CAN LOVE EVER BE INAPPROPRIATE

Can love ever be inappropriate?

Love, which guides every living cell’s motion?

Can trembling fear’s fleeing pace separate

love’s seamless energy and devotion?

Art clearly shows: not in this universe.

Klimt melded oil and gold leaf in “The Kiss”

to make the lovers one. Rodin’s sculptures

uncover lovers from stone. Surely this

pair in Cot’s “Le Printemps” swing to our earth’s

adoring rhythms. Surely Magritte’s lovers

sense passion despite veils. What’s each life worth

without love? Renoir’s charmed couple discovers

more than just their country dance. Lisa knew

Leonardo lived within her portrait too.

Roger Armbrust

March 31, 2015

WE WHO WALK BACKWARDS

We who walk backwards need rearview mirrors

or infusions of faith and psychic sense

to keep from wrecking our lives. We shiver

at thoughts of sand dunes or any pretense

of sunbathing unless we’re near the sea.

I admire how you fold your hands, gentle

peace of meditation, your breathing free

as ocean breeze guiding me a little.

All I seem to need. We who walk forward

seem to travel safe if we don’t hurry.

We’re always moving and removing toward

our center and our edge, vague land where we

never settle. I love how, when listening,

you study your fingers, their nails glistening.

Roger Armbrust

March 28, 2015

VIVE LA FRANCE

Our tongues entwining

speak even deeper to us

than passion’s whispers.

REVOLUTION

Gladiators shout,

“Caesar! We who are about

to LIVE salute you!”

WINTER STORM, SUMMER BREEZE

You are winter storm, overwhelming all.

You are summer breeze, providing relief

from breathless high noon. Hermit thrush’s call,

ethereal as angel song’s belief

in greater life than life on earth. Star gaze

so deep I sometimes fear our universe

might explode, consumed in eternal blaze.

Mallarmé’s faun, describing fount of tears

as blue eye, must have known you before birth.

You are Sahara sandstorm sweeping rain

to Amazon’s forest, proving wind’s worth

to every cell. You are answer to pain’s

cry for peace. When you turn to me and stare

you’re the riddle intriguing Voltaire.

Roger Armbrust

March 24, 2015

BEYOND HEALING

Chopin’s great etude’s often called “Tristesse”

for “sadness” or “farewell”. That doesn’t make

sense. Depth of its meditation brings blessed

sight of you to me. Your healing smile takes

me with music beyond healing to peace,

even cosmic embrace. Were we to speak

right now (my sitting here alone to cease)

I might only repeat your name, struck meek

by his melody, your face overcoming

all. This may seem strange, unable to see

yourself as I do. Perhaps you’ll play Chopin

and better understand—cantabile

like a human voice asking you perchance

to let my arms embrace you while we dance.

Roger Armbrust

March 18, 2015

SUNSETS

“Sunsets cure anything,” she wrote today.

(Little did she know how a year ago

I wrote of her at sunset, graceful way

she leaned back studying its golden glow

like a melting sword over rippling lake.

I marveled at the photo.) Marveling

now at her view from Pinnacle, I take

my time. Bless flaring pyramid falling

into purple-hazed horizon. Rest my

eye in her artist’s eye recording blaze

and shadow, stripe of cloud slicing fire. Try

not to wish I was with her there at day’s

end: Heaven on high at world’s close, it seems,

like sky-soaring doves in gods’ distant dreams.

Roger Armbrust

March 16, 2015

QUESTIONS

If I told you how my heart leaps when you

hug me, how I thrill when you speak my name

and confide of writing and notebooks too,

how I softly thank the Muse that you came

to speak — would it terrify you to hear

this, or thrill you, or both? Would you retreat

like a threatened fawn, controlled by old fears,

or smile and hug me again, action complete

when I hug you back? If I describe my smile

as you walk away, wanting to follow

but chancing to stay — to give you space while

I cherish brief time and touch we’re allowed —

would my secret cause you shock or sweet surprise?

Or do you sense all this while watching my eyes?

Roger Armbrust

March 16, 2015

π

Do you wonder why we celebrate pi?

Why, we wouldn’t have Giza’s Pyramid

without it. Solomon’s temple’s pool lies

in a circle. π? Aye! History’s rid

of “Archimedes’ constant” if the meek

Greek can’t record his great algorithm.

Poet Dante employs pi as he seeks

Paradise through Hell (I know that sounds grim),

some scholars wist. Mostly, you need to know

this: Math geeks proclaim π is infinite

and shows you can’t square circles. (So it goes,

Vonnegut would say.)  Now, please don’t feel spite

to learn π’s irrational. Some assure

it’s transcendental. (I say, go figure.)

Roger Armbrust

March 14, 2015

I WRITE THIS TO YOU

I write this to you, bright sky in your eyes.

I write this to you, deep fear in your gut

smothering fire’s love in your heart. How wise

hiding seems. How simple to pivot, cut

and run. And yet…consider the cosmos

watching all. How your every breath affects

nature’s nearest leaf. Your every word grows

and rises toward stars. Go ahead, dissect

my every phrase, searching for lies. But know

this: Each time I see you close your eyes, prayer

fills my being. Each time your essence flows

through our space, my glad psyche guides me there.

Walk out your door now and study the moon.

If you dare sing to it, you’ll see me soon.

Roger Armbrust

March 12, 2015

SLEEPING TOGETHER

Drifting into dreams,

our cured bodies pressing close,

we feel night bless us.

LAUGHING TOGETHER

Having come as one,

we embrace soft as bound clouds,

each whisper a joy.

COMING TOGETHER

Inside you tonight

I am you and you are me.

Our cosmos explodes.

“LEGÉNDE”

Wieniawski, seeing how Isabella’s

parents oppose their engagement, decides

to write “Legénde”. Returns to their home. Tells

how he composed this for her. His bow glides

over violin strings in soft, simple

melody, his brother Józeph beside

him at piano. Strings’ intense double

stops startle their small audience, with slides

enhancing sensual mood. Crescendo

builds to passionate climax. Lovemaking

ends on high G. Silent interlude flows

through the room. Outside, sunlight’s forsaking

earth, bringing brilliant blue. By candlelight,

parents bless the ring. Laughter fills the night.

Roger Armbrust

March 10, 2015

KEEP SOFT INSIDE

Keep soft inside your ever-sacred you.

Consider your 100 trillion cells,

each its own identity, each small room’s

shrine of nucleus and DNA. Tell

yourself bedtime stories of each cell’s life

as each of your lives, how each universe

connects the universe of you. Decides

what music moves you, which great poet’s verse

melds you to its rhythms, its imagery.

Guides you to intimate friends, and perhaps

a mate. Leads each sense to long for the sea.

Cautions you to avoid fear’s hidden traps.

Feel your tongue tip’s touch as you whisper “love”,

fitting the palate like finger in glove.

Roger Armbrust

March 8, 2015

STIR CRAZY

Been inside too long and away too long,

like held breath housing ancient resentment

or convict in solitary, love song

(he once sang her) sealed in sweaty cement

of dark stained cell walls. It’s what snow can do

to one’s psyche, you know: endless pure white

conniving with sun and shadow to screw

up vision and logic, turn care to spite,

like a seeing-eye Shepherd attacking

its master, or invisible leopard

slashing its shocking claws. Time’s contracting

memory: a punch-drunk fighter who sparred

with a brutal champ. It staggers through streets

lost, bruised, not even knowing it retreats.

Roger Armbrust

March 7, 2015

BITTERSWEET

Fear causes masses

to live lives like molasses,

oozing, more or less…