TRUE COLORS?

Pray, what happened to the prez’s orange hair?

Pray, what happened to wavy locks so fair

and sprayed the shade of glowing mango sun?

Did the pumpkin dye get rained on and run?

Did the apricot source die in dull shade?

Did the carrot top flop and simply fade?

Or now that he lives in a house so white

does he show true colors? No longer dye’t?

Will he confess to the press what we all know

before he throws us all in Guantanamo?

Roger Armbrust

January 27, 2017

ILLUSION

Forsake reality for illusion.

Manipulate to keep your record straight

within their minds. Force others’ confusion:

key for the gate to control your own fate

and theirs. What’s honesty matter really?

Or happiness? Or love? Safety’s the goal,

after all. Power through silver and steel.

Keep them in fear for their bodies and souls.

Create false monsters to make all cower

before your throne while sensing they’re secure.

Reward them with fake trophies. Stay concealed

within the Trojan horse. Signal Rapture’s

at hand. Wait till night’s false peace, when you’ll creep

to their havens, slaughter them in their sleep.

Roger Armbrust

January 21, 2017

JODY’S MOM

for Jody Henry, and for Maezie

By our college days, having already

lost her husband, showing gray, I’d watch her

graceful moves through the lake house, her steady

gaze of sky-clear eyes; saw how his father

fell in love with her; sensed son’s devotion

to family, those analytical

genes leading him to biology. One

day, somehow, fifty years had passed. We all

gathered to honor her life’s century,

her greeting us one by one. Soon after,

she weakened, left our too constant hurry,

our staggered lives of faith, fear, and laughter.

I recalled her at Mr. Dixon’s wake two

years earlier. I said, “You know, you’re blue

eyes are still beautiful.” She said, “Yours too.”

Roger Armbrust

January 8, 2017

MEMORY LOST

What good am I without my memory?

She’s lived with me all my life until now.

I’ve taken for granted graceful symmetry

of her dance. Her long walks and runs. How

she’d bow to power of gentle words and touch,

respect their chronology, their faces

and names. I rarely told her how much

she meant to me. So now only traces

of her remain in our home. Flickering

lamps message her fleeing. Chill wind sweeps through

the open door, reveals loss in thick ring

of fog outside. I can’t recall just who’s

out there. Or where that vanishing path goes.

Shall I go find her? Some voice whispers, “No…”

Roger Armbrust

January 5, 2017