Keep dancing, love, keep dancing. Don’t let your
bitter wonder hold you back. Reward flows
from chancing motion—so soothsayers, pure
in their vision through crystal, seem to know,
predict as if decision and passion
both erupt from soul’s one subduction zone,
pouring forth through blood, muscle, skeleton,
igniting graceful leaps, closed position
marrying us to great music. Oh, hold
me as I hold you, welcoming our waltz,
lost in our embrace, inspired to risk bold
whirls and dips, mouths near gasping as we pause.
Your shy eyes glance away, and I recall
past lives in Renoir’s Bal à Bougival.
Roger Armbrust
November 27, 2009
Friday, November 27, 2009
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
MOUNTAIN THANKSGIVING
We’ve turkey on our table, love. Dressing
and trimmings. Witness lantern light dimming
as we hold hands, bow our heads in blessing,
share the meal. But this keeps my head swimming:
How you glow in lantern light, eyes dancing
fireflies of delight, celebrating guests’
every move, it seems, even my glancing
a glass off our wood floor. I should have guessed
it, your love flame swirling to bonfire through
our years. I see it in simplest ways: your
skilled fingers tending our garden—jeweler
etching diamonds. Then your easy smile, sure
I’ll glow like moonlight, or blaze like dusk’s sun,
when we lay as one after guests are gone.
Roger Armbrust
November 24, 2009
and trimmings. Witness lantern light dimming
as we hold hands, bow our heads in blessing,
share the meal. But this keeps my head swimming:
How you glow in lantern light, eyes dancing
fireflies of delight, celebrating guests’
every move, it seems, even my glancing
a glass off our wood floor. I should have guessed
it, your love flame swirling to bonfire through
our years. I see it in simplest ways: your
skilled fingers tending our garden—jeweler
etching diamonds. Then your easy smile, sure
I’ll glow like moonlight, or blaze like dusk’s sun,
when we lay as one after guests are gone.
Roger Armbrust
November 24, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
CHILDSONG
The small girl across the street is screaming.
Not painful cry, but caught in her childsong,
discovering sharp tones beyond dreaming,
delighted in their shrill, startling height, long
as breath will allow, intense with spirit
Ulysses must have known, bound to ship’s mast,
craving wisdom beyond death. Love, hear it
in her voice, joy longing to kiss our vast
universe? Can we match it with our mute
choices, sharing life’s passion through glances,
smiles, hands and arms latching our resolute
bodies, braving what we see? Faith dances
through us, stirred to heal deep fractures from pain,
leads us to sharing our childsong again.
Roger Armbrust
November 23, 2009
Not painful cry, but caught in her childsong,
discovering sharp tones beyond dreaming,
delighted in their shrill, startling height, long
as breath will allow, intense with spirit
Ulysses must have known, bound to ship’s mast,
craving wisdom beyond death. Love, hear it
in her voice, joy longing to kiss our vast
universe? Can we match it with our mute
choices, sharing life’s passion through glances,
smiles, hands and arms latching our resolute
bodies, braving what we see? Faith dances
through us, stirred to heal deep fractures from pain,
leads us to sharing our childsong again.
Roger Armbrust
November 23, 2009
Sunday, November 22, 2009
GLAZE
Not speckles on your sweet holiday ham,
sintered oxide covering metal door,
reflective lens of your digital cam
nor transparent surface of marble floor.
Not vitreous coating on ceramic
vase holding my passion-red rosebud gift,
nor glossy gleam of your blouse’s fabric,
but your thin-iced face, love, after our rift:
smooth and lustrous, yet refusing to melt
to my apology, or crack a smile
at my amending joke. I know you felt
my excuse a lie, my intentions vile.
I could tell when your eyes lost their soft glow,
their frost-glistened gaze like frozen windows.
Roger Armbrust
November 22, 2009
sintered oxide covering metal door,
reflective lens of your digital cam
nor transparent surface of marble floor.
Not vitreous coating on ceramic
vase holding my passion-red rosebud gift,
nor glossy gleam of your blouse’s fabric,
but your thin-iced face, love, after our rift:
smooth and lustrous, yet refusing to melt
to my apology, or crack a smile
at my amending joke. I know you felt
my excuse a lie, my intentions vile.
I could tell when your eyes lost their soft glow,
their frost-glistened gaze like frozen windows.
Roger Armbrust
November 22, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
SENNELIER
This morning, he’d concentrate on whites, place
them by his window, view of Quai Voltaire
there before the Louvre, revel in pure grace
of pigment bathed in light, lisp softest prayer—
thanks for de Romanange’s lithopone,
Courtois’s zinc oxide, the Romans’ ceruse.
By noon Cézanne would show, always alone,
wild-eyed, scowling about Gustave’s poor use
of celestial blue, never right for Paul’s
skies. Patience marks how we love our artists,
he’d later counsel son Henri, recall
Gauguin’s fight outside their shop, Mars-stained fists
pounding another drunk. That night, he’d dream
of lakes, fluorescents, barite-flowing streams.
Roger Armbrust
November 20, 2009
them by his window, view of Quai Voltaire
there before the Louvre, revel in pure grace
of pigment bathed in light, lisp softest prayer—
thanks for de Romanange’s lithopone,
Courtois’s zinc oxide, the Romans’ ceruse.
By noon Cézanne would show, always alone,
wild-eyed, scowling about Gustave’s poor use
of celestial blue, never right for Paul’s
skies. Patience marks how we love our artists,
he’d later counsel son Henri, recall
Gauguin’s fight outside their shop, Mars-stained fists
pounding another drunk. That night, he’d dream
of lakes, fluorescents, barite-flowing streams.
Roger Armbrust
November 20, 2009
PARTICLES
Since we are all particles of godlife,
since we all exercise within godbreath,
find our way and simply grow in godlight,
share intelligent energy past death,
since our collected cells can only see
our single cells flow through microscopic
invention we ourselves envision, we
ourselves create from other cells—topics
of our every thought, decision, action
and reaction—discover particles
smaller than our cells, great dancing fractions
as if life within life, and yet ourselves,
since all our cells share power through a kiss,
and kiss shares many forms, I write you this.
Roger Armbrust
November 20, 2009
since we all exercise within godbreath,
find our way and simply grow in godlight,
share intelligent energy past death,
since our collected cells can only see
our single cells flow through microscopic
invention we ourselves envision, we
ourselves create from other cells—topics
of our every thought, decision, action
and reaction—discover particles
smaller than our cells, great dancing fractions
as if life within life, and yet ourselves,
since all our cells share power through a kiss,
and kiss shares many forms, I write you this.
Roger Armbrust
November 20, 2009
Thursday, November 19, 2009
AIX-EN-PROVENCE
Look there to the east, love, how we still see
Montagne Sainte-Victoire as Cézanne saw
her, the way sunlit tinges of blue bleed
with pink and gray, pastel mask over raw
limestone. Let’s sit under aqua awnings
of Les Deux Garçons, sip red Bandol as
he and Zola did till misty dawnings
long before their parting, lift each wine glass
and swear we two will last, solid as that
distant mountain, balanced as his bowing
bathers, at peace in our fluid abstract
setting, anonymous in our flowing
forms to any voyeur but God—artist
whose graceful brush allows us to exist.
Roger Armbrust
November 19, 2009
Montagne Sainte-Victoire as Cézanne saw
her, the way sunlit tinges of blue bleed
with pink and gray, pastel mask over raw
limestone. Let’s sit under aqua awnings
of Les Deux Garçons, sip red Bandol as
he and Zola did till misty dawnings
long before their parting, lift each wine glass
and swear we two will last, solid as that
distant mountain, balanced as his bowing
bathers, at peace in our fluid abstract
setting, anonymous in our flowing
forms to any voyeur but God—artist
whose graceful brush allows us to exist.
Roger Armbrust
November 19, 2009
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