EVER RETURNING

I keep dreaming about you. What’s going
on? What magic have you imposed on my
subconscious, my psyche ever flowing,
ever returning to your image? Why
constantly in sleep? By day your soft face
may flash before me in brief reflection
like a mirror’s instant gleam. Bolt of grace
striking and then gone. Yet your projection
glows like moonlight through darkest night, ever
returning. Your face ever smiling, slight
disbelief at my gaze, at my clever
phrases caressing your presence, your light
enfolding me like galaxies it seems,
or Freud distantly enjoying my dreams.

Roger Armbrust
September 26, 2011

RUN-ON SENTENCE

Mind, ancient marathon runner, why can’t
you stay on track, your flexing feet spraying
cinders behind you in a muffled rant
of discipline, yet your pace keeps playing
with me and earth, your sinewed frame turning
off course toward desert plains and forest hills
promising mountain streams, psyche yearning,
renewed flame constantly burning for thrills
igniting beyond your universe’s
grasp, rhythm of your vast majestic stride
dashing through grass valleys, flashing verses
before us we’ll never catch hold and write
as you refuse to pause, cause prayers for grace
to rise and guide us through this endless race.

Roger Armbrust
September 24, 2011

INSURGENT’S SMILE

Soft, religious curve of her moistened lips
alerts my terror of relationships.


Roger Armbrust
September 22, 2011

YOU WHO SMILE

You who smile and gaze so in shadowed light,
who if you weren’t inside would seem captured
beneath shining moon, focused in its sight
as if only you existed, rapture
consumed within your understated glow,
bright golden-moon hair framing your soft face:
What sacred reality do you know
and share with your gentle stare? What lost grace
have you found, returned to humanity
asking no return? I think I know. Watch
how little Anne holds her pen, prays the globe
will change, grow kind. See kind St. Francis catch
eternity, softly touching his robe.
You watch you, and I do too, while I fly
godlike, graced with your call to simplify.

Roger Armbrust
September 12, 2011

RECANTATION

This sad night when loneliness seems too much,
when dark spiraling canyons to despair,
when every thought begins to bellow such
violent vindictives I’m forced to swear
I’ll end it all…some vision suddenly
propels me from my room through my front door
to this brief field and solitary tree,
flexing leaves barely reflecting candor
of full moon—flecks of softest light rising,
jewels of prayer, candles of shimmering hope.
Just why I feel you here, your surprising
warmth beside me, enclosing massive scope
of stars through your eyes, perhaps the moon knows,
caressing your form in its shadowed glow.

Roger Armbrust
September 10, 2011

I LIKE SITTING NEXT TO YOU

I like sitting next to you. I’m enthralled
by aura of your spirit—intelligent
energy—and body heat that recalls
your sudden stumble (happy accident)
against me before you settled beside
me to view the YouTube. I like watching
you read of spirit, how your strong eyes glide
over blue book, how then they are catching
fluorescent light when you say you’ll go where
you’ll find quiet. And you do. As I sit
alone watching the moon, I wish you were
here gazing with me. We’d speak of spirit,
steps, and universe. I’d tell how I laugh, blog
and recall you saying you’ll get me a dog.

Roger Armbrust
September 8, 2011

PUBLIC SERVANTS

What’re they doing in Congress, anyway?
How’re they spending our hard-earned tax money?
What’re they slurring on B-Dubya Parkway
as they spin in limos with their honeys?
How’re they handling their kingly health-care plans,
their million-buck investments piling high?
Who reads them the law, helps them understand
what’ll happen when we invade New Delhi?
How would they feel if we started hoarding
all their funds, forced them to live in landfills?
Treated them daily to Waterboarding
in between yakky sessions on the Hill?
What if we set term-limit revisions
followed by mandated time in prison?

Roger Armbrust
September 6, 2011

YOU UNDERWATER

glow as in aura of cathedral light
your face and body sequined patina
flowing aqua blue, arms angel-wing white
in your revised swan dive—hands spread in a
pair of feathered cusps at your slender hips,
your broad shoulders arching like a stout bow
flexed to launch. Poseidon must bless soft lips,
silken skin bathed by this vital sea. Show
the gods and me you understand we’ve found
our early home here, returned to River
Ocean surrounding earth, recite profound
poems celebrating birth. We quiver
in this waving warmth, revealing our depth
and care, singing hymns though we hold our breath.

Roger Armbrust
September 4, 2011

YOU ARE THE LYRIC

You are the lyric I sing in my sleep
riding sweet sea breeze through space beyond time.
You are soft music whose rhythm will keep
rainbows igniting, caressing my rhyme.
You are the ballad, the prairie’s ballet
dancing like light on ghostly guitar strings,
mystical vocal chords learning to pray
in lyrical praise to morning’s rising,
bright treasure of sight embracing your eyes.
You are the chorus entrancing rapture,
mastering harmony: grandeur’s surprise.
You are the aria—grace who captures
soul’s gentle pas de chat in solo flight,
guiding my sacred dream-hymn through the night.

Roger Armbrust
September 2, 2011