“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