I wasn’t feeling cross when I suspended,
For a time, some minor flourishes of faith.
Around my neck, a sign and chain,
Since grammar school had so remained.
Without a silver thought of why or how.
The pendant seemed a comfort then, and now.
So for a time no outward link
Gave space for anyone to think
That there was spirit anywhere to see.
It was not fear that so subdued
Displays of ties to holy roods,
Or to a rood of any kind or See.
Instead, no ostentatious show
Would raise a hand or blow a nose,
That needed ways to shed the phlegm
That came with stalwart vertigo.
The world was always cautious then
To keep the thumpers taut and thin.
So now I wear a daily ankh,
To shade the threat of catholic zeal.
May god forbid that we all feel
Some harmony with those of faith
Whose hearts maintain a different face,
Or – horrors! – those who innocently kneel.
The ankh so long the cross predates
That centuries of love and weight
Lay soft foundation with a simple curl.
I could with flint-like bearded chin,
Replace the one I’ve worn so thin.
Each symbol praises life, and prays our world
Can outlast hate, and fear, and even sin.
When you lay on me in the mornings
I’ve told you before
I’m pretty sure there’s
no where else for you to go at this point
as we share a cheek there’s no
closer. Despite your attempts to
press yourself in closer, a shove
to just see how
much closer we could be.
We share a cheek
in the way we have
since we brought you home
and I felt all of you on my shoulder and against my
face as you grew bigger.
We share a cheek
As the bright red of the rising sun
gets cut up by the things along the way
and the light remains runs along our
indistinguishable skin.
Son, you
are the what of my lungs
the light of my sight
the blood of my heart
the stone of my bones.
Right now?
There’s no where else to go.
Look, I don’t know exactly how succession works,
But Charlemagne would—could not endure such
Blasphemy as the oeuvre of early crowning.
How, then, did the moniker
Implant itself enough in these short weeks that
Wrinkled imprints persist within the borders of
His eyes (the brows and lids), as
If to deride the See as scowling when the truth
Is he did first.
Tides and tithes rise at his arrival; what good
Are moons to kings who have the sky, at least
The brighter parts of it, out now where it once was
Locked. A tower maybe; more a pillory, and I’m not even
Cromwell. But to be truthful, in my stewardship of
Le Dauphine, I breached too quick, and shallow.
So then, if she, of noble title, French—we’re civil now—and
Thus obliged, at something so much lacking ceremony as
An inaugural late-noon nuclear lunch, placed the scepter at his feet,
And called him “King”, and as the eighth and ultimate, he silently
Accepts, who am I to question the existence of a pastry based
On the existence of frosting alone? Or would I rather chew the
Hard end of this pacifier in frustration?
Impose upon the world your flourish.
Wear a flower in your hair.
Or harken back to when decorum
Tapped on social shoulders,
Hinting firmly about pocket squares
And creases where they stand.
Crack eggs and make your omelets,
In iron skillets cast in leaner years;
Much grander now for passages of time.
Write letters, notes, and daily lists
At roll-top desks – well-oiled –
With a sturdy, stately frame of cherry wood.
Be brave enough to be peculiar.
Your world belongs to you,
And who’s to say when singular
Breaks ties with wrong or right.
Impose upon the world your flourish.
Wear bouquets of flowers in your hair.
I am proud to announce the release of Pieces of April, my first book of poetry. Anxiety Press has supported and published this new release. The author has entered the world of publication for the first time, but the perspective is certainly not tentative or hesitant.
Reviews have so far been stellar, with two accomplished professional poets rating it 5 of 5 starts.
See this from Peter Mladinic:
Peter Mladinic
5.0 out of 5 stars Word Paradise
Reviewed in the United States on December 1, 2024
Verified Purchase
The love of the spoken and written word is evident in Pieces of April, a collection of poems in part autobiographical and in part speculative, with an abiding concern for what Willam Faulkner calls “the old verities and truths of the heart.” “For when I light my nervous cigarette / The shifty smoke wafts about my head,” the speaker says in “Premonitions,” which begins the collection.
The poems resist the resignation “To finding comfort only in withdrawal,” a line that concludes Pieces of April. Among its best poems are: “Hershey Gold,” “Crystal Clear,”
“The Chimney in the Attic,” “Old Friends,”“House in the Clouds,” and “Why Should I Climb the Lookout?,” a response to Pound’s “The River Merchant’s Wife.” “Lookout” is one in a series response poems to poems by
Eliot, Frost, Roethke, and other notable twentieth century poets. Repko’s individual voice comes through, a voice attuned to the sight, sense, and sound in poems where his first-person I becomes first-person we.
