TRONZO, NOT LONG AGO

Cool summer drizzle outside on Leonard
while reverent Knitting Factory crowd
inside studies him, standing with guitar
alone in stage’s gentle light, head bowed
while he begins soft, almost tinkling chords
as if leading Buddhist meditation,
musical mantra rising through fjords
of glistening jazz, soaring to union
of blues and passionate rock, his taut face
in silent pleasure-pain as crescendo
climaxes, descending slow to kind place
where he began. Then silence. Who could know
such glory exists, such gifts to share, cause
humans to rise, embrace him with applause.

Roger Armbrust
October 29, 2009

DARKENED WINDOW

Once, in Greenwich Village, 5 or after,
Saturday fall sun flickering behind
those short roofs west on Houston, their laughter—
those silhouetted ladies’ charm—windchimed
out that narrow bar door. They claimed my glance
through darkened window, first sight mirrored glow
filtering through liquor bottles. Let’s dance!
one smokescarred soprano cawed out. I bowed
my head, wishing she were summoning me,
then shrugged in shame having wished it, knowing
I really craved the old routine: whiskey
sip flowing to lust to maybe crowing
naked at dawn, or drubbed by some bouncer.
I grabbed my cell phone and called my sponsor.

Roger Armbrust
October 29, 2009

“PARASITISM”

for Joseph Brodsky
sentenced by Russian government in 1965
to five years of exiled farm labor for
“parasitism.”


Bureaucracy craves to fish in muddy waters
of generalities. Nets so wide and tight-meshed
no gentle organism swims safe, free to wander
into warm, clear sea and grow, take chances,
or merely lie on ocean bottom, gaze up and ponder
beams of light dancing across bright, dazzling surface.

What happened when they tossed you on the cold
slick wood floor? Did you flop and gasp for air
inside, while to their intestine-colored
eyes you seemed stiff as bone hurled from some lair
in Siberian snow? I see you glow,
inner fire showing only God is fair

enough to judge you. The free man within you spits
out hooks of their rusted words. Your bloody mouth shouts,
“Let’s get specific! Drop your hammer-and-sickle
psychology! Call me some solid name! I doubt
you have it in you! Am I a leech? Did I stick
to you with dual suckers? Can’t you pull me out?

You’ve got it wrong, tyrants. I don’t gnaw flesh.
It’s hard shell around your spirit I crack
with my verses. Hear it? Feel spewing fresh
images of love sear your ulcered back-
bone, freeing childhood dreams you thought had flecked
off like scales of dead memory? Dark shacks

where you heave our minds as rewards for staying silent
can’t stand against this blaze you fear is hate.
I wonder. Will your frozen hands ever touch or sense
the way we burn inside? How this flame motivates
us to stand? Will you hear sorrowing violins?
Learn to live the way we learned from Akhmatova?”


Roger Armbrust

I WANT TO WRITE A POEM ABOUT

your left hand
soft as her face in Gérard’s
Psyché et L’amour
softer than God’s hand
in Michelangelo’s
The Creation of Adam
your left hand
wrapping your right bicep
like some rare porcelain
poised in natural sculpture
leading Rodin
to stop and ask your name



Roger Armbrust

MAKING LOVE TO A SUNFLOWER

My fingers feel flesh
lift head toward light
I smell balm, slip lips
tongue tip inside
hairs of moist dark eye


Roger Armbrust

WHAT GOD KNOWS ABOUT BOOZE

The bottle or glass tells lies
demands worship
ignites fearflame
to make us believe
only inside It
breathes eternal Spirit
only inside It
glows infinite Mind
only inside It
dwells All.
At the last supper
where wine was blood symbol
Jesus knew what Blatty’s old priest knew
when he spoke before the exorcism:
He will mix lies with the truth
to try to confuse you.
You must not listen.



Roger Armbrust

THE POEM

I love the poem. I hold it in my
cupped hands like a flower, fair one glowing
in sun; like a priest holds sacred hosts. I
whisper its rhythmic words, soft lines flowing
as sacred verse from a monk’s lips, blue script
on white wave. Robert Graves knew vast powers
of the White Goddess (pale phantom who sipped
nectar, finding eternal life), towers
of Olympus filled with her song, sending
gods to their rest. What’s better than making
words enfold like feathers of angels’ wings?
They rise from earth beyond stars, forsaking
fear for faith and all-lasting grace unsealed,
our Great Maker’s sign: a new peace revealed.

Roger Armbrust
October 19, 2009

ANNE BOLEYN

Your Psalter at the Morgan Library
stands upright, opened, allowing bright view
of white satin binding, embroidery
of silk, turned to Psalm 110. You,
educated in Paris, must have drooled
at the book’s French script, your flashing brown eyes
focusing on blunt words of kingly rule,
enemies thy footstool, saw your crown rise
with that third line’s fertile phrase from the womb,
all while knowing good Cranmer would approve
your marriage. Did you foresee your heart’s tomb
at St. Mary’s? The hooded swordsman’s glove
sweeping toward your neck? Or feel dread when you read
that last line: therefore shall he lift up the head?


Roger Armbrust
October 19, 2009

PARALLEL UNIVERSES

We’re together, yet we’re not, wandering
shared space in our separate dimensions,
unbeknown to each, how we’re squandering
our presence. Love, is it your decision
to avoid this rose I brought you, or do
you just not see it? Do I hold it for
you or me? For us? Silence glaciers through
this room, old words frozen in air, dead spores
looming invisible between us. Has
this become our ultimate ensemble,
separate enclosures destined to pass
but never touching, only resemble
lovers to others’ eyes? Always to come
and go, lost stars in the continuum?

Roger Armbrust
October 18, 2009

GOOGLE

Caught in your web more than any other,
I seem to grow with every click and scroll
as you propel deep into cells, master
vast orbits of stars, bowl me down long rolls
of media ranging from NY Times
to Pravda.ru, Wikipedia,
and The Sonneteer. (Hey, is it a crime
to plug myself? Not near as greedy a
grab as Wall Street banks’ bloodsucking bailouts.)
I marvel at your fast response to each
typed search, your tidy lists. I never doubt
you’ll accept my query, though I may reach
beyond reason sometimes. Still, I’m not pleased
to hear how you’re censoring the Chinese.

Roger Armbrust
October 17, 2009

CONSTIPATION

This hardened fear lodged deep in my bowel
bloats me with doubting, chronic inaction,
distorting my brow with distended scowl,
insane response to my heart’s attraction
as you and your smile, nature’s corona,
sweep past, sweet wisp of soft summer evening,
unaware my psyche’s marooned on a
cramped island of shy despair. Your leaving
now will only extend my loin’s fever.
Please, love, stay awhile. Make my pained body
a vessel of grace, grateful receiver
of your calming touch. Relieve my shoddy
diffidence with caress, helping me live
a lover’s dream, your kiss my laxative.


Roger Armbrust
October 14, 2009

SPINE

My original support group, you flex
like a bow’s limbs when I bow in respect,
lean to kiss, thrust home when savoring sex,
or stretch back to salute sun or inspect
sacred stars. Now I praise atlas, bearing
weight of my personal heaven—nervous
system’s source and vast reaction, fearing
and loving the universe. You serve us
with axis pivoting brain, inviting
senses and open mind to carry our
creativity through vast heights, sighting
our souls in constellations, gods’ power
in microbes, realizing our belief
in connecting with fin ray and palm leaf.

Roger Armbrust
October 12, 2009

WEATHER VAIN

Cloudy morning. Cloudy memory. What
did she murmur before she left? Something
about drowning. Yeah. Being bound to slats
of our bed and drowning in the storm. Sting
of my glare, she said. I know all about
drowning, I said. Then she closed the door. I
know my fear scars you, I wanted to shout.
I know my binges drag you under. Why
can’t I stop? Listen, I promise you. This
time I’ll pour it out and toss the bottle.
This time I’ll show up for dinner. I’ll kiss
you, hand you flowers. Care for your brittle
heart instead of sneaking away to play
around...Yeah. I’d have said that, if she’d stayed.

Roger Armbrust
October 11, 2009

ELLA SINGS GERSHWIN

Twilight curves
through shy blinds
like a slow smile
our eyes reflecting twilight
with dark glow
of Courbet’s portraits
as the corner stereo
softly flows
with Ella Sings Gershwin
her velvet voice
covering the room
and us
as we hold one another
bodies glistening twilight
our whispersong
lisping lyrics
how long has this been going on


Roger Armbrust

EMAIL TO ZHIVAGO

Yuri Andreievich, I’ve whispered your
poems from Hamlet to Gethsemane,
seeing you seated in candlelight—cure
for war’s reality—gloved hand guiding
old pen across cracked parchment, ebony
script freezing before it can dry, gliding
nib dancing in graceful adagio,
altering to sudden ballon rushes,
leaping while Lara and sweet Katya sleep.
What if I tell you how, not long ago,
I sat in Greenwich Village, vast hushes
swirling the packed hall, faithful legion deep
in adoring Brodsky’s spent voice and eyes,
honoring his courage, his Nobel Prize.

Roger Armbrust
October 4, 2009

THE AMBUSH OF YOUNG DAYS

Eternal nose pimple, or so it seemed,
and rank shock of parents’ imperfections.
Deepening voice which used to shrilly scream,
and friends’ judgments taking new directions.
But most of all brain plummeting to balls,
rise of heated feelings growing senseless,
classmates’ bodies suddenly sensual
as even Mable Mumford turned goddess.
Caring teachers’ classes fell to prisons,
each homework task deemed an execution.
Comrades’ offhand remarks ripped pained lesions
demanding your fistful restitution.
And after all this, how we felt maligned,
forced to stand in unjust confession lines.

Roger Armbrust
October 2, 2009

MANUAL

I’m writing down this sonnet while watching
Pennebaker’s Don’t Look Back on TV
with Dylan in dim hotel room catching
phrases on bulged manual, each stiff key
clicking backup to Baez’s angelic
throat and strumming acoustic as she slumps
on light sofa, Grossman copacetic
leaning back in chair, legs crossed as feet thump
softly to guitar rhythms, and my view
wanders there and here—does Bobby (that’s what
old friends call him in those filmed interviews)
even hear my lovely Joanie (that’s what
I call women named Joan who I love) sing...
or sit tranced like me, seeing years fleeing?

Roger Armbrust
October 1, 2009