RED PRIEST

Vivaldi  -- his years with Venice’s 

Ospedale della Pieta's orphans

refining lost girls into princesses

of music -- leads tourists to cross oceans,

praising their ensembles. His disheveled

flaming hair tousling as he conducts,

tempts viewers to call him the “Red Priest”. Led

to Vienna for commissions, he’s dubbed

knight by Charles VI. His desire to compose

for Charles’s court fades: the emperor dies.

The next year, so does the priest (I suppose

as clerics must) in poverty. Now I

listen to his “Concerto for Strings”, sure

it shows us the Red Priest was never poor.

Roger Armbrust

October 14, 2018

SONG: SICK OF THE BLUR

Dealt with this concrete-less world of concrete

for a while now

Got no reason to compete or complete

a false smile now

Sick of the blur

Whipped by the blur

Slumped as a cur whose been slurred

as it were

Sick of the blur

Wandering like a muddy stream in dreams

of lost art now

Wondering if a lover seems to esteem

my scarred heart now

Life’s so absurd

Whipped by the blur

Each lying word’s a dead cat’s purr

as it were

Whipped by the blur

What’s the skinny, you got any real hope

for my life now?

I’ll ask you twice, what’s your price for that dope?

Give me life now

Change how I feel

Don’t want to feel

Sick of the blur

Life’s so absurd

Whipped by the blur

Sick of the blur

Roger Armbrust

October 13, 2018

“HYMN OF PRAISE”

Mendelssohn possesses it, doesn’t he:

Sense of presence leading to reverence,

not so much awaking as reverie

evolving to understanding, essence

of living within all. Listen how his

Adagio religioso, strings

flowing,  envisions Gutenberg, spirit’s

caress of sudden insight revealing

moveable type -- its releasing knowledge

from tight fists of monks, pushing past Latin

to each nation’s vernacular: his pledge

of spreading new words of men and women

throughout our earth. As you touch each book’s page

recall his genius, gift to every age.

Roger Armbrust

October 11, 2018