YOU WITH BEAUTY

You with beauty of distant galaxies

reflecting Great Light and constant rebirth.

You with love depth to challenge gravity

and every breath, sensing eternal worth

of each cell’s existence. You who swim pools

and oceans with ease. You whose laughter fills

sun with nurturing fire, who suffer fools

like me gazing at your beauty until

poetry inspires painting imagery

of you through gentle phrases. You who turn

images of your own to poetry --

listen a moment, please, to what I’ve learned

by reaching to touch our burning stars in flight.

Let me listen to you through whispering night.

Roger Armbrust

July 24, 2015

THIS MORNING AIR

This morning air breathes ancient memories.

Reflecting light recalls our world’s first day.

Wind creaking walls echoes great Socrates

answering questions with questions to praise

the gods and teach us to think. How shall we

live? A while back, watching your reflecting

eyes study your sunlit hair’s split ends, he

saw Helen sailing to Troy, protecting

her sacred skin with veils from the goddess

Aphrodite. How shall we live? Euclid

realized how each eye’s discrete ray blessed

vision through angles. Human vision hid

from Homer, but not the gods’ perspective.

Behind his glazed lens he saw how we live.

Roger Armbrust

July 23, 2015

RENAISSANCE

I’ve no doubt you didn’t mean to compel

my rebirth. It’s clear to me you’re simply

living life, unaware of casting spells

with your Mona Lisa gaze I imply

with Leonardo-like perspective through

my poems. Should Michelangelo see

you he would sculpt your graceful essence true

as his Madonna’s face. The Medici

would demand your portrait in every home.

So much for your image flooding Florence.

Your sweet spirit flows with me as I roam

Historic Hillcrest, powerful presence

propelling me to my keyboard, where alone

I form you as Il Divino would from stone.

Roger Armbrust

July 17, 2015

FAMILY PORTRAITS

You on the beach laughing (loving freedom

from the fear-beast at long last), joyous smile

reflecting sunlight and glowing kingdom

of family portrait’s wide-angle style --

generations rollicking in pearl-white

line like crescent moon. Then with your parents

and sis, gentle genetic pool’s quiet

quartet smiling, beauty of the moment.

You -- surrounded by love, white sand, sea oats,

great gray sky and flowing endless ocean --

emit peace, hands at rest, set to devote

all to love it seems. Tell me, when you can,

how it’s all changed: how clarity reveals

in growing light what your depths once concealed.

Roger Armbrust

July 16, 2015

IF WE ONLY KNEW

If we only knew what we were missing.

If we just understood how brief the time.

If we would comprehend, not dismissing

our patient Muse’s voice -- unknowing crime

of running from Her -- perhaps you and I

could sense in each cell great Chopin’s nocturnes:

their early rhythmic freedoms guide our eyes

to caress each human motion, return

time and again to heartbeat, pulse, soft breath

of life leading emotion to create

new metaphors for your hair’s braided wreath,

two tiny globes piercing your brow. Oh, listen

to his graceful leaps -- passion on a mission.

Roger Armbrust

July 11, 2015

I WANT TO DANCE WITH YOU

I want to dance with you. I want to fold

my longing fingers around your soft hand,

encircle your sensual waist and hold

you closer, closer and closer, (command

The Drifters to sing our song), sway your

strong legs and luscious frame over beach sands

and garden paths, tropical trails and pure

air of mountain peaks. I want foreign lands

to welcome our swirling entry, applaud

our whirling through destiny, our unplanned

circling and recircling of our vast world’s

every acre. I want our Muse’s wand

to feel our magic, our ever after

glowing through your dancing eyes and laughter.

Roger Armbrust

July 9, 2015

YOU THE MOON

That’s you tonight, moon glowing golden light.

I know, since I beheld your face today

golden from summer sun, your shining sight

igniting me to passion and to pray –

all this within my silence admiring

you. Moon last night, I’m sure, radiated

blue of you, ocean blue of your smiling

eyes, leading me to believe I mated

with some guardian angel, we blessed two

secluded among distant clouds – a sense

I never felt before. They say blue moons

appear on nights volcanoes erupt. Since

holding you, I comprehend how mountains

explode, releasing deep pleasure and pain.

Roger Armbrust

July 8, 2015

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE GIG, MAN

for John David Salons and Gabriel Solis

It’s all about the gig, man – hands and strings

and drums and voices and now and then throw

in some brass. And an audience listening

then moving then being moved. Take a bow.

It’s all about hands with clipper and comb,

circling the chair for angles to sculpt locks,

client smiling, being moved. From the womb

we roll out into air, challenge the clock,

touch brush to paint to canvas, pen to ink

to paper, dance fingers across keyboard

to monitor – levitate on the brink

at times – all to create image – accord

with the universe. We may not know how

or why, yet we understand. Take a bow.

Roger Armbrust

July 6, 2015

MAD MEN

The man with his hand on the red button

slouches with his bourbon in Washington.

The man with his hand on the red button

fills a shot glass with vodka in Moscow.

The man with his hand on the red button

slurps slowly, tasting rice wine in Beijing.

The man with his hand on the red button

sniffs his kosher wine in Jerusalem.

The man with his hand on the red button

downs a swig of Apo in New Delhi.

The man with his hand on the red button

mutely sips Muree in Islamabad.

These and their peers in other nations, then, 

we now classify as the true Mad Men.

Roger Armbrust

July 3, 2015

RENOIR WOULD HAVE LOVED YOU

portrayed you perhaps like Julie Manet

seated, body turned slightly left (but sans

cat), your highlight hair combed back -- simple way

you like to wear it -- your delicate tan

silken-earth frame for your clear-river eyes,

their intense depth revealing your curved mouth --

a reluctant sad smile. He’d prove so wise,

welcome challenge of your knitted white blouse:

circular patterns meld with flower lace

caressing your breasts, veiled short sleeves gracing

gentle flex of your arms. No doubt he’d trace

background of emerald trees, embracing

your love for nature. Then his artist’s might

would blaze: saturate you with vibrant light.

Roger Armbrust

July 2, 2015