LatinosUSA

Phil Repko is excited to release his second volume of poetry with Anxiety Press. “Home Stretch” serves up a series of contemplative, ironic, and/or insightful verses built on the lingering thought that we have plenty of race to run, even when we have recognized that we aren’t running the race to win it. 

With an Introduction by John Yamrus, the prolific minimalist poet, “Home Stretch” is grounded in traditional approaches to poetry, but incorporates contemporary techniques as well. Repko plans to continue his efforts to curate a lifetime of writing while there is time and opportunity to do so. “Home Stretch” is an exciting continuation of the engaging voice found in “Pieces of April,” his initial foray into the world of published verse.

Sample Poems

Fireside
 
Stare with me into the fire,
while the shapes themselves
experiment with three-point perspective.
Let crackling percussionists
stray far outside the confines
of the looser punctuation.
Channel ragtime, hip-hop
laced with fractured funk.
Hear the chilly winter atmosphere
play 2nd fiddle to the flash dance
of the tightly-scripted flame. 
 
Let it roll. Let it swing.
Belt it out, hear it ring,
 
While the storm in the house
deigns to rage. 
                                  deigns to rage.
 
For the world remains subdued by the warmth within the song,
shadowed pretense hides the summons
as it rambles, as it scrambles,
as it ambles and it gambols,
as the worries and the dangers
stay as genuine and wicked,
and as frighteningly strong.
 
Still.  There is the fire. 
 
I ask for leave of absence
from a life incarceration -
a plea for periodic
flights of freedom in my mind.
---- The world can suffer all of yesterday.
----  as we can hold our horses from tomorrow.

~~

For a Crust of Bread
 
My daughter, Salwa, is three years old and very sick.
A woman I just met is the only one helping her.
 
I cannot enter the hospital, as the bombs have rained down there.
They have no consistent power
                                                  Just like Palestine.
I do not know what ails her
                                                  Unlike Palestine.
 
The West says we should leave our home
The one we built ourselves with sweat and sacrifice
                                                  Just like Palestine.
 
Hamas has blood upon its hands, they say.
 
The state of Israel says they must defend themselves.
 
My daughter does not care
                                                  Unlike Palestine.
She is powerless
                                                  Just like Palestine.
 
The West says we should flee to escape the bombs.
Hamas says we cannot leave, except to die.
 
So we stay and hope                   Just like Palestine.
 
Some curse Israel for the bombing.
                                                  We are innocent.
Some curse Hamas for the terror.
                                                  We are innocent.
 
Upon a rock a church was built and it may be our only hope –
But the hard place is reality.  We are not part of that church.
 
We wish to live where we have always lived. Just like Palestine.
Salwa doesn’t know the difference.  She wants to feel better.
Salwa harbors no ill-will. 
 
Neither can we stay, nor can we leave.
The choice is a mirage.      Just like Peace in Zion.
The hard place does not have a middle – Just like Palestine.
  
The nurse who tries to help is a woman of God.
She must be sent from heaven, but she wears no sign
To shout alliance with the Muslim or the Jew.
 
Perhaps she is a Christian or that rarer thing:
An angel unattached to any cross or crown. 
 
Salwa cries incessantly   Just like Palestine.
 
She cannot make a choice.  Just like Palestine.
 
I must stop now – because the fighting won’t.

~~

Denouement
 
Why, of course, there’s a letdown
when the challenge of the year:
to capture once per week
the tiniest of hummingbirds
in the act of living life,
has passed its prime.
 
You can trick yourself into believing
that what you see is truth,
but if the flutter of another
comes precisely as the trap
was laid and as intended?
 
Wings extended, the unwitting angel
flitting at the feeder means to swindle truth.
Then, I’m sorry, that reality is
plastered into semblance
of corners plumb, and seams obscured.
 
The magic happens only
when we catch ourselves
at feeders only God could lay as traps. 

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