PSALM

I will wander among our nodding oaks
and kneel long before our fallen acorns,
marvel at their blending with soil to stoke
our earth with fuel for forests. Who scorns
nature’s faithful witnesses? Who decrees
green fields belong to malls rather than hoards
of daffodils safe and open to breeze
and sunlight, their thin shafts our only swords?
Let me rise and flow with clouds, Great Breather.
Let me witness your wonders as angels
see us for the first time. Sail in ether
as Hermes bearing lambs to quell all ills,
to carry your message of hope, bestow
care and insight to all living below.

Roger Armbrust
May 30, 2010

WE WHO DRINK RAIN

We who drink rain straight from the sky borrow
patience from trees. Feel drops pellet our tongues
like liquid fallen from mother sparrow,
soak pharynx, larynx, even haze our lungs
as moisture circles moon on cloudy nights.
We who drink rain feel our clothes embrace it,
how it permeates each fiber, each blight
and sore and eager pore. How we trace it
bodywide, our eyes open but blinded,
our flooded faces sensing Noah
pounded by the Deluge, soon reminded
to plant the first vineyard, crush grapes for a
prime cup of wine. We who drink rain wallow
with spirits. We’re baptized by each swallow.

Roger Armbrust
May 29, 2010

I AM TIRED

of blaming old lovers for my sadness.
Weary as a lost wolf, my sick howling
mute to caring souls I longed to caress
but chased away, my twisted face scowling,
my hooves clawing at air, all blind motion
to eyes gone. What now, prowler of the night?
Stay slouched on dark cliffs above black ocean,
long hoarse wail lying of your morbid plight,
draining artist’s essence through self-pity?
Or move toward light, seeing dawn approaching?
Time to decide. What’s this inside? Witty
whispers of some bright life now encroaching
on this blight? Some minstrel, imprisoned long
through fear’s delight, now sharing hopeful songs?

Roger Armbrust
May 27, 2010

TOTO

Now 770 in dog
years, you’ve aged gently in our hearts and minds.
As books progressed, you morphed within Baum’s log,
terrier migrating from Cairn to find
Yorkshire then Boston your breed, then returned
to your origin. Why such traveling?
Perhaps your creator’s subconscious yearned
to mirror his own life’s journey, or sing
of constant change in all from earth to earth.
The movie settled you for most of us.
Made you a legend and, for what it’s worth,
125 bucks a week. Trust
me, your image always comes to the fore
with this: “…we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

Roger Armbrust
May 26, 2010

ALONE BUT NOT LONELY

May. Weekend. Midnight. Dark void nicked only
by glints of scattered streetlights revealing
brief tree leaves. Silence sliced by some lonely
ballad from hoarse male tenor fingering
electric keyboard on So Restaurant’s
outdoor balcony. All this flowing through
my townhouse writing-room windows. Cars haunt
North Lookout in flickering wisps, breathe whew
as if at last reaching safety. Soft glare
of monitor only light inside my
room as I write this sonnet. Ask me where
all this is going. Even ask me why
I sit in dark on a Saturday night.
Truth is, inside me glows another light.

Roger Armbrust
May 22, 2010

THE BEAUTY OF ART

for Madi Coldiron and her First Masterpiece

The beauty of art, you see, is this: it
can be what your viewer wants it to be.
Loving your wonderful colors, I sit
and watch a candy-stick forest with trees
of various candy tastes. (When it’s dark,
I’ll sneak onto that vast canvas, lick my
lips, and gobble up all their honey bark!)
But wait! That would be stealing. Let me try
instead to dance through your color and light.
Pretend red on the left’s a hint of dawn
sun. And fluttering brightly on the right
a white-speckled cardinal who’s just flown
from its nest. Or butterfly seeking its twin.
Oh, thank you for art that lets me imagine!

Roger Armbrust
May 21, 2010

ONCE MORE, THEY’RE STILL

Again, Great Breather, you’ve silenced morbid
quarrels in my mind, quelling my brutal
committee’s condemnations, laid torpid
those bitter, slashing tongues despising all
I am. Slugging shots and popping pills may
numb harsh slurs for a moment. Hazy smoke
can glaze their eyes and make them dumb for, say,
half a day. Yet soon I wake to brash pokes
from their scepters, lie shaking, awaiting
earthquakes of their lies. Then feel my lost soul
scream above them, sense despair abating
through my simple prayer: Help…me. They cajole
me, changing tactics. Then their spotlights fade.
I meditate within your peaceful shade.

Roger Armbrust
May 20, 2010

MEALYMOUTHING VERBS

Summer sun bacons my skin, egging my
eyes, sausaging tender nipples and balls,
cantalouping my perspiring pores. Why
am I figging my morning jog with calls
appling fruits in Congress who blintz our lives
with taxes raisin for war, to sweetmeat
Wall Street, to sugarplum their own contrived
salaries? Hamburger those thieves! Red beet
their debt out of D.C.! Coleslaw every
bureaucrat. Mustard and onion their buns
inside cells bake potatoed for severe
torture. Garlic sauce the most evil ones.
Chateaubriand their homes, their families
muttoned inside. Mince pie their puny pleas.

Roger Armbrust
May 19, 2010

WHAT FALLS

Icarus, eyes gawking at melted wax
lumps pocking his flapping arms, featherless
as plucked hens. Tamarind from Adam’s lax
right hand as, with left, he points at Eve. Dress
from Juliet when groom Romeo moves
closer. Henry’s voice to a whisper while
he confesses to Becket. Fanny’s glove
to catch Keats’ eye. Rome when its leaders pile
marble statues to kiln lime for plaster.
Rain over their faces as Holly holds
Cat and Paul clutches them both. Disaster
on mankind when our Little Boy explodes
above Hiroshima. Your velvet hair
over my face within our gentle lair.

Roger Armbrust
May 18, 2010

WHAT RISES

Mount Nebo in the Wasatch Range, charcoal
and chalk-knuckled fist. Lazarus after
four days, bareboned, dark-earthstained, sweatsoaked, soul
confused with its fate. King Henry’s laughter
when he learns Jane Seymour’s birthed him a boy,
his highness’s pulsating paunch causing
hiccups. Applause expressing honest joy
with Pavarotti’s Nessun Dorma, sing-
er’s arms signaling victory. Crimson
sun in slow-mo from Atlantic’s blue vest.
A sonnet’s image for no real reason
from deep in psyche’s buried treasure chest.
And I from my self-saturated gloom
when you, spirit’s muse, flow into our room.

Roger Armbrust
May 17, 2010

STICKS

for Julianne Honey Gonzalez

These dried, severed twigs aligned side by side
on some old stained wooden bench, tree fragments
fenced in nearly equal size, now reside
in my inner vision, sculptured form meant
to touch us as they each touch, like fingers
sensing nature’s slightest friction. Say they
form a dryad’s spine. How she sighed, lingered
as long as she could before giving way
to death alongside her withered oak. Tell
folks Artemis laid her here, weeping free
as spring rain over her. How soft tears fell
and soaked her small sacred corpse. All we see
now is this structured column. Motionless,
silent, it’s essence still tells us we’re blessed.

Roger Armbrust
May 15, 2010

AUTO MOTIVES AND LOCO MOTIVES

The former carry me slyly up your
driveway at night. I circle past lighted
windows, slow as a tear trail, stay alert
for any movement inside. Once sighted,
I stomp the pedal, shatter through locked doors,
crashing into your living room or den.
The latter hurtle over countrysides
of fleeing bodies, bolting me through glens
of former peace where now chaos presides,
condemning every witness, crushing poor
souls who dash to stay on track, yet tumble
under my raging wheels. Call it impulse.
Cite incentive. You won’t hear me grumble.
My guzzling molds goads my mind can’t repulse.

Roger Armbrust
May 11, 2010

CABLES

My thoughts shuffle how I feel. My feelings
mangle efforts to think. So I get mixed
up, like briars. Must resort to kneeling
in prayer, confess all, admit I can’t fix
myself. Listen. Sense my tangled cables
unfold like thick roots reaching for water,
thin branches stretching to sunlight, able
to focus a moment, then another.
Something glows deep within these vibrating
wires, but I can’t make it out. Must I track
you down again? How I keep debating
forgotten propositions, leading back
to my mute, multi-angled starting line,
reseeking lost cables to the divine.

Roger Armbrust
May 10, 2010

COSMIC WRECKAGE

Sixty million light years away from us
two galaxies collide, appearing as
a Dali embryo, evolved light dust
cloud forming transparent heart of smoked glass
surrounding it—bolus of glittering
pastel jewels gestating inside like
some melting, glowing juke box sputtering
then exploding. Love, shall our bodies strike
with such mad, molten force we form new stars
as they do, our gravitational tides
crushing and stretching our psyches as far
as future planets, our frames’ pressing sides
pulling us within each other, to feel
and share secret heavens the gods conceal?

Roger Armbrust
May 7, 2010

CONSTANT MOTION

for Kay

I sensed you dancing twice in a row this
morning to my classical radio
station: the San Francisco Girls Chorus
shimmering Emerald Hummingbird. Beaux
Arts Trio loping through Saint-Saëns. Works of
constant motion yet delicate, balanced
with grace and harmony—ultimate love
of life flowing forth with seeming entranced
energy. I saw you in singers’ mellow
curved mouths, those artists’ sensitive, sure hands
caressing piano, violin, cello.
I smiled, thought of what we both understand:
We build our film libraries though we know
technology outmodes us. But we grow.

Roger Armbrust
May 5, 2010

GETTING MY PERIODS

More often I have them, then easier
I am to read. Sentences run shorter.
Sometimes just phrases. May seem squeezier
at first glance. But works if I’m reporter
or poet. Can move audiences. Or
so I hear. Mostly I’m declarative.
It’s how I state my simple case before
the public eye. Rarely imperative
language slips through. I tell someone what to
do. Once I chanced an utterance. To share
the moment. Like Juliet’s Ay me! No
exclamation point, though. I try to spare
passion. Critics complain it's very odd
I never question. I won’t. Period.

Roger Armbrust
May 2, 2010

MAKING TIME FOR MOZART

Loined lines of his 17th string quartet
linger in clearing, stallions measuring
one another, then brief as twigs snap, set
and dash through rippling creek, legs treasuring
each stretch, hooves honoring each subtle step,
each leap, cut and graceful lean through forest’s
impromptu avenues, narrow as sep-
ulchres. All this flowing throughout my best
self, and suddenly I hear Socrates,
Shakespeare, William Packard, and Bill Wilson
in chorus: How shall we live? As we please
or as some ghost-stallion carries us on
this sacred hunt? I hear Mozart’s refrain.
I cry out deep within. Let go the reins.

Roger Armbrust
May 1, 2010