MIFFED BY THE SNIFF

Aussie conservative party leader,
Mr. Buswell, has allegedly sniffed
a lady’s chair after this miss moved her…
person, making Parliament bloody miffed
by such a nosy affair. One would think
to raise a stink over his obsessive
whiff would cause a politician to sink
in the polls. Indeed, his foes, aggressive
and moral, symbolize crucifixion
by demanding he resign. He’s inclined,
I’ve read, to cry and offer contrition.
I’d advise him, “Shrug and act more benign.
Say, ‘My seat sniff’s natural. No wonder
I love bottoms. Oi! We live Down Under.’ ”

Roger Armbrust
April 30, 2008

THE BUDDHA

Kneeling, watching Ankur plow fertile field,
the boy Siddhartha observed wriggling worm
push free from clods, but—bare of earthen shield—
soon feel whistling thrush’s swooping beak, squirm
in vain, and disappear. This life-death scene
led him toward connections, meditation,
enlightenment. It would take years, it seems,
to escape Suddhodana. Decision
to desert Yasodhara, Rahula,
his duties as prince surely agonized
his sleep those weakened nights. He knew karma
would lead him back to their arms, I surmise,
his son turning disciple. Do your best,
he’d say. Love life. Moderate. Get honest.

Roger Armbrust
April 28, 2008

THE DEVIL'S VAGINA

Milky Way’s galactic center ignites
from Sagittarius A, harboring
a million solar mass black hole—a sight
bright as lightning or stark lava pouring
from volcano—tortured by hot stars, shards
of supernova, or so scientists
say. Sagittarius A. I regard
this slitted, glowing mass as the Devil’s
Vagina, drawing eye, all energy
to and through it, devoured by passion’s
magnetic heat, harsh force no entity
can survive. As the Great Breather rations
life throughout space, will this erotic fire
prove endgame to our reason and desire?

Roger Armbrust
April 26, 2008

MARKARIAN'S EYES

Two interacting galaxies fifty
million light years away from our species,
these blazing blue-white spheres searing night sky
could pass for eyes in Shen Chou’s art studies
of cats’ faces. Irises glow sky-blue,
pupils white-hot as if daring earthlings
to approach this feline with X-ray view.
If, lying awake, your skin feels something
watching you, know you’re not alone. Just last
century, Markarian spied this fire,
ancient as quasars, centering our vast
Virgo Galaxy Cluster. Be inspired.
Believe this heavenly sentry guards you
from each evil earth rat, its claw and chew.

Roger Armbrust
April 25, 2008

WISDOM

Wisdom…can either absorb or destroy us,
depending on what we bring to it. --Harold Bloom

I bring you my body, muscles flexing
to push me toward love, pull me from world’s harm,
lift me to join, lower me to rest. Bring
you my mind and all it absorbs—alarms
of thought, will, reason awake unconscious,
carry me to opinion and desire,
all depending on memory, precious
Greek root word. I bring you my senses—fire
of the physical, scale of attachment
to earth, other bodies, their minds and hearts.
I bring you my spirit, utmost present
creating love, embryos, the great arts
raising our being to life beyond death,
swirled in endless conscious of the Great Breath.

Roger Armbrust
April 24, 2008

A VARIOUS LANGUAGE

for Greg Bryant

I keep thinking about Thanatopsis,
about Bryant writing by candlelight
at 16, adding intro and finis
a decade later, breath, heartbeat, insight,
laughter, deep pain…living for fifty-eight
more years, mixing law and hog reeve, moving
to Manhattan where he’d own and edit
the Evening Post, keep writing verse, loving
Frances, intro Abe at Cooper Union
(door to his presidency), guide great dreams
of Central Park, the Met Museum, don
defender’s cloak for immigrants, those streams
of unshielded workers. My years in New
York, some days I’d sit, talk to his statue.

Roger Armbrust
April 24, 2008

GOOD TO SEE, MAX,

you’re still writing poetry. Cape Gazette
says you’ve a book looking for an agent,
novel, too. I’ve always admired your set
way, ever creating, your poet’s scent
tracking images and rhythms hiding
deep in earth, wisping past in wind ever
caressing, ever leaving us, gliding
off praising memory and sense, clever
enough to return when we least expect
it. Virtual Earth looks down on Milford,
Williamsville Road. Farm acreage, I suspect,
backed by forest, parkland maybe, and, lord,
a lake shaped like a pancreas. Motion
of tide, I’ll bet, reminds you of ocean.

Roger Armbrust
April 22, 2008

OLD SONGS

Sometimes they rise like whales leaping from deep
sea, catching us off guard on our small raft
where we’ve floated semiconscious, mind steeped
in ego, as if this ocean, our craft
existed only for us. Caught in wake
of great ascension, then sudden impact,
no control over unrelenting wave
carrying us back toward faded contact
with distant shore, memory once blinded
flows clear in pristine coves we briefly sight
like Ulysses swept past Charybdis, head
suddenly twirling in swirling tide’s might,
then abruptly stopped, sapped and prone on beach,
longing for home we feel we’ll never reach.

Roger Armbrust
April 19, 2008

PHOBOS

Light morphs this Martian moon into sculptures
of varied substances: At a distance,
dull glaze of ancient clay pottery, or
rusted, pockmarked sea mine, or—with brief glance
of planet shade—charred remains of human
skull. Closer, bright reflection fools your eye,
feigning magnified view of great Rodin’s
glowing bronzes: dimpled nipple of shy,
Kneeling Fauness, or cupped mouth of his shamed
Eve no longer shielded by folded arm.
This space museum won’t last long. Its famed
place in Mars’s orbit gives way to harm
from gravity. Tidal forces one year
will crush it to rubble. So much for Fear.

Roger Armbrust
April 14, 2008

GROUND ZERO

I never could go there. On Sullivan
Street, I’d step from our apartment courtyard
each morning, gaze right at WTC’s span
rising to clouds, then push left through the park
to Broadway and work. Then one day I looked
and it was gone, nothing but blue sky, stark
as witches’ eyes, humans stumbling, heads hooked
like Lot’s wife, faces gaping up and back
at the dark unthinkable, pale humans
scurrying from light post to fence, taping
photos of loved ones with pleas and commands
to call this number if you’ve seen them, sting
of breathing death-air’s ashed stench for a month.
All this, so near yet far, seemed way too much.

Roger Armbrust
April 6, 2008