POLISH TOWN SHARING MY ZIP CODE

Just two degrees separating today’s
high and low here in Nowogard, too warm
for soft mist morphing to snow. Jadwiga
(named for the feminist miner, her arm
broken, then forehead blown off for striking
in the Seventeenth Century) giggles
as I study Hotel Oskar’s lime-green
wall, quip I hunger for pie. She wiggles
her index, chides how I shouldn’t make fun.
We pause at the granite monument: four
soldiers, straight and pointed as missiles, one
capped more like a bishop. Right after our
lake walk, we’ll mazurka, sip Pompanskis,
then flirt over bigos and pierogi.


Roger Armbrust
February 24, 2008

MIND CLEANSING: RIYADH

A soccer field, rose bushes and, thinly
visible beyond, limp-stretched razor wire—
slivers of silver ember—circling sky
atop courtyard walls. Aamir once aspired
to jihad. “No more,” he whispers, faint grin
curling inside dark beard. He lets me watch
his pen and ink create a francolin.
“At Guantanamo, to draw I would scratch
cell walls with my fingernail. If outside,
I’d slit my wrists on barbed wire, pray to die.
No more. Now I feel Allah’s love inside
me. I see clearly how bin Laden lies.”
Nearby, the general sighs a token
murmur to doctors: “Well done. He’s broken.”

Roger Armbrust
February 21, 2008

WORLD CLOCK

Poodwaddle.com may force us to drink
again, depressing hordes with statistics.
While learning day, date and time, psyche sinks,
viewing our globe’s growing number of sick
folks: two million with strained tickers, increased
one every three seconds. No sugar coat
for diabetes: a pancreas seized
within two minutes. But let’s not just gloat
on illness. What about wrecks, suicides,
war, abortions, divorce? There’s a tree lost
every two clock clicks. This earth we reside
on grows warmer each breath. One species tossed
to extinction just as I compose this.
No way this timepiece brings us catharsis.

Roger Armbrust
February 17, 2008

ISOSCELES

I see her leg and his leg connecting,
of equal altitude from my base view.
How we three link end to end, affecting
each vertex, their passion seems to eschew.
Only I, isolated, can recall
Euclid drawing on circles’ theory,
so I circle our perimeter, fall
to my knees, wonder if Heron’s weary
of how spurned partners always calculate
areas where lovers lay, the simplex—
as we crawl ever closer—dark as hate.
I pray Delaunay guides me to convex
hulls of their throats. My scalpel, as they sleep,
will bisect their carotids, swift and deep.

Roger Armbrust
February 15, 2008

VALENTINE'S DAY

If you were here, I’d tell you how the priest
disobeyed cruel Claudius, marrying
lovers, though the emperor had released
no one from his law, its weight carrying
men to war. And the price the priest paid:
bones crushed by clubs; a blade-severed head.
But, oh, before then, how soft words he said
to the jailer’s daughter--poems he read
her by candlelight--filled her with bright tears.
How hands touched through bars, making bodies flame.
How their vow, to never forget, for years
would allow her to live alone, their fame
leading lovers to share the final line
of his last, brief note: “From Your Valentine.”


Roger Armbrust

MEXICAN TOWN SHARING MY ZIP CODE

At nearly eight thousand feet, Amozac
de Mota cradles inside Puebla. It’s
so quiet here, you sense the Pacific
and Gulf invading land, even though states
of Guerrero and Veracruz buffer
us. I’m on the outskirts, poet recluse
distant from crammed citizens who suffer
the roaring, skidding, polluted abuse
of Autodromo Miguel E. Abed,
also 24 Hours of Mexico.
But the races roll in tourists who spread
pesos. That lowers taxes, I suppose.
Down the road, snowcapped Popo spews unbound
smoke veils, silent, like TV with no sound.

Roger Armbrust
February 13, 2008

STAR STREAM: NGC 4013

for Turner Buie

This tidal flow appears some magic wand
consumed in its own glowing violet
crust encased in heaven’s jeweled island
clusters of Ursa Major. Rivulets
of light surround it, a subtle, seething
pulse radiating vision of a disk
quivering, or electric eel breathing.
Were we gazing through microscope, I’d risk
saying protist, malaria perhaps.
But this Ritchey-Chretien view confirms
a shivering wave torn apart—mishap
of gravity—from small galaxies termed
spirals. Ah! Now slow arcing to these stars:
Cratos unsheathes his searing scimitar.

Roger Armbrust
February 11, 2008

FRENCH TOWN SHARING MY ZIP CODE

In La Flèche, the duchess of Alençon
built a castle five centuries ago,
donated by Henri IV, her grandson,
so Jesuits could help all great minds know
God, math and languages. René Descartes
cogitated there. But pope’s foot soldiers
got the boot, replaced by combat stalwarts
training the young to kill, a school conjured
by Louis XV. No longer brainstays,
students answer to Brutions. That minute
corporal renamed the place Prytanée
Militaire, honoring those Greeks astute
in guiding ancient cities. Nappy swore
his idea came while swimming the Loir.

Roger Armbrust
February 11, 2008

SILENT RAGE

We’re camped at ease over steaming lattes,
the Village’s Café Cioccolato
filled with wind-chime voices. I simply say,
Saw PBS Frontline last night, a show
about priests molesting boys. My friend’s smile,
slender crescent, warps to a jagged jaw.
Green eyes slant as shoulders curl—panther’s style
of prepping to pounce. Fingers spread like claws.
A vise grips my gut. Then suddenly fire
fades from his eyes, lids close, lips form mute prayer.
This scene takes only seconds. I desire
to question him, but don’t. Decide to stare
toward the window. Softly say, Yanks, I guess,
will get rained out. Glance at him. He nods yes.


Roger Armbrust
February 8, 2008

MADDALENA LAURA SIRMEN

Born four years past Vivaldi’s death, you shared
his sense for composing and ospedale
life. Admired for the violin, you dared
to challenge those superior men. Sailed
to London after studying under
Tartini and wedding Lodovico,
romping with your cicisbeo, plundered
Europe’s praise, playing your own concertos
for two decades. Later you wooed Paris
and St. Petersburg with your voice; some say
you failed. Still, you knew just how to caress
assets, storing wealth till Austria preyed
on Venice, driving the lira crazy.
You died poor, held by your lover Terzi.


Roger Armbrust
February 7, 2008

MILES DAVIS

It seems as though you wearily climb stairs
then slide so slowly down curved banister
the varnish squeaks, touching carpet with care
on balls of your stocking feet en arrière
to audience, pirouette en attitude
facing us with eyes revealing ancient
rivers, intimate stemless Harmon mute’s
glowing caress diffusing your trumpet’s
breath through us. We rest in your shadowed cove
even when you bitch, your spitting spurts curt
yet kind as kisses on the ear. Above
all else, we adore your smile as you flirt
with stars in heaven, then gently sigh when
you fall in love, lark soaring in soft wind.


Roger Armbrust
February 2, 2008

CHIMERA

So what was I supposed to do? Those flames
lightning through lion’s fangs, scorching my cheeks,
searing what little hair remained, my frame
seeming to melt in your heaving. For weeks
I’ve lain here, blisters popping like lava’s
thick bubbles beneath flaked epidermis.
Nurses laugh, joke how they think my clava’s
melted, cry that’s why I praise your hot kiss.
I thought with that Capra body, you’d let
me milk your teats. Seems I misread your myth.
Then, lord, your serpent’s tail. I won’t forget
the way it flailed, slimy fury the width
of a blue baleen. You’ve assured our fate.
I’d call this our first and final blind date.


Roger Armbrust
February 1, 2008

TEACHING "WRITING THE ESSAY"

for Dianne


How are students at being specific?
Do they circle it like cautious mongrels?
Write how The man held out the wooden stick?
Does anyone understand when you spell
it out, chalk slashing the board: The ancient
Asian monk, arms flaked like birch limbs, whirried
the dowsing rod toward parched earth. If you sent
them to Amdo, Kumbum Monastery,
showed them the path where Tsongkhapa’s eyes looked
on Manjusri, would it help or confuse
them, do you think? Well. At their age—make book
on it—wise lessons would merely diffuse
around me. Good writing came from teaching
it. I think it’s good. That may be reaching.

Roger Armbrust
February 1, 2008