THE LAST QUIET PLACE ON EARTH

No not in Marble Canyon where rippled

rock resembles melting chocolate and

vanilla…not Markarfljot’s streaked, crippled

glacial river…uninhabited land

barren black and bordered like honeycomb

in Bolivia…nor in deep crystal

meltwater of Antarctica…just come

with your spirit to that invisible

place beneath my brainstem…celestial light

calming my breathing, eye movement, frail

body balance…now you know why at night

when I grow silent…when I stare and fail

to move…seem not there…the Muse…you see…schemes…

turns your words to insight…leads me to dream…

Roger Armbrust

September 18, 2020

“NEVERTHELESS”

Listening to KLRE and George

Pelecis’s “Nevertheless”…strings high…

performing emergency heart surgery…

marrying intricate piano…just why

they make me cry must deal with memory…

that title central to it all…defined

as “in spite of”… “notwithstanding”… you see

how it melds like memory… the divine

result… in spite of what happened…in spite

of her leaving…notwithstanding heartbreak…

comes forth creative spirit…sacred light

of poetry…to survive…what it takes

to thrive in spite of…utter devastation…

What happened to him…to fire inspiration?

 

Roger Armbrust

September 13, 2020

AT THIS MOMENT

At this moment I stand in sun beside

the oak…no cars passing…no mute people

walking by…the tree and I in sun…ride

slight breeze I pretend is flight…past steeple

and tower…wonder of what power we

possess when we close our eyes…feel slight breeze…

I once thought of leaping off a cliff…free

of fear…of responsibility…ease

of giving up all…but I didn’t…Think

of what I’d have missed…slight breeze…flight…sunlight…

think of how much love’s potential would sink

into nothing...lover’s glance unseen…a slight

to faith and hope…I pray for end to wildfires

out West…pray they transcend to peace…to desire…

 

Roger Armbrust

September 12, 2020

THE LOGICAL MESS OF LOVE

The logical mess of love comes always

with consequences…like driving too fast

through a school zone…or a drunk priest who prays

to the devil…egoist’s death mask cast

just before his heart fails…sometimes maybe

the opposite…vulnerable first kiss

leading to lasting care…a simple kind

word preventing a suicide…our bliss

won through honest searching…fear makes us blind

till we’re touched by an angel…our life could be

a molecule for all we know…able

to dissolve or divide without consent…

Once as a boy I bit a bush’s leaf…my

tongue went numb…I never found out why…

 

Roger Armbrust

September 10, 2020

LAST OF THE HUNTER-GATHERERS

I stumble through rubble once called Main Street…

shopping only for some form of water…

no need any more for fashion’s elite

look…for caviar or fast food…fatter

days turned to bone lean…through eternal haze

I sense almost sunset…slight breeze a chill

searing my blistered skin…making me crazed…

never to heal it seems…human road kill

is everywhere still…Corner of 1st Street…

gave Jill a first kiss here…she kissed me back…

she’s gone like the rest…my god she was sweet…

pray for her spirit…all their spirits…black-

outs come quicker…ah…water…poisoned by

radiation…no matter…so am I…

 

Roger Armbrust

September 9, 2020

DILEMMA

Springing from bed out

the window, I hear her shout,

Fool, we’re five flights up!

BALING OUT

Wonder about Earl Ovington…first air

mail pilot…flying by dead reckoning…

if he hated the term dead…if he cared

about faith and fear…danger beckoning...

always there…Wonder about Charles Lindbergh…

early air mail pilot…had to bale out

twice in storms…how his body felt when surge

of chute caught his fall…did he smile and shout…

or just take it in stride…I’ve baled from some

relationships…been baled out on…never

took them in stride…never easy come…

sometimes stormed…rare times acted clever…

never considered the chute staying closed

so to speak…wonder if the Spirit posed

a question about my fate…and then chose…

 

Roger Armbrust

September 8, 2020

ZOOM

I’m so used to looking at friends up close

and personal every day now… to see

a full body in motion when my shoes

lead me out to toss the trash or empty

the mailbox…or nab a bag from Bite Squad…

seems like a hologram…medium rather

than human…masked phantom floating…like what

Hamlet confronted that haunting night there

at the castle wall…How everything’s changed…

my once-cropped beard seeming Santa present

in summer…my body cells beg me to chance

a shower again…why do I resent

their concern…I can’t even recall spring…

or yesterday…now my screen’s everything…

 

Roger Armbrust

September 7, 2020

A KIND OF NOWHERE

It’s where I’d like to take and hold my mind

sometimes…far from here or anywhere

human…where I imagine the wild wind

must go those days or nights it feels despair

and just wants peace…exhausted from constant

whirl and curling…bending and breaking trees

and windows…turning gentle rain to instant

storm…Does it pray, do you think…howling please

end my tortuous wandering…I once

walked Cabot’s downtown…years ago…after

a tornado crushed it to rubble…no sense

to how it left a single building here…

another there…like thin surrendered warriors…

made clear how humans really have no power…

 

Roger Armbrust

September 6, 2020

FAR-OFF LIGHT

I keep thinking of far-off light, not night

light like I wrote of a while back, but day

and distant like photos of cloud and bright

light breaking through, like ol’ Tom Parr portrays…

sea scenes off Sandy Hook near sunset…scenes

majestic…turbulent…Turner would smile

at seeing them…what they really portend 

of our psyches…we humans silent while

threatening to explode…fed up with wars

and political lies…I’m listening

to Mendelssohn’s violin invite stars

and feelings of peace…recall Jews listening

to Mendelssohn before der Führer’s boys

sent them to showers and that hissing noise…

 

Roger Armbrust

September 5, 2020

ANOTHER NIGHT ALONE

Another night alone…and yet I’m not

alone…just sharing this pandemic world

with billions…the White House Fascist without

care for the suffering and dying…curled

up in self-absorption while my loving

caregivers…relentless as angels…try

to save the dying…try to save…shoving

their fears aside to save…go ahead…cry…

get it out…My brief walk tonight…the moon

tried to break through that stonewall sky…almost

made it…maybe tomorrow…maybe soon…

next year maybe…we’ll unmask smiles and boast

of our healthy globe…I hear Ella’s soft rhyme…

“someone to watch over me”…that was a time…

 

Roger Armbrust

September 4, 2020

NO ONE WONDERS WHERE I AM

No one wonders where I am. They believe

they know. Visions of me in my townhouse…

meditative…mind straining to conceive

an image…a phrase…a line…getting soused

through frustration…for inspiration…eyes

turning bloody from guzzling and glaring…

but that’s not the path…instead I watch…spy

on all the earth before me…hear blaring

life and sacred silence…breathe in cool air…

taste and retaste the tuna sub…mostly

await the Muse…spirit who chooses her

own sweet time to whisper or sing…ghostly

in the kindest way…subtle in her glance…

smiling when she’s ready…and then we dance…

 

Roger Armbrust

September 3, 2020

THE LONG RAIN

The long rain’s finally stopped for a while.

It needed to stop. Fertile earth filled up.

We hope it continues to come and go. Smile

so it will. Pray so it will. Raise your cup

so it will. We’re no good without its fall

and rise and fall and rise…we made mostly

of water. Think of your parched tongue…your call

to the sky for water…the drought…your plea

for water…Think of your soaked body…earth’s

flood…your prayer for rain to end…Think of how

powerless we are over water…birth

and death…think of vital balance…think now

of rivers…of ocean, moon and constant flow

of water...think what it knows that we don’t know…

 

Roger Armbrust

September 2, 2020

LABIA

You unfold me like

a sacred scroll, she whispered.

I read slow, he sighed.

THAT LONE NIGHT LIGHT

He loves watching that lone night light across

the far mountain…eyes blind in winter so

black he’d believe that long high range was lost

had he not studied it in daylight. Knows

no one who lives there within that gold-fire

glow. Imagines it’s her…his future bride.

He’ll go find her when he’s grown up and hired

at the lumber camp…walk with her…confide

his love…promise a good home. His mom calls

from the door…urges him back from the wind

so cold it burns…but he can’t hear…mind falls

through ebony air…heart aches…tears descend

then freeze on his raw cheeks…oh…what’s wrong with me

he gasps…drowning in dark…as if lost at sea…

 

Roger Armbrust

September 1, 2020

“HEAD OF A BEARDED MAN”

Deemed a fake in ’81, dumped like old

shoes into storage, the painting now they

say may be a Rembrandt. Worth stacks of gold

they say. I wonder what Rembrandt would say,

spirit hovering there in ether, view

he never knew as earth artist…no need

for gold now, so precious when alive…Who

judges my art he might murmur…Who bleeds

as I bled to capture curve and shadow

true to each wrinkle, each eyelid…One winter

at a Christmas party years back…I bowed

speaking with a lawyer…So you’re a writer

he said…Yes I said…I’ve always wanted to write

he said…I smiled...droned my verdict: Then you should write.

 

Roger Armbrust

August 31, 2020

HOW MANY NIGHTS

How many nights must we do this again?

Glare at each other in silence like cats

guarding territory or prey…in pain

growing from silence…those ancient love chats

by firelight extinguished, it seems, by dread.

How did this begin? I can’t recall…can you?

Will you say I started it…sneered and bled

you of love like deer carcass of blood…who

of our old friends could tell us…sit us down…

remind us how we’re worth too much  to each

other…like leaves to air…breath to leaves…frown

and shake their heads…guide us like seers to reach

for each other…touch again…Do you recall

that night I met you…eyes revealing our fall…

 

Roger Armbrust

August 30, 2020

WAIL

“You’ve got to learn your instrument. Then, you practice, practice, practice.

 And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail.” – Charlie Parker

 

Wail. You understand, don’t you. Grief or fear.

Pitched high like an angel discovering

Earth’s fate. Prolonged, like aimless, fiery tear

of falling star, at some point hovering,

then burning out. Like Bird burning, wailing.

His alto sax stabbing you, then healing

you through pain…his clean, somber tone trailing

across your flesh like a woman stealing

your heart and more. His alto sax resting

in light at the Smithsonian while his

melody and memory keep testing

us…listening now to “If I Should Lose

You”…he’s hurrying through…as if feeling

he’s burning out…seeing angels kneeling…

 

Roger Armbrust

August 29, 2020

WHAT CAME AFTER THE STORM

After passionate wind and lashing rain…

after flash flood of present thrashing past

and depths of memory…bare body’s pain

embedded with eyes focused over vast

possibilities…crashing psyche’s dread

of both life and death…of both love and hate…

after both love and hate no longer bled

you of hope or despair…after storm’s great

devastation set you free…what new course

to take then…what to whisper to calm breeze

caressing you…catalyst to seek the source…

the only source…not to threaten or please

you…or please anyone…only to form

phrase of prayer…take chances…till the next storm…

 

Roger Armbrust

August 28, 2020

THAT DAY I THOUGHT I SAW YOU

That day I thought I saw you on Ninth Street

outside my building, walking toward Broadway,

that sunrise hair like yours, your pace soft-sweet

with thoughtful grace, like when you’d turn and sway,

lying on my futon and laughing, hands

reaching toward me as if offering gifts

to heaven, eyes blue as heaven, command

of your singing voice soft-sweet, lyrics lift

toward me and heaven, then next day’s near lisp

leaving them on my answering machine:

“The way you wear your hat/the way you sip

your tea…the way you changed my life…” I mean…

that was heaven…mystical and bright blue…

but that day on Ninth Street…it wasn’t you…

 

Roger Armbrust

August 24, 2020

BELIEVE

Do you believe in god? It’s no matter

to me. Only to religions throughout

the ages, it seems. How bright blood’s splattered

on walls and floors, on greens and plains, harsh shouts

thundering through air in some god’s name

since someone didn’t believe or believed

a different story. Brought glory and fame

to many warriors and martyrs. Conceived

legends through stoic statues and stained glass.

Time passes. Statues fall. Glass breaks. We all

die. But before we give up ghosts and pass

on, we believe in something, great or small.

W. C. Fields believed he’d have another

drink. As for me, I don’t believe I’ll bother.

 

Roger Armbrust

August 23, 2020

HAPPY DREAMDAY

for Catherine, my daughter, on her birthday

 

H.P. Lovecraft would always ask strangers

about their thoughts and dreams. My dear daughter,

I wish you a dreamday, dreams that linger

through life, making them reality. Where

each hour is art, each breath inspiration

fulfilling the psyche and soul’s promise.

Where reflection’s the one hesitation,

connecting life’s eternal dots. Is this

too much to ask? A cause for patient smiles?

Perhaps. But what are our dreams, after all,

if not our living while at rest? Our files

of subconscious wonder. The heart’s brave call

to imagination, to create anew

this dream life belonging to only you.

 

Your Loving Poet Papa

August 21, 2020

4:11 A.M.

Eyes opening…waking just long enough

to hear the voice remind you…Breathe…enter

that breath of life through lungs…through organs…through

bloodstream, nerves, bone, flesh, skin…through your center

of being…that gift of life…of faith…grow

our conscious contact through breathing…our breath

pushed out now…exhale all fear of life now…

all care of rejection or harm…or death…

understand each breath as gift…accept past

as our archives of learning…now as our

chance to rest…strengthen our beings to cast

into action when rising…but this hour

to only breathe…breathe in faith…breathe out fear…

breathe in…breathe out…breathe in faith…breathe out fear…

 

Roger Armbrust

August 20, 2020

EACH TIME I SIP

It’s so easy here as I turn the tap

and fill the clean glass with pristine water,

mind on my work, that I forget that map

of Zimbabwe I studied last week, where

purifying chemicals have vanished

and water table has fallen like a

chuteless skydiver, their children famished,

their relentless covid a miasma,

yet taking backseat to cholera. I

had vowed to pray for them each time I sip,

whisper thank you and oh please help in my

single breath. So selfish, you see, they slip

my mind: both my suffering kind, their pain,

and our invisible giver of rain.

 

Roger Armbrust

August 18, 2020

IT'S NEVER EASY

It’s never easy to walk in winter

when the hound wind gnaws your bare skin, the air

somehow burns your lungs, your body’s center

shivering like a long-distance runner.

It’s never easy to walk in summer

when breeze even scorches your heavy breath

and humidity slumps you, encumbers

each step, urges you to envision death,

scrawl out your will and call Father Moran,

ask for absolution. Never easy

to walk in spring. Bully allergies can

shove you down, gouging sinuses and eyes,

halt sentences with a sneeze. Nor in fall,

when you feel life wither -- grass, leaves and all.

 

Roger Armbrust

August 17, 2020

PROSPECTOR

“I’m a prospector,” she almost whispered,

left eye closed, right eye gazing down the beer

bottle’s amber barrel tilted toward her

like a doctor at her microscope. “Here’s

where the truth lies, down deep, in reflective

foam. Where you have to search for it like gold

in dark streambeds.” I understood. Once lived

in lonely bars like this, like her, grown old

hiding from reality’s light. From love’s

responsibility and hope. “I keep

searching…keep searching…” I picked up her gloves

off the wet floor. Stuffed them in her coat. “Sleep’s

what you need now,” I told her. “I’m prospectus…”

she misspoke, bottle drinking, like Dad taught us.

 

Roger Armbrust

August 16, 2020

SATURDAY 2:17 A.M.

It’s too late. I’m tired. Won’t write a poem

tonight. Let the keyboard take off early.

Eyelids fight gravity. Body aches, some

deep twinge hemming me in. All this surely

will lead me to bed. Yet now, there below

in the parking lot, easy laughter and

talk of friends walking past. Walking slow

through our humid night.. I stretch as I stand.

Wonder where they work, if weary from their

long week. Or if they’re out of work, just two

of our 30 million. That book cover

from the Sixties now flashes into view:

“We the Lonely People, Searching for Com-

munity”. Title so heartbreaking, you

don’t need to read the text. Listen for some

voice in the night. Listen for talk that’s true.

 

Roger Armbrust

July 15, 2020

THIS IS MY LETTER TO YOU

This is my letter to you whom I love.

Not a plea for your attention or care,

or commitment. Consider it a glove

of ermine softly touching your rich hair,

your smooth face, your tender breast to feel your

heartbeat, quickening like inspiration.

Consider it the Muse’s deep whisper,

her breath powerful as birth’s sensation,

words lifting you to Olympus, beyond

Olympus to the universe. Believe me

when I say I love, when I smile, so fond

of your smile, your laugh a crystal chime, free

as forest breeze. Emily wrote a letter to

the world. But I write this letter to only you.

 

Roger Armbrust

August 13, 2020

SILVER

It can land in pockets or museums.

It’s not particular. Take a beating

by a smithy or sculptor in a whim,

or at the poker table. Competing

only with copper for loose change. Can play

the field, byproduct of copper, gold, lead,

or zinc refining. Holds title, you might say,

to silver lining. Ages well. That head

of Serapis at the Met, older than

Jesus by centuries. It stays with me

like memory of first love, like Roman

candles in night sky. More than reality.

When folks say it’s precious, I respond, “Of course.

It’s the name that masked cowboy chose for his horse.”

 

Roger Armbrust

August 12, 2020

THE WRITER’S ALMANAC

He emails it each day at 6 am

five-minute homage to writers, poets,

sometimes scientists, folks who gained their fame

fleeting as each generation. Knew it’s

that way since they wrote. Subtle audio

with transcript companion. Each day at 6.

But I listen that night, midnight or so.

Listen with eyes closed, alert, senses fixed

like some ancient hunter’s trap, rusted iron

jaws forced open, ready to snap the right

word or phrase, magic one barely touching

memory, raising love or fear, or light

of understanding. Something soul solid as

bleeding meat, or bird feather, or broken glass.

Something leading me to write the truth…at last…

 

Roger Armbrust

August 11, 2020

FALL

It’s watching them all fall that’s heartbreaking,

she said, looking toward flowing blue-grey clouds

but not speaking of clouds. Watch them shaking

like willow trees in blizzards, quaking crowds

of them staggering, mute, too weak to howl

or even whisper, she said. How they fall

like willow trees ripped from earth, their stark jowls

limp with last gasps as they fall. We knew, all

knew it was coming, she said. You knew years

before I, didn’t you. You saw it in

their insane repetitions, your clear tears

blurring your sight as you told me. How sin

brings madness. You said they’d fall. Bent forms tangled

like wingless Icarus. Like defeated angels…

 

Roger Armbrust

August 10, 2020

HISTORY LESSON

White chalk scrawling across green board then stops.

Long fingernails scraping across green board

then stop. Sweatered shoulders turning to me,

green eyes gazing through me, slender body

leaning back against green board, fingernails

clutching, raising sweater, revealing breasts

white as chalk. Green eyes turning and staring

at longhand four letters covering green

board, inviting heaven. Green eyes turning

back to me. Moist mouth opening…saying…

“Mr. Armbrust, where is Grant’s tomb?” Shaking my

head…brought back…I study green board’s only

words: “Grant’s tomb”. Hear shaking, hoarse voice respond

like a confused train conductor: “New…York…?”

 

Roger Armbrust

August 8, 2020

NIGHT QUIET

It’s the quiet like no other, quiet

so still it’s prayer without words, soft air

free of bitching engines, air so shy

it almost makes you want to reach out there

into night, reach through that clustered cloud crowd,

feel for the hidden moon. Air reading your

thoughts, your memories, night air like a shroud

keeping reason safe, keeping water pure

from our world’s endless assaults. When I last

saw you that lost night those long years ago,

that night I didn’t know was lost, that last

lost night so quiet I couldn’t sense you’d go

forever, I lay still in dark, feeling

you still there, believing pain was healing…

 

Roger Armbrust

August 4, 2020

NOON TREK

You don’t walk enough my inside voice wisps

today as I stalk to toss the garbage

then scrape up hill to pay the rent my hips

gnawing my nerves each wince showing my age

my downhill skid to mailboxes near pool

bringing sigh at bill stack no check nor note

of care I stare at bright sky feel a fool

for bowing slave to humidity’s coat

of sweat (only relative I live near)

You should walk when it’s cooler the voice chides

I wonder if I’m feeling faith or fear

as I trip past nodding crepe myrtles hide

behind my mask as a neighbor passes

Back home the cold air fogs my sunglasses

 

Roger Armbrust

August 3, 2020

WRITING IN CALLIGRAPHY

Each morning I lock myself in my room…

writing room, I mean…strange since I live alone

in a townhouse…but I write or use Zoom

to mainly listen to people I’ve known

only from the neck up…pandemic’s

pressure keeping me locked in…a felon

for surviving…my solitude a trick

of the Muse…my computer companion

for life it seems…our mute vow a marriage

of convenience…Sometimes I write poems

in calligraphy…when Cambria’s age

or Times Roman’s face won’t do…often some

intimate words imaging life’s sweet romance…

curling and curving…like two lovers who dance…

 

Roger Armbrust

August 2, 2020

"SING GENTLY"

I’m listening to Performance Today

playing “Sing Gently”, Eric Whitaker’s

composition sung by virtual choir

of 17,000 voices…universe

of heavenly vibration surrounding us.

Can you hear it where you are? Can you feel

it caressing the skin? Flowing through cells

into heart and all organs, bloodstream

carrying it to brain and spirit throughout

you and beyond you…beyond us all

to the Great Out There…Do you understand now

why only love can save us? How our

voices combine, composed to unite us?

How action, voices singing of love can save us?

Roger Armbrust

August 1, 2020