THE COUPLE

They always sit close and talk about boats,

but never the same craft: He submarines,

she cutters. He constantly clears his throat

and stutters. She lisps and whispers but means

no harm nor secrecy; its her shyness,

really. He likes her for it, his eyeglow

reveals. He pours her gin, praises dryness.

She sips it slow as a sundial’s shadow;

bows to his taste. He invites her to dance.

She says there’s no music. Still he rises,

holds her hand. “C-come on. T-take a chance,”

he grins. On the tile floor, she surprises

him with her windlike grace, her pirouette.

They sway in their silence as the sun sets.

Roger Armbrust

May 22, 2016

AUDEN

At his farm in Austria, nearing close

of this life, he reflects on their faces

and hands, their reactions each time he chose

his actions: Erika’s fumbling laces,

hearing his offer to marry; Chester’s

flex and flush -- response to kissed fingertips;

Carson’s smile at him playing the jester;

Benjamin’s flinches to his manuscript

critiques. This week he’ll train to Vienna,

perhaps visit Christ Church and the Schönbrunn,

read to the Austrian Society. When

that’s done, he’ll welcome sleep. His mind wanders

back to New York, his move there at start of war,

rejecting that poem he penned in the bar.

Roger Armbrust

May 20, 2016

WALLANDER

He keeps challenging the fates, but the fates

have proved kind. To him, not the killed or those

he apprehends. Cat quiet, his eyes hate

the crimes. He studies their scenes, so composed

yet lonely. Then, tonight, we see him love

and be loved. She’s a concert pianist,

gentle as a Chopin nocturne. He proved

gentle, too. Hopes to see her soon. They kissed

at the train. But now we sense he’s running  

out of time: age and inhumanity’s

mad abuse. Memory’s slipping. Cunning

and season can’t help him. Fates’ vanity

always decides: Love again, or escape

unwilling to his father’s stark landscapes.

Roger Armbrust

May 15, 2016

SHE STUDIES THE DARK

It’s the way she studies the dark, the night

of ebony veils which hide deep secrets,

bury all, it seems, but eyes of blue light --

mystery’s glow revealing her regrets,

her joys she’s never uttered. In the dark

she lifts her hand, stretches her arm beyond

heaven and hell, recalls pressing moist, stark

rock of leaning mountain in daylight, fond

of its slope, its crevice carved through decades

of elements, its gaping jaw nature’s

passionate kiss. She sees the mark she made,

her delicate fingers impressed, secured

with white paint as she stretched up on tiptoe,

envisioning now as once long ago.

Roger Armbrust

May 14, 2016

“ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND”

Explore memory and romantic love.

Fear relationships, crave relationships,

meld them like jagged claw and leather glove

on a Long Island train from Montauk. Slip

and blur images into unconscious

corridors and desperate deep craters

hidden somewhere in your endless precious

psyche. Protect the beach house. What matters

now: Dream in reverse to find her sweet face

again. Shock yourself into stark waking,

your one hope to keep her -- your saving grace.

But you can’t be saved, your recall flaking

off like crumbled paint. Yet she turns and talks

soft as candlelight: “Meet me in Montauk.”

Roger Armbrust

May 11, 2016

“TANNHÄUSER” OVERTURE

Wagner, obsessed with his opera, made

himself ill. I, wrapt in his overture,

feel myself begin to heal, start to pray

for your healing – sense humanity’s cure

from Philharmoniker’s opening breath.

So this is how reverence rises, turns

to hope; how passion’s faith in life and death

inspires minstrel-knights, poets like us; burns

each cell of being, assuring wisdom

or at least acceptance beyond our power.

Mendelssohn, first conducting it, had come

to learn how its tension builds a tower

beyond stars. I’ve come to learn from above

I can love the you you have yet to love.

Roger Armbrust

May 6, 2016