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Best Poems Written by Andrew Repenning

Below are the all-time best Andrew Repenning poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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You Told Me Not To Play On the Doghouse

You told me not to play on the doghouse.
You told me multiple times that day
That I should not play on the dog house.
Later that night, sometime after dinner,
I built a fortress made of thick wooden blocks.
At some point, when we were getting coats ready to leave,
You were talking with my parents in the kitchen
Over on last cup of dandelion tea.
The older kids were outside smoking cigarettes.
I asked for permission and went out
Under an older brother's supervision.
The steps from the side door were rough red-stoned brick.
I hopped down them, onto the stone paved sidewalk
And went out to that doghouse.
I sat at the edge of the sidewalk
Dangling my feet into the hole the dog had dug
Through concrete and dirt,
And I took a hard look at that doghouse.
I don't think anyone even noticed as I settled myself to sit 
On the plywood roof of that dog house.
I fell off the doghouse and into that hole.
My right elbow smashed into the concrete at the hole's edge,
Separating the bones at the spot.

I don't recall if I went inside
Or if you came to me first.
Ice was put on my arm and I was rushed to the hospital.
I wore a caste through the beginning of Summer.
My kindergarten class and the first graders
All signed the relic.
The whole tee-ball team signed it,
And that last game before we moved
They all signed the game ball and gave it to me.

I never apologized to you
For disobeying that caring command.
What child would?
It seems now that I've lost the chance,
And for that I'm truly sorry.

Details | Andrew Repenning Poem

It would be disingenuous to say that Ingenium did not have a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich for breakfast. It would boarder a lie to claim the same deity did not begin their morning exercise with a job through the unexplored corridors of the memory and imagery. The halls of memory are charted to an extent, but the cathedrals hidden down the vast tunnels of imagery seem always foreign and new. There Ingenium stopped to smoke a cigarette, leaning against a door marked "wooden". Neighboring this door were others, each with a replaceable placard screwed into the hard-wood. "Plastics" one read. "Trees" read another to Ingenium's left.
Propped up by the "wooden" door, they watched blurred figures move behind the tinted glass window of the door before them. Dark letters were craft-fully painted onto the glass: "Office Furniture". There seemed to be an argument over vague physics terminology being held between two shadowy characters in the office space beyond the tinted glass. The abstract entity could only make out a few mumbled words, something about work force equaling applied pressure divided by ambition over availability. The banter failed to impress Ingenium, and the muse snuffed its cigarette against the oak molding of the "wooden" door before continuing its job.
They passed other more decorative doors like "religion" or the red-white and blue striped door labeled "politics". It wasn't until Ingenium reached the door to the self that they stopped and released a sigh. Reaching down with unfathomable presence, Ingenium turned the red glass door knob and opened the door before it. A world of light and darkness poured out, flowing through the deity like whey through a screen. The curds that collected there were the substance of the soul. The cheeses that we ate that night were the mana of life, to be consumed today and gathered again on the morrow.

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The Graveyard Shift

Darkest night and longest hours:
Hours to labor and
Hours to trip in the primitive ooze of repetition
Hours to catch up or trade for spare minutes,
Hours with eyes only half aware
Of life and its warnings,
Lifeless and blissless hours of emptiness,
Hours that never end,
Hours of yawning and stale coffee,
Hours measured in radio songs and cigarettes.

Darkest light before the day,
With shades of grey and
Unidentifiable lumps of black.
Humped, dark masses of human
Trudge through the hours
With brooms and coffee and sleeplessness
And floor buffing machines
Humming angelic tunes like flagellant dirges.
Shapeless figures with no place to go
For hours, no home to fine
For hours, no peace of mind
For listless hours.

Moonless hours for the streetlamps
And for the peddlers of lawlessness.
They count their hours in dimes
And nickles and quarters,
But never pennies or half dollars,
And never by retracing foot steps,
If they can help it.

Hours for the fools that sleep.
Hours for the watchman on his beat.
Hours for the black blood
Puddled and undiscovered on the blackest streets.
Still to come is the hour of discovery.

Hours spent despairingly counting 
The slow progression of passing hours.
A second hand that drips like cold molasses.
A minute hand that tortures
A set of wide and soulless eyes.
An hour hand that doesn't move at all.

Rituals and rites mark the odorous plumes of hours unseen.
An echoing scream amplifies the darkness.
The howl of sirens follow in the distance.
Hours of violence or depravity or sin or pleasure.
These are the hours set aside 
For the ageless telling of tales
And the insomnia of music makers.
All the misery of graveyard hours
If for no other reason
Than the gravity of their six foot title.

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Dear Vicky,

Shall I compare thee to the Autumn's breeze
Or to the Summer's gourds where they grow green
Before the spook day's jack-o-lanterns scream 
their jagged tooth grins into the dark October night?

Shall I compare thee to the ice tray left unfilled,
Wanting liquid for our drinks to chill?
Perhaps I shall draw a simile 
Of the sad setting sun you left with me.

Former lover, you are the Krampus' heavy sack
That sits in wait for the coal so black.
You are the roadkill waiting to decay
With every lie your venomous lips will lay.

And if I were to call you a deep abyss,
It would be a simple fact to miss.
You are the pit from which Hell's fiends are spawned,
And life without you has been a tranquil dawn.

Details | Andrew Repenning Poem

Funeral For a Friend

The day is sad and cold.
The white pine at the forest's clearing
	pours sap, like tears
From the many meaningless gashes
	of the hatchet's blade.
A rogue shoelace dangles from a high branch.
These things are acquired
	from the busy-ness of Summer.
The time has yet come to bid farewell,
As the old tree clings to the last tendrils
of its ever growing, ever green life.
The arborist reports, 
	this will be my friend's last day in this life.
A few of its children have survived long enough
To now gather at the clearing's edge 
	in solemn respect.
The nearby meadow grows more yellow in mourning
Of what is yet to come.
Even the stubborn sky turns gray
And weeps for these hours of departure.
The matted ground beneath collects the fallen foliage
Like flowers on an open grave.
And I, I can only offer a few respectful words:
An eulogy paled by comparison
And inadequate to capture
The sweet life this old friendship
	has borrowed from this forest.

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If I Were a Blood Sucking Parasite

If I were a blood sucking parasite
I'd hide in the stilt grass and wait
For the next feast to walk by.
Usually it's a deer or opossum,
But if the weather is fair I might see a hiker
Or a park ranger in khaki shorts
To feed off of for a while before an untimely discovery.

If the electoral season were right,
I'd position myself at the front doors
              Of the municipal building
And encourage people to vote for my cousin.
There's always a chance
My cousin might be elected in for another term,
Thus securing a food source for me and my family.

The best year or two of feeding
Is always after a presidential election year.
After the competition and smiles and baby kissing
If you supported the appropriate side,
You're guaranteed a few years of relative vacation
Before starting up the whole campaign trail
    All over again.

But I'm not the type to so easily accept handouts.
After the rush of rising out my my winter hibernation
And discovering who the new commander and chief might be;
I'd head back to my life of leisure,
Bobbing with the breeze
On the tip of a blade of stilt grass.
I wouldn't go back to the millstone because I had to.
I would do so simply because it feels good
To be working again.

Details | Andrew Repenning Poem

An Open Mind

Cracked open like a jar of peanut-butter,

             the mind is emptied

With a certain medicative methodism

That would be habitual,

             were it done more frequently.

A few things escape,

Like the shopping list left behind on the coffee table

Or the milk that was to be purchased.

So many other things, which were only just things really,

Seem to linger like the plague.

Old telephone numbers cling to the crevices,

Rotting away with the names of former lovers

And something that once resembled guilt.

A constant ticker tape of obligations and responsibility

Clicks as it spits out the duties of the hour,

Constantly moving along to its unheard song

Between two unlistening ears.

In between are flashes of color,

Of autumn leaves and unseasonably bare legs

That grow goosebumps in short shorts

                 and a cold breeze.

Observations couple with imagination

To form shapes and sounds

And olfactory stimulation

That was never anything more

            than perfume in the wind.

To finalize the transaction,

The doorway to the mind

         collapses upon itself,

Smothering hot embers into nothing more

         than dank smoke and steam.

As the last gasp of airflow is fused shut

By the rush of busy-ness and day to day

A single breath leaks out, that had once simmered

On the lips of a beautiful woman.

"Un besito," she had whispered passionate once,

Two words that meant more than the world.

Details | Andrew Repenning Poem

The Absence of Silence

I

In the solitary hours
my ears play tricks on me.
Call this a confession if you will.
I hear things that I don't want to,
People talking indescriptively,
Electronic tones and beeps.
There are no voices in my head
Except my own,
The occasional lyrics of a catchy song,
And the imagined calling
Of my name in public places.
And I wonder at the chance
That I am not alone in this,
That others hear the things not there,
The mischief of pixies that dance in the ear.

II

Dress quickly!
Your lover leaves to errand
Promptly upon awakening to the late morning.
You must flee with him
So that the house remains in stabbing silence.

It is not so complete though
When capsuling the off rhythm ping
Of the radiators, the cracks of old walls
When the wind should dare to test them.
The refrigerator and the toilet
Take turns refreshing themselves,
But those ambiances only serve to exclaim
The sinister silence that reigns over all else.

Details | Andrew Repenning Poem

Hymn To Our Warmth

I do not mean to compliment you
Only on your physical appearance.
There are so many other ways 
That I could specify how great you are.

A snow flake dances in the wind,
Pure, innocent, magnificent and small.
It flutters there or here beside me
Acting as a muse for my pen
Or a distraction from a world of frustrations.
For no reason but their own
My crystallized companion turns to face me,
Landing upon my lips to melt.
Or it should choose to take to folly,
Dancing again past my eyes.
Not only do I see it there, but feel it tambien.
Where hopes are dreams and spirits jolly,
I would have the moment’s consideration again,
If only for a moment to reside there or here
Where the snow flake warmed my heart.

The pleasures I feel are not to be felt
With fingers or lips or the flesh of this body.
These pleasures flow
	Far deeper than the bloodlines go.
These pleasures excite
	Far stronger than our joint hands might alone.

Alone this body is only flesh.
Without the passion that flows between us
There are only empty hands:
Hands that hold hands,
But do not feel their warmth.

Best Poems Written by Andrew Repenning

A Fire For Warmth

You Told Me Not To Play On the Doghouse

Breakfast With Ingenium

The Graveyard Shift

Dear Vicky,

Funeral For a Friend

If I Were a Blood Sucking Parasite

An Open Mind

The Absence of Silence

Hymn To Our Warmth