JUST KEEP MOVING FORWARD

for Silas Lawson Lytle

Your mom says you were impatient to see

the world. Tired of being cooped up, I guess.

Mind set to welcome light, share memory,

sweet music, and your mom and dad’s caress.

On Facebook, I study your eyes (perhaps

not focused yet?), wonder what you wonder,

your hands raised to shoulders, as if to clap

approval with life. You’re a bit under-

weight I hear. In sports we call that “wiry

and tough”. We don’t sweat size, just measure faith

and action. We like quick wit and fiery

passion for truth, honesty (you know: Eighth

Commandment). We live our lives best through four words,

my friend Jody says: “Just keep moving forward.”

Roger Armbrust

July 10, 2016

SANITY AND SANCTITY

Sanity: accepting reality,

let’s call it. Law speaks of compos mentis,

mastering the mind. Sigmund Freud could see

males and females struck mad by the penis.

Fromm believed whole societies insane.

(He must have seen greed, guns and endless war.)

Auden knew our anxious age, just how vain

we are. Chomsky warns climate, nuclear

disaster will end us. Where’s salvation?

Pope Francis preaches sanctity for all,

not just for saints. Einstein’s revolution

in religion: pantheism (We call

it god in all). Let’s define sanctity

as honesty, seed of our sanity.

Roger Armbrust

July 8, 2016

TRUMP

He’ll save us all: He’ll

build a wall – wide, tall. Know what

Freud and Jung call that?

YOU AS ROLLING WAVE

On this calm, distant shore I wait for you,

watch your raw energy escape the storm,

radiate to calmer water, meld your

blue wave train, its columning swell conform

to seabed, to curling wind and sunlight.

I wonder how you balance it all: lift

and fall, your flexing form now in clear sight,

then gone, then orbiting once more (a gift,

surely) only to refract with such grace

I react with a sudden cry. I laugh,

celebrate your luscious contour. All space

seems filled with your spirit’s lithograph.

I shudder, stagger forth, kneel, then recline,

feel your warm current enclose my coastline.

Roger Armbrust

June 29, 2016

CONSUME

I ingest you like

honey. You devour me like

fire igniting flesh.

UNLESS THIS MIRACLE HAVE MIGHT

Most excruciatingly beautiful

you. Most hesitatingly aloof you.

Where are your words these days, those phrases full

of natural imagery? Give us clues

to avenues where you and your Muse flow

in every revery, meditation.

Share sharp insight only poets allow –

deep cutting blade of psyche’s truth. You shun

my eyes. That’s all right, as long as honest

words – tight as tourniquets – always return

to your tongue and page. Rhythms you invest

can impress each mind and heart – blaze and burn

like a brand. Like your blue eyes still consume

space and air when you gaze across the room.

Roger Armbrust

June 23, 2016

GRIEF NEVER LEAVES

Grief never leaves. It only steps aside,

allows love and laughter again to dance.

Watches from the corner our graceful glide,

our stumbling, willingness to take a chance

once more. Memory, it seems, requires grief

to remain yet keep its distance; appear

late at night when we’re alone, perhaps brief,

perhaps droning on, even bringing fear.

The questions: Do we let grief control our

conversation? Allow dark to rule us?

Or do we choose to pray, kneel to power

filling all with natural light? Discuss

the future, accept the past, respect now?

It’s easier said than done. Yes. I know.

Roger Armbrust

June 15, 2016