beatitudes

So deeply as to be transcribed into living testaments

Of love’s transcendent power—

 

Come, shed your mantles of tissue and weariness,

Come shed your tired ideological transparencies,

And transmigrate with me to a way of living where Jesus reigns

Alongside the mother tree and the angels

Of transmogrification, and beings of transdimensional

Singing and dancing—

 

For we all transpire–and will–sooner than we want,

Life is transonic, yes, but it is death that comes at the speed of sound—

And when it does we shall all be transposed against a backdrop of light

And seen for how we really lived and breathed—

So live now with me, with us—we are your brothers and sisters

And siblings of light transilluminated with holy,

And unending folly and grace, and joy transacted

Into countless transferals—let us all be

Translocated into here and now—transgiven

Transcendencies in love, sweet love,

Everlasting.

 

 

 

 


 

 

 




My Poems Speak to the Living and the Dead, by Jennifer Angelina Petro

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My Poems Speak to the Living and the Dead

By

Jennifer Angelina Petro

 

 

My poems speak

To the living

And the dead.

Spirits lingering nearby

Hear my words

And start dancing;

Ghosts feel them blow thru

Like calming winds

Or billowing storms

Depending on how tethered

To place they are.

Spirits send out resonances

To meet these resonances

Even if they’re read in your head—

After all, skulls and skin

Are no barrier to spirits

Longing to be influenced and

To influence.  My poems

 

Speak to streams of time,

Carrying ships bearing autumn trees,

My poems speak to the clouds

Who carry them across the sea,

My poems speak to roots and wings

And burrow like cicada nymphs

Only to rise up fully mature-winged-voice-throwers,

My poems speak to the rivers,

Polishing rocks and stones, and smoothing over

Fallen trees, my poems

Caress the legs of frogs and kiss the lips of deer,

My poems speak to the souls

Of infants and elders, my poems

Speak to the living and the dead.

 

Take

A moment,

Hold it loosely, much like

A hummingbird holds its hovering

Over the trumpet flower,

And speak these words,

Speak your words,

And set your whole being

And everything around you

Thrumming, like

A chord

Of joy.

 

 

 


 

 

 




 

Touching Souls, by Jennifer Angelina Petro

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Touching Souls

By

Jennifer Angelina Petro

 

 

Wherever you are

Stop reading these words in your head for a moment

And speak them out loud.

 

Say, “wind,” and, “breath,” and, “spirit.”

 

Know this:

 

Breath carries sounds of words,

Wind carries them even further,

And all of it all borne on wings of spirit.

 

Put another way:

 

Words travel, like wind

Becoming us, like breath

Enlivening us, like spirit

Sharing us because.

 

Try these:

 

“Listen,”

Try, “lemonade,”

Try, “wish.”

 

Resonances come whether or not anyone

Repeats them out loud after you;

Faces lift and brighten,

Steps slow and lighten,

Some look up frightened.

 

Know this:

 

You touched souls

With the kind of inner refreshment

That only living wind and spirit feathers can bring,

You brought ideas, held in sound, held in life,

And the world will never be the same,

And neither

Will you.

 

 

 


 

 

 




There Are No Wrong Turns, by Jennifer Angelina Petro

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No Wrong Turns

By

Jennifer Angelina Petro

 

 

There are no wrong turns.

Each and every time you have been lost

You have eventually found your way out;

It is the same with journeying inside.

Walls appear when moments before

There were none,

Dead ends rise up like tombstones when you

Least expect them to,

Passageways narrow suddenly, and fall off

Into deep ravines,

But here you are, reading this—and this

Is hope on a string of words;

Take them or leave them, the fact remains

You are reading them, hearing them

Now

Here

Now

Safe

Now

Without guardrails

And you are still not falling.

I get it, don’t worry.  I am lost

Much of the time myself, I hardly ever know

Where the road is going—if it indeed goes anywhere.

Somedays I look down the road

And only mist, or mist-infused darkness loom;

Somedays the road ahead looks more like a movie screen

Of the past than a road, and somedays,

I even begin walking or exploring the edges

Only to pull myself upright at the slightest sound

And go back to where I was, and sometimes,

Even that place—the back where I was place—

Is gone; and sometimes, and, oh, I feel terrible

For saying this—but sometimes the road

Is so utterly lonely, even though it is inhabited

By many fine souls—living, dead, in between—

And there are fireflies, and stars, rivers, and buttercups,

And there is singing and crickets, and always, the moon;

Let’s face it though—the road can be hard,

And gravel gets in your shoes,

And the desire arises more often than you would like to admit

To simply roll up into a ball and dissolve into even more nothing

Than you sometimes already feel—

And yet, it is the only road you need,

And no matter where you let it take you, or how far you go,

Or how slowly you go, there are still no wrong turns.