I LOVE TERRIBLY

this Monday afternoon, love with extreme

alarm, like a speeding fuel truck chasing

passion. Love with intense fear, lover’s scream

piercing air, inaudible waves racing

at heights only dogs hear, igniting howls

of discontent. Love so formidable

in nature storm clouds form angry mobs, jowls

of mad gods swelling with rage, unable

to quell this ancient rebellion of man.

Love strongly repulsive, melting biceps

to lava, tongues to trickling streams, stout hands

to limp latex strings. Tell me what precept

will alter chaos, extinguish desire.

Night beckons. Beds crackle from spreading fire.

Roger Armbrust

January 27, 2014

DAWN LIGHT

imprinting its lined shadows on closed blinds—

vertical and horizontal borders

of window frames melding with long, aligned

pinstripes of sheaths—creating sharp, ordered

spaces as if Mondrian had entered

through silent dark of our sleep and blessed us

with his artist’s grace, left us a centered

universe of shadow and light. Breathless

in its presence, we hold each other, gaze

with a mute reverence, recognizing

how rising sun sets our canvas ablaze,

as if Rothko stalked in, realizing

how little time we have left, then bellowed

in bright colors of orange and yellow.

Roger Armbrust

January 26, 2014

EVERLIFE

for John Willis and Mandy McBryde

Scab-faced Old Georgie, with his amber eye

and gargoyle voice, must give way every age

to a deeper aura—soul’s symphony

of Everlife—tonal center a stage

for spirit effusing into all. Our

natural state, really. Prisoners of earth,

we surrender to psyche’s faithful hours

of all that’s possible: constant rebirth

to amend lives and love, to sense spirit’s

light source. We pray for Evermemory

to shield us from past wrong, not to fear it

but to create love anew. When body’s

final breath sighs, Enough, the soul exits,

soars the universe, imploring, What’s next?

Roger Armbrust

January 10, 2014

KOI

They’re not goldfish, she stresses, her blue eyes

following their smooth, brocaded ballet

across water garden’s clear pond. She cries

suddenly, brief as a breeze, body sways

toward pool as if hypnotized. Then she kneels

beside it, pointing. See their lip barbels,

those sharp, hooked whiskers? I kneel by her, feel

her energy lightning through me. I tell

her I do see. But I’m blessing her glow.

She knows this. I want to speak long of my

artist friend who paints them, his latest show,

this one canvas: I mistook koi for bright

flames. Yet I don’t speak. She smiles, whispers, You

know what? I mistook them for bright flames, too.

Roger Armbrust

January 8, 2014

COSMO NOCTURNE

for Gabriel Solis

I walk toward then along your glazed skyline,

seem to gaze through rain and unwiped windshield,

though your drying canvases rest inclined

against your studio’s pebbled wall, yield

to my senses as Manhattan’s structures

used to yield those years ago. I’ve known nights

when buildings blurred before me, eyes sutured

half-closed by drink and weariness, or plights

of passion crazing my focus. Ghosts spy

from those scarred windows etching rising rock

and steel grasping toward void. If they reply

to my calling out, suddenly unlock

those scraped, sealed doors, no need to feel alarm.

They’re spirits of love who’ll shield us from harm.

Roger Armbrust

January 7, 2014