If you could see your beauty through my eyes
you’d greet each creature who approached with smile
so gentle none would fear you—your soft, wise
voice causing every beast to pause a while,
silently rejoice at your offered hand,
bow humbled head and feel your healing touch.
If you could see how your posture commands
the crowded room, sacred light, or how much
aura surrounds your motion, then you’d sense
Chopin’s joy at composing sonatas
steeped in genius and filled with dissonance
igniting art. Or Schumann’s cantata
sculpted from Thomas Moore, his angel’s vice
exacting a tear to gain paradise.
Roger Armbrust
January 30, 2012
Monday, January 30, 2012
Thursday, January 26, 2012
SYNTHESIS
Interweaving our moist bodies as one,
we shape something new: perhaps lace of flesh,
perhaps chemical elements’ union
redefining organic—cells enmeshed,
revolutionary biology
poets of later eras will record,
sensing how our tongues shun psychology,
spirits rely most on unspoken words
as our substance conceives to Beethoven’s
nocturne. What do our half-opened mouths voice
so far from language? If ever heaven
were a higher stage of truth, make our choice
composed of calm and passion. Make it here
where our inflected forms meld, free from fear.
Roger Armbrust
January 26, 2012
we shape something new: perhaps lace of flesh,
perhaps chemical elements’ union
redefining organic—cells enmeshed,
revolutionary biology
poets of later eras will record,
sensing how our tongues shun psychology,
spirits rely most on unspoken words
as our substance conceives to Beethoven’s
nocturne. What do our half-opened mouths voice
so far from language? If ever heaven
were a higher stage of truth, make our choice
composed of calm and passion. Make it here
where our inflected forms meld, free from fear.
Roger Armbrust
January 26, 2012
Friday, January 20, 2012
ETTA
Now you listen to me for a minute.
I don’t know how many people love you.
Probably equals those millions of notes
you entranced us with as you danced from blues
and doo-wop to rock to soul to gospel
into jazz and beyond. How you caressed
each of us, alone in dark, casting spells,
forming memories and, yes, hope. You dressed
in silk and curled blond hair, rocking the house,
turning our heads and hearts. But your ballads,
most of all, mellow yet wrenching, meld us
even now into one spirit. You died
today. Fought booze and junk, won halls of fame.
We’re so sad you left, but so glad you came.
Roger Armbrust
January 20, 2012
I don’t know how many people love you.
Probably equals those millions of notes
you entranced us with as you danced from blues
and doo-wop to rock to soul to gospel
into jazz and beyond. How you caressed
each of us, alone in dark, casting spells,
forming memories and, yes, hope. You dressed
in silk and curled blond hair, rocking the house,
turning our heads and hearts. But your ballads,
most of all, mellow yet wrenching, meld us
even now into one spirit. You died
today. Fought booze and junk, won halls of fame.
We’re so sad you left, but so glad you came.
Roger Armbrust
January 20, 2012
4:44 a.m.
and 44 degrees and fog outside
my writing-room windows. Old ghosts, you know,
sleeping in oaks like lean gray wolves who hide
from hunters in me who hide from them. No
sleep for hunters, though, in our dark retreat
lighted only by far lace of streetlights’
longing beams, ghosts’ firefly eyes flurried fleet
as thin waterfalls within those far lights
at night, and haunting glow of this absurd
monitor before me realizing
itself reflecting my psyche in words
blinking across space. Your analyzing
them right now won’t help me. You’re here alone
touching their curled bones. I’m already gone.
Roger Armbrust
January 20, 2012
my writing-room windows. Old ghosts, you know,
sleeping in oaks like lean gray wolves who hide
from hunters in me who hide from them. No
sleep for hunters, though, in our dark retreat
lighted only by far lace of streetlights’
longing beams, ghosts’ firefly eyes flurried fleet
as thin waterfalls within those far lights
at night, and haunting glow of this absurd
monitor before me realizing
itself reflecting my psyche in words
blinking across space. Your analyzing
them right now won’t help me. You’re here alone
touching their curled bones. I’m already gone.
Roger Armbrust
January 20, 2012
Thursday, January 19, 2012
ACHE
A harsh flash of lightning gashing the nuts,
burning like army ants through the groin,
slashing with a jagged blade in the gut
after slicing up my intense loin.
A brutal battalion attacks my head
shouting aspirin will never relieve
the wild hound’s growling gnaw. And how I dread
those howling sirens refusing to leave
my moss-plugged ears. For longer than a year
now I’ve suffered this persistent pattern
of selfish longing and deep-seated fear
tempered by the one feeling that matters:
gratitude rising from prayer; your spirit’s
essence seems to appear while I’m kneeling,
asking for your happiness and healing.
Roger Armbrust
January 19, 2012
burning like army ants through the groin,
slashing with a jagged blade in the gut
after slicing up my intense loin.
A brutal battalion attacks my head
shouting aspirin will never relieve
the wild hound’s growling gnaw. And how I dread
those howling sirens refusing to leave
my moss-plugged ears. For longer than a year
now I’ve suffered this persistent pattern
of selfish longing and deep-seated fear
tempered by the one feeling that matters:
gratitude rising from prayer; your spirit’s
essence seems to appear while I’m kneeling,
asking for your happiness and healing.
Roger Armbrust
January 19, 2012
Monday, January 16, 2012
DYING SLOWLY
Great Anna understood dying slowly.
Knowing her rooms were bugged, she’d host a friend
at the dining table, talking lowly
of weather and music, even pretend
to toast the Party with vodka. Then hand
a poem to read in silence, careful
so paper didn’t rustle. Her command
of false banter would rule while the fearful
trusted one memorized each secret verse.
Don’t you love to run through snow? Anna’d ask.
I really can’t think of anything worse
than life without winter. The guest’s mute task
complete, he’d nod. Here, light your pipe, she’d say,
as she burned her lyric in the ashtray.
Roger Armbrust
January 16, 2012
Knowing her rooms were bugged, she’d host a friend
at the dining table, talking lowly
of weather and music, even pretend
to toast the Party with vodka. Then hand
a poem to read in silence, careful
so paper didn’t rustle. Her command
of false banter would rule while the fearful
trusted one memorized each secret verse.
Don’t you love to run through snow? Anna’d ask.
I really can’t think of anything worse
than life without winter. The guest’s mute task
complete, he’d nod. Here, light your pipe, she’d say,
as she burned her lyric in the ashtray.
Roger Armbrust
January 16, 2012
Sunday, January 15, 2012
CONSCIOUS
I awake and welcome you in silence,
your sacred form lying still beside me,
sculpture worthy of Michelangelo’s
divine touch. Yet I know not even he
could recreate blessed flesh of you, softest
shadowed recess of your clavicle, sweet
valley home to my first kiss. Your firm breast
lifts slight as earth to my lips’ caress, greets
my tongue tip with your deepest breath’s response,
your body encapsulated in calm
trust. My passioned dreams used to reside once
in prayer for your presence, tempered by balm
of reality—conscious of fate’s clues,
and of your everlasting right to choose.
Roger Armbrust
January 15, 2012
your sacred form lying still beside me,
sculpture worthy of Michelangelo’s
divine touch. Yet I know not even he
could recreate blessed flesh of you, softest
shadowed recess of your clavicle, sweet
valley home to my first kiss. Your firm breast
lifts slight as earth to my lips’ caress, greets
my tongue tip with your deepest breath’s response,
your body encapsulated in calm
trust. My passioned dreams used to reside once
in prayer for your presence, tempered by balm
of reality—conscious of fate’s clues,
and of your everlasting right to choose.
Roger Armbrust
January 15, 2012
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