SOLAR POWER

Ancient Greeks built temples to face rising

Sun, deemed supreme by both Athens and Rome.

Aristotle, stressing science, assigned

solar as processing “change and becom-

ing and decay”, bearing water away

and to us. Plato praised the sun for “light

and sight”. Friendship, wise Cicero would say,

reflects that glowing body. Why we fight

it these days, of course: Mammon for Big Oil.

Coins for Coughing Coal. Nuggets for Nuclear.

The Greed Breed could care less if thick air spoils

our earth, gags our children. They’ve made it clear:

Profit Over All. While they spread pipelines,

Germany just banned combustion engines.

Roger Armbrust

November 30, 2016

STRAUSS STRESS

Musician pop pled,

“Son, be a banker!” But they

strolled by Blue Danube.

AUTUMN IN NEW YORK

Wow. I’m still seeing Ryder and Gere hand

in hand on that golden field, that vast park

where she and I strolled, caught up in command

of light -- limited time. Later I walked

there alone, still seeing her sunrise hair,

hearing her laugh, her song. A thousand miles

and years away now, I still feel her there

sometimes, burning each cell with her soft smile,

handing me that book by Homer. What’s death,

after all? A heart rupturing within

her graceful frame? A whisper and last breath?

Or memory wisping off like smoke in wind?

Once, on my voice mail, she crooned “You Can’t Take

That Away From Me”. I’ve kept it on a tape.

Roger Armbrust

November 9, 2016

HOUR COME ROUND AT LAST

This morbid mess of mystifying muck.

This overheated rhythmic heart of heaths

and lakes ground up, its life energy sucked

out by each beast’s fear and greed. Withered wreaths

crowning heads of stumbling dead. Laughter lost

to high-tech calculations, to stalking

lenses marking every mood and move -- cost

of dark minds defying light. No talking,

only cawing once-words. Where are you now?

We need you. Where are you as our brains melt

and skin shrivels like bacon, our bones bow

and crumble from decay? When once we felt

love…was it real? Where are you now? Each gun

destroys each kiss as warped forms hit and run…

Roger Armbrust

November 5, 2016