THROUGH

for Charlie Smith

If the only way out is through, what should
I wear? This battered armor, dented as
a drunkard’s tankard, my rended mail hood
barely hanging on, won’t do now—faux pas’s
reward. My lance’s shards serve only sun,
turning splinters to jewels in grass. For
years you’ve tested my spirit’s glass jaw, done
fear in, your uppercuts of honest words
hurling me to admission’s floor. The door
you always speak of—its dark light never
revealing life beyond transom, what shores
of mystery, fright, passion, peace ever
await us—stands open across the room.
Naked, praying, I dance toward ransom’s womb.

Roger Armbrust
January 25, 2009

CHULLO

Holding you on this small Central Park hill,
fresh snow surrounding and falling on us
like blessed manna, I imagine stark chill
of high Andes around us, impetus
your llama-wool cap covering sunrise
hair, lined parade of stick-legged vicuña
encircling your head as an ancient prized
Toquepala cave painting. But soon a
white flake caresses your ear flap, and I
follow suit, flurried back to your beauty
rivaling goddess Chasca, though one eye
hides under Chilean weave, my duty
to lift it and view your gaze studying
my frozen beard, our mouths seething smoke rings.

Roger Armbrust
January 22, 2009

WIND CHIMES

Not near bell bongs I hear early Sundays
from Grace Lutheran across North Lookout,
my neighbor’s gift to the universe plays
in earnest (while warped sun shimmers about
red-oak treetops—hovering in its rise
and fall) like a chorus of nuns’ caring
call to matins or nocturns, dear reprise
of some ancient invitation to sing
hymns of praise. Sometimes they stir me from sleep
at dawn, my drowse certain angels surround
me. Oftentimes, lying there, my heart keeps
imagining we’re making love, unbound
in a clover field. Sometimes I just stare,
hearing their sacred, inharmonic prayer.

Roger Armbrust
January 19, 2009

APOCALYPSE

I just learned my old love’s getting married.
So now the veil is lifted. Why should I
care? A decade’s fallen since I carried
her in my arms, watching her wide blue eyes
entranced by fear of dancing. But, oh, she
loved my wit and charm, my poems, my voice
soft as rain, gentle fingers tenderly
sliding along her arm. She made the choice
to leave before I ever knew, then glared
in pained silence when I whispered, I love
you. The cab pulled away. The final fare.
Months later, I saw how psychic wars shoved
her out the door. For ten years now, I’ve prayed
she’d live her deep dreams. Still, I wish she’d stayed.

Roger Armbrust
January 16, 2009

DEEP FREEZE

As I lie in bed, fears and obsessions
hurl like ice daggers through my brain, heart, gut
and penis, turning my being, my one
hope, to fragile frozen crust, delicate
equilibrium quivering to edge,
then avalanche, swirling me far within
the abyss. Dark drift of depression’s ledge…
is it ledge…is it bottom…is it sin’s
last step?...paralyzes even panic.
Encapsuled in blackness, somehow I know
my senses surround me, monoclinic
crystals crushing my furling psyche, slow
torture telling of what’s to come. A frost
steals my breath, whispers, Now your soul is lost.

Roger Armbrust
January 10, 2009

CYCLOPS

Polyphemus, I’ve tried to reason with
you, explain how Galatea’s just one
Nereid finning barebosomed (no myth,
she) through the blue Mediterranean.
But you keep changing course, bitch how Thoosa
deserted you, spew bitter memories
as you munch on my men. Now you choose a
tenth cup of Alcinous’s wine to ease
your torment. Grow blind with drink. Soon we’ll char
your single eye to assure darkness, smile
as you crawl the cave, raging of how you’re
no man’s victim. I’ll sail off, shout for miles
my name, and how I took it on the lam
by caressing the belly of a ram.

Roger Armbrust
January 8, 2009

TUFF

And so, love, you and I lie here as one,
fused together by blessed, blazing senses,
volcanic eruption of our passion
welded through ages to solid rock, dense
as granite. Like the ancient Servian
rampart in Rome, Cristallo’s weathered cliffs,
scaled palisades of columned Minervan
temple, we last. How is this our motif?
Slight and tender as shoots, we still derive
strength from true words and touch, eyes transparent
and bright as crystal. We know our bound lives—
compounds of glass shards, preserved ash fragments.
Yet healing thrives in many ways when we
humans form from earth, longing to breathe free.

Roger Armbrust
January 7, 2009

ANGAK

for Diana, Kim, and Karrie

The Hopi, the Peaceful Ones, worship more
than 400 kachinas—lifebringers
who dwell on earth and in cosmos, adored
for blessings they bestow as they linger
in alpine tundra of Agassiz Peak.
Uncles give them as dolls, carved for nieces
to receive at the Bean Dance. So I seek
to offer you Angak, who releases
healing spirits as you hold him, long white
gown flowing to his feet, waist-length black hair,
dark beard to midchest, with only his right
hand visible, grasping a small, ever-
green bow. His cape—adorned with rain clouds, deep
colors of night—protects you as you sleep.

Roger Armbrust
January 4, 2009

ACORN

Sometimes its cupule appears a sculpted
lampshade for a dollhouse, a basket weaved
of overlapped leaves—bracts armored and fed
by weathered ages—or locket conceived
to bear a minute goddess’s perfect
breast. Look closely, love, inside this small shell:
how its round wall rises from white to flecked,
faded crimson; tricklings like bloodstains tell
of nature’s endless birth. See the squirrel
on the oak branch there, breaking brown nut free
of its casing. How her sharp, sure claws twirl
and clasp the kernel, teeth knifing cleanly
to pale meat. Its smooth, moist substance heralds
a jewel: opal tinged with emerald.

Roger Armbrust
January 1, 2009