3:50 a.m.

Dark as iron gall ink outside. I’m inside

listening to your Runaway Soul, your

gypsy blood voice capturing lonely ride

down that restless ghost-beckoning road through

your window. I see her, you, me, deer taut

as pre-lightning on forest edge, flexed for

flight through ink black oak trees. A while back, caught

fleeing life by reality’s web, forced

to hover, reflect, admit I was lost,

I finally sensed honest agony,

pain of love escape, bleeding scars of long

futile journey, soul sad as lonesome plea

of Crouch’s fiddle. Grateful to return,

I stand, arms spread wide. The laughing stars burn.

Roger Armbrust

May 31, 2013

MELTING

to your voice beyond singing—living each

lyric—your music caressing each word

you breathe. Image to you, I sense, can reach

deeper than heartbeat. That near moan I heard,

that longing to dwell on endless picture

of a perfect day, that wish to put it

in a frame, I understand. I’d capture

fragile colors of your songs, deposit

their gentle hues in eyes of this old earth’s

each newborn child, had I higher powers.

Strolling with my daughter tonight—love worth

more than all mankind’s lotteries—showers

moving in, I heed echoes: how you feel,

and paint, like you belong to something real.

Roger Armbrust

May 29, 2013

THREE NOCTURNES

Debussy must have known how night can smile

content as stars' reflection through Fontaines

de la Concorde. Or feel heartbreak defile

lovers’ sacred trust, every gnawing pain

dissolving a lock on Ponte Milvio.

Or hover indifferent as silence

lingering in vast void of moon shadows

artists record from Montmartre, their pens

and brushes glowing with fire. I wonder

if Voltaire, aging at Ferney, recalled

Paris and his Oedipus. I ponder

Anouilh, how his subtle asides would fall

dull on Nazis’ ears, yet urge France’s fight.

I wonder, too, if you’re writing tonight.

Roger Armbrust

May 28, 2013

ALL THE ALL OF ME

When image comes, it consumes. When phrase coats

throat like melted chocolate, vinegar,

or acid, no choice remains but to float

to stunned keyboard, observe my gnarled fingers

begin their passionate yet timid dance.

Dark letters fill white space with stuttered pace:

slow step, brief lurch, sudden dash, nimble prance.

Phrase grows to line grows to column. This grace

of sight and sound, this tight list of reason

and illusion, this gathering of mist

and memory into days and seasons

of sacred chants proves how Erato kissed

Sappho’s quill, how Calliope embraced

Homer as his dazed hands studied her face.

Roger Armbrust

May 28, 2013

UNDER THATCH

Frost the child—terrified of his father’s

drunken rages, his schoolmaster’s gnarled scowls—

would rant, clutch his mother. Belle would gather

him in her arms, kiss his cheek, calm his howls

with bible lessons, quote Swedenborg. Years

later—family sheltered under thatch

outside London—the poet would secure

his voice, feel threats from Pound, sit close and watch

Yeats’ gestures, trust no one even after

notching four Pulitzers. Elinor’s moods

chained him. Her tomb-faced pouts, wind-chimed laughter

mired him in doubts. Only long walks in woods,

rasped scratching of his pen would bring brief peace.

Dark dreams of breaking her heart never ceased.

Roger Armbrust

May 26, 2013