THE TERROR OF BEING RIGHT ALL THE TIME

It makes me never want to go outside

or answer the phone, or read and respond

to email or text message. I deride

in my mind each report and opinion

from live mouth before me, status online,

or gabbing TV image. Yesterday

dining at Wok’s Up, I shouted hardline

to folks I don’t know, who didn’t ask. Say

you’re at the grocery, walking in park,

or gazing at art, I’ll question your mask,

critique your distance. I may even bark

orders for living. My whole body basks

in my voice while I hear my psyche say,

“Why don’t you just shut up, go home, and pray.”

Roger Armbrust

May 31, 2020

LINDA RONSTADT IN HOLLYWOOD

on PBS, 1980 concert

with her in rose blouse and pants and ruby

slippers (and what they mean in Filmdom), her

eye shadow matching her violet belt,

that voice exploding roses and shattering

diamonds. How can you not help but cry

knowing that voice is still now, suffering

from rare palsy. But in 1980

she is melting gold and the audience,

the Cold War and pollution far away.

I’m praying for her now, wherever she’s

locked down away from virus. I pray

for us all in this new Cold War, chorus

of angels adoring sound of her voice.

Roger Armbrust

May 30, 2020

MORTAL SIN

At Twenty Nine Palms, the Marines contort

the landscape – yellow-white like dying skin –

to simulate Baghdad, prepping to distort

or end lives in Iraq. Our mortal sin

of war. Here fifty-five years earlier,

my brother the doctor cared for Semper Fi

as Mojave Desert would parch and sear

our dear boys, pre-seasoned for ‘Nam. He’d try

to save their lives in Da Nang. Sometimes would,

sometimes not. All depended on the wound

gashing the yellow-white dying skin. Could

he, at times, have heard their whispering sounds

of sorrow – their mute confessor, tragic task

undesired? He never said. I never asked.

Roger Armbrust

May 26, 2020

“NO DIRECTION HOME”

Watching "No Direction Home: Bob Dylan".

Scorcese on Dylan '61-

'66. I'm a jock in college then. 

So aware and confused. A life of fun

and agony. Fell out with my coach,

so edited our school paper. Won some

awards. Without knowing it, I approached

my life's work. All I really knew, in sum:

I hated war. Abhorred Vietnam. Still

recall Life Magazine cover: Grey-faced

GI stares at camera. Terror. Killed

the soul. Been searching ever since for grace

in a lost country, government killing

without conscience ever since. Still killing...

Roger Armbrust

May 23, 2020

CORNERS

Stand in the middle of the block. Look left

to the corner house. Look to right corner.

Who do you think of now? Only yourself?

Perhaps a friendly neighbor you know there?

An enemy? Perhaps a childhood friend

who lived on a corner. Or even you.

Walk to the corner. Where are you? The end

or the beginning? Search for any clue

to the future. Where do you want to send

or seek love? Safety? Perhaps walk up to

a door and knock. Meet someone new. Tell him

to vote. Or be kind. Or go to hell. “Do

you believe in God?” you might ask. Or how

he lusts. It’s starting to rain. So what now?

Roger Armbrust

May 22, 2020

“IN A SENTIMENTAL MOOD”

Listening to Bird play Duke, and thinking

of you. How years jettison into space

yet leave memory. When I was drinking

way back, six years before cosmos’s grace

whirled me to sanity, psyche flowed through

“The Natural”, melted to that music

with Roy and Memo on dance floor. So smooth

with band playing Duke in background, quick flick

and they disappear from frame to surf sound

and walking on beach. Disappear like years,

yet memories like marauders surround

us, plunder our hidden treasures, past tears

and laughter our hearts even thought were lost,

maybe hoped were lost, knowing their great cost.

Roger

May 21, 2020

YEMEN

Because America’s allies bomb them,

demolished their water and sewer lines,

the child lies in her cholera, condemned

to vomiting, diarrhea, hearing whines

of approaching missiles soon to blaze fire.

Neverending. Survive all that, perhaps,

look forward to those snarling dogs of war:

traumatic brain injury, home collapsed

to rubble. Why do we allow our rich

politicians to allow this great sin?

Why are we mired in our terror-filled ditch

of indifference? Answer if you can.

Explain our abuse as she now joins us

in our world nightmare: coronavirus.

Roger Armbrust

May 17, 2020

I'M HEADIN' DOWN THE ROAD (song)

Because you don’t know

Because you can’t say

Because you can’t love

Me the holy way

You used to

I’m headin’ down the road

Won’t turn my head around

Won’t hope to see you run

Call come back home again

Like you used to

Might as well turn my photo

To the wall

Might as well burn my books

Yes and all

My poems and songs I wrote

On paper scraps

Just for you

Just for you

Just for you

I’m headin’ down the road

Won’t turn my head around

Won’t hope to see you run

Call come back home again

Like you used to

Roger Armbrust

May 15, 2020

GATHERING

He’s activating the military

to invade America. Wonder how that

will stand with mad citizens who carry

guns as they invade legislatures? What

will happen when pistol packers swagger

into voting booths? Storm troopin’ Trumpsters

demanding their far rights. What the wager

will be when they take on frowning soldiers?

Or will they unite -- brothers and sisters?

Join hands, do-si-do to “Hail to the Chief”?

Maybe hug so tight they even blister?

Feel their newfound freedom’s such a relief

they’ll pack tight like legions of long ago

while distant Fauci screams, “No! No! No! No!...”

Roger Armbrust

May 14, 2020

BEETHOVEN’S ADAGIO CANTABILE

Beethoven’s Adagio cantabile

makes me feel like something’s about to happen,

or maybe is happening, but not for me

to know or understand. Like mortal sin

when I was a kid. Some powerful sonata

in a cassock cornered me, modulated

pitch and tone, scowling. Commanded I’m not a

saint but exact mortal sinner God hated.

I didn’t take it well. Sweated night terrors,

waking soaked as a styed pig, rooting for some

safe corner of the wet bed. What now? Piano

calm, reflective. Like my grade school teacher’s

soft voice explaining Virgin Mary’s deep love.

As we walk out in snow, she hands me my gloves.

Roger Armbrust

May 13, 2020

DENTAL FLOSS

I’ve decided it’s no inanimate

object, but rather animate subject.

Each time I’ve tossed a spent cord in my waste

basket, I return later to find it

prone on the bathroom floor. And sometimes curled

on hall carpet, or slumping on the stair.

“Perhaps you’re revolting, in anger hurl

yourself from trash to tile in dark despair

from our lockdown,” I suggest. It doesn’t

answer. Only lies there silent as I

pick it and flick it back in the old can.

“Are you with the CIA, sent to spy

on me?” I whisper. It won’t squeal. The floss

mutely enjoys me leaving at a loss.

Roger Armbrust

May 12, 2020

REOPENING?

What rhymes with virus?

Won’t some kind soul please hire us?

Past loves desire us?

VOICES

Early morning. My closed blinds a soft mix

of shadow and sunlight. I hear outside

a voice I don’t recognize. My ears fix

on its rhythm, volume rise to collide

with a second voice, both speaking at once.

I can’t discern greeting or quarrel, feel

sudden chill, memory of waking, voice

over voice from distant rooms, noise to steal

my serenity, my safety. What’s this?

I’m holding my breath, as if these voices

might shatter the earth. Like when I’d confess

to our parish priest my morbid choices

and impure thoughts. How he’d gasp and revile…

Outside tides of laughter. I breathe deep and smile.

Roger Armbrust

May 9, 2020

CAREFUL WHERE YOU STEP

Careful where you step. Avoid touch. Keep your

distance. Even your speech, your breath, surface

your hand pressed and left may portend danger

for another human. Don’t rub your face

till you’ve washed hands. How can imperfect I

pass such tests? Must be why God decided

I live alone. Help you survive. Night sky’s

cloud thick now. Thunder’s angry warnings tread

closer. Rain begins its hissing complaint.

darksky.net omens harsh storm forever.

Lightning glares its fangs, its flashes repaint

my writing room walls, fickle and clever

in its brief art. Stay safe. Practice balance.

Stay safe. Don’t read this sonnet more than once.

Roger Armbrust

May 7, 2020

I LOVED THAT FULL MOON TONIGHT

I loved that full moon tonight…or maybe

it was last night…they crush together these

days, don’t they…like brakeless cars gone crazy

on lightless freeways…Got an email…pleased

I was…more than pleased really…from an old

New York friend who saved my life…more times than

I can count…would tell me the truth…ice cold…

when I couldn’t see or feel it…Great man

he is…to me…One night…opened his book…

read just two lines…words turning me away

from suicide…like strong, gentle arms…shook

me awake from a final nightmare…Say

that moon’s a lover…bright heart you hope to win

as Dinah sings…“I got you under my skin”…

Roger Armbrust

May 6, 2020

“I DON’T WANT TO SET THE WORLD ON FIRE”

Midnight. Soft jazz, Sirius radio.

I’ve just laughed, cried, and marveled at doc

on scientist Jim Allison, hero

who fought doubters, stumbles, and deadly clock

to find a cancer cure. Won the Nobel.

I’m feeling humbled, inspired; frustrated

by pols who want to scrap PBS. Tell

them goodbye come November: castrated

by the ballot box. Ink Spots are crooning

soft: “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire”.

Hope for heart’s flame. Bless this early morning

love song. Damn how globe’s virus trumps desire.

Listen to that guitar’s simple strum. Calm

rhythm of that piano. Like a psalm.

Roger Armbrust

May 4, 2020

LONG HAND

Careless, you speed deliberate toward midnight.

Consistent with each steady click, you sweep

like Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover, all light

and darkness turning with you. Why you keep

rotating like earth, marking time of each

death and birth, reaching for each hour’s constant

height and depth, your finger tip set to teach

us value of each minute, each gold instant,

we must determine for ourselves, like God’s

personal definition. What matters,

after all? Does it count, how bodies trod

earth? How our long hands grasp for love, scatter

mammon for health and shelter? Will our shelved

records pass or fail after you touch twelve?

Roger Armbrust

May 1, 2020