HEUREKA

for Jane Scarpantoni
at Irving Plaza
July 27, 1995



How did I
just a man
imperfect
and unwise
discover
this passion
fathoms deep
within your
burning eyes
and brawny
wired cello
vibrating
for hours
between your
sweat-soaked thighs
releasing
rhythms rare
as angels’
wings we hear
ascending
through night skies



Roger Armbrust

GREELEY’S HEAD

A pigeon shits on Greeley’s head
in Greeley Park near Macy’s.
But since he’s carved of stone or lead,
Greeley never minds feces
plopping, oozing down his face.
Like most of us, he knows his place.



Roger Armbrust

SUNDAY MORNING

The framed glow
of your naked body
silhouetted against
the backdrop
of half-closed blinds
as you dance
and sing
at the stove
to the track
of Mary-Chapin Carpenter
while your hands
like gentle birds’ heads
nip at the coffee urn
ignites inner glow
to my naked frame
laying in wait
on this firm mattress
to embrace you again
with the closing wingspan
of my now strong
now gentle
dancing
singing
self



Roger Armbrust

LOVE POEMS AND PAST-DUE BILLS

I keep love poems
and past-due bills
in the same brown manila folder
covered with bloodstained fingerprints.
I don’t know how they got there.
I only remember
wind chimes of gentle laughter
rhythms of stuttered breathing
and flashes of mute mouths
miming screams
from distant corners
of a room shaded in tones of flesh.
Portraits on scarred walls ignite
each time I close my eyes.
Yesterday they turned off the lights and heat.
Dim memory seems all I have left.
Tonight I keep the door locked
shiver in darkness
and try to deep breathe
as I wait for them to come.

Roger Armbrust

BEFORE YOU PUT THE BOTTLE

or gun to your mouth, give me a call. I’ll
tell how I obsessed over suicide
at seven years sober, raw flesh numb while
each shaking breath reeked with methyl bromide,
every swallow jagged shards of shattered
mirrors through my chest and gut. She had gone,
money dissolved, ego a smashed platter,
my higher power tossed a bitter bone
and shoved in a dungeon. Or so I thought.
How did I know you can’t imprison love?
It kept shoving me to meetings, then taught
me to pay attention. I sensed safe coves
when I heard a guy say: Get honest. Pray.
Help someone. I work on these every day.

Roger Armbrust
September 26, 2009

WHEN IT ALL GOES AWAY

I hope I’m in a safe place. Maybe with
gardens—roses, violets, sunflowers
maybe. Someone nice to read me Greek myths,
even act out Zeus, lightning bolts powered
by his gnarled hands. Maybe apple orchards
to invite sweet pies. A view of water,
maybe, nurses dressed like mermaids. It’s hard,
I know. Regs call for order. But laughter
still feeds the universe. And song. And dance.
Classical guitarists to play after
dinner, maybe—Broca and Auric. Chance
might bring a relative or old lover.
We can sit under stars, magnolia trees.
They’ll smile and tell me who I used to be.

Roger Armbrust
September 23, 2009

LOST IN SOME ETHER

for Nick Flynn


I really never stood a chance. Reading
the second page of acknowledgments, I
started to cry: …for being here always…
…for deep understanding…and…love that keeps
opening. What odds of survival could
I possibly muster once my fingers
curled in to those memories of your mother?
Once my eyes caught the glare of your words
flaring to images, counting all those ways
the heart can die: …hard O of its mouth…
conniving holy cards…you left naked
in snow…chalk scrawlings on the garage door…
small cuts on your forearm…commands to bike
into speeding cars…How can I explore
these lines for that crevice of light sensing
hope, signaling how suicide must lead
somewhere? How, when you keep quoting Einstein:
you can’t find it because it isn’t there

Roger Armbrust
August 12, 2001