SHADOW STORIES

 

On this day Napoleon’s soldiers found

the Rosetta Stone, Emile Zola fled

France, Edgar Degas was born, and the first

women’s rights conference opened. Different

years, of course. But, god, such brilliant history.

Yet all shadow stories now to our later

generations mired in TV and fascism.

Shadow stories flashing quickly on our walls

at night with each passing headlight. Yet we’re

all asleep in our dark present. We don’t

see them. Or if we’re catatonic with

insomnia, we sense but don’t sight their

sudden dark linking forms. And to assure

we don’t connect, some passing voice calls it myth.

 

Roger Armbrust

July 19, 2023

 

23 RUE VANEAU

Karl Marx, living with wife Jenny and child

in Paris now, at last begins to see how

humans’ scourge is deeper than religion.

How our history of economics, always based

on landowner/ruler and slave, crushes man’s essence

as creator, now condemned to technology’s

assembly line and its soul-numbing repetitions,

the proletariat always barely

surviving, intelligence stifled. His

answer would be always the written word:

educating the masses to their plight.

Authority’s response: forever to chase him

out of one city to another, one country to another,

this power struggle never ending through today.

Roger Armbrust

June 11, 2023

AUDEN IN ARKANSAS

I mainly remember two things

about your reading that summer 1970

at State Teachers College in Conway:

 

1.

Standing alone at the podium

of Snow Auditorium’s vast stage

you lifted folded paper

crumpled like a soiled map

from your dark-grey coat pocket

crackled it open close to microphone

and mumbled, “Here’s a poem I just finished:

Talking to Dogs

        In memorium Rolf Strobl

        Run over June 9^th, 1970

You read with the distant drone

of a power line stretched across prairie.

Months later I would see your poem

printed on a crisp white page of Harper’s Magazine.

 

2.

As you stepped to us backstage

Lee Rogers and I shuffled nervous soft shoe.

Neither of us knowing what to say to a legend

Lee warbled, “What brings you to Arkansas?”

Your face

with more crevices and character

than an Ozark mountain

encircled by scarves of smoke

rising from unfiltered cigarette stuffed

between two fingertips the color of jaundice

seemed to fade from us.

Your tired bloodhound eyes

curdled by old skin

studied our shoes

as your diaphragm-deep answer

crawled toward us:

“My agent.”

 

Roger Armbrust

1990s

 

OVATION FOR OVID

Ovid’s birthday today, that crafty Roman

poet mainly known for “Metamorphoses”,

tracing world history from creation

to Julius Caesar. But let me praise, please,

his “Ars Amatoria” – The Art of Love --

showing me how to find a woman, or

woman how to win a man. Gods above!

His simple guide still in play for lovers!

Don’t forget her birthday. Never ask your date

her age. Let her miss you…but not too long. Then

after you fight, “making up, but in private”.

Simultaneous orgasm. Hey, man!

Who needs Kinsey or Alex Comfort? Give

me an ancient Roman to learn how to live!

 

Roger Armbrust

March 20, 2023

 

TULIPS

You want to cup them in your hands, don’t you,

their layered petals inviting caress.

Their colors rainbow-varied, rich, as if viewed

only by royalty, fabric to dress

a queen. Their name derives, it seems, from

a Persian word for “turban”. You see it,

don’t you, how it wraps the stem’s head. How red

ones respond to sun like an open heart.

There in the garden, your open heart and

arms caress your daughter like a bouquet

of flowers. I recall a distant land

long ago, embracing my daughter that way.

She was younger then than your Grace, our smiles

at ease, unaware what precious memories.

 

Roger Armbrust

March 18, 2023

CRITICAL RACE THEORY

Victors write the history we’re told

which has been a fact

which doesn’t make the history a fact.

Now victims are writing history

thanks to laws and technology

and victors are yelling that it’s not fact.

Critical Race Theory they call it:

Marketing term so far from fact

they feel they’re safe.

But feelings aren’t facts.

The fact is they feel

if they’re not victors they’re victims.

And that’s not fact.

The fact is they fear

Integration:

an action so natural

to evolution

of civilizations

like two parts hydrogen

to one part oxygen

creating water.

Roger Armbrust

November 4, 2021

THE REAL KEY

Been arranging poetry manuscripts.

Thought I had four to send Ted, my old friend

and publisher. I have seven. See, it’s

the Muse, not me. She’s the angel who sends

inspiration, rhythms, imagery. She’s

the one who turns the grand woman I see

into muse or memory. When she’s pleased

she smiles. Sometimes I see it. Sometimes we

just sit in silence. She lets me decide.

Those are the toughest moments. Yet splendid.

Chet Baker’s singing on Pandora. “I

get along without you very well.” Shit.

We all know that’s a lie. Ah. Here comes the real key:

Tony’s crooning, “They can’t take that away from me.”

Roger Armbrust

May 4, 2021

THE LAST QUIET PLACE ON EARTH

No not in Marble Canyon where rippled

rock resembles melting chocolate and

vanilla…not Markarfljot’s streaked, crippled

glacial river…uninhabited land

barren black and bordered like honeycomb

in Bolivia…nor in deep crystal

meltwater of Antarctica…just come

with your spirit to that invisible

place beneath my brainstem…celestial light

calming my breathing, eye movement, frail

body balance…now you know why at night

when I grow silent…when I stare and fail

to move…seem not there…the Muse…you see…schemes…

turns your words to insight…leads me to dream…

Roger Armbrust

September 18, 2020

“NEVERTHELESS”

Listening to KLRE and George

Pelecis’s “Nevertheless”…strings high…

performing emergency heart surgery…

marrying intricate piano…just why

they make me cry must deal with memory…

that title central to it all…defined

as “in spite of”… “notwithstanding”… you see

how it melds like memory… the divine

result… in spite of what happened…in spite

of her leaving…notwithstanding heartbreak…

comes forth creative spirit…sacred light

of poetry…to survive…what it takes

to thrive in spite of…utter devastation…

What happened to him…to fire inspiration?

 

Roger Armbrust

September 13, 2020

AT THIS MOMENT

At this moment I stand in sun beside

the oak…no cars passing…no mute people

walking by…the tree and I in sun…ride

slight breeze I pretend is flight…past steeple

and tower…wonder of what power we

possess when we close our eyes…feel slight breeze…

I once thought of leaping off a cliff…free

of fear…of responsibility…ease

of giving up all…but I didn’t…Think

of what I’d have missed…slight breeze…flight…sunlight…

think of how much love’s potential would sink

into nothing...lover’s glance unseen…a slight

to faith and hope…I pray for end to wildfires

out West…pray they transcend to peace…to desire…

 

Roger Armbrust

September 12, 2020

THE LOGICAL MESS OF LOVE

The logical mess of love comes always

with consequences…like driving too fast

through a school zone…or a drunk priest who prays

to the devil…egoist’s death mask cast

just before his heart fails…sometimes maybe

the opposite…vulnerable first kiss

leading to lasting care…a simple kind

word preventing a suicide…our bliss

won through honest searching…fear makes us blind

till we’re touched by an angel…our life could be

a molecule for all we know…able

to dissolve or divide without consent…

Once as a boy I bit a bush’s leaf…my

tongue went numb…I never found out why…

 

Roger Armbrust

September 10, 2020

LAST OF THE HUNTER-GATHERERS

I stumble through rubble once called Main Street…

shopping only for some form of water…

no need any more for fashion’s elite

look…for caviar or fast food…fatter

days turned to bone lean…through eternal haze

I sense almost sunset…slight breeze a chill

searing my blistered skin…making me crazed…

never to heal it seems…human road kill

is everywhere still…Corner of 1st Street…

gave Jill a first kiss here…she kissed me back…

she’s gone like the rest…my god she was sweet…

pray for her spirit…all their spirits…black-

outs come quicker…ah…water…poisoned by

radiation…no matter…so am I…

 

Roger Armbrust

September 9, 2020

DILEMMA

Springing from bed out

the window, I hear her shout,

Fool, we’re five flights up!

BALING OUT

Wonder about Earl Ovington…first air

mail pilot…flying by dead reckoning…

if he hated the term dead…if he cared

about faith and fear…danger beckoning...

always there…Wonder about Charles Lindbergh…

early air mail pilot…had to bale out

twice in storms…how his body felt when surge

of chute caught his fall…did he smile and shout…

or just take it in stride…I’ve baled from some

relationships…been baled out on…never

took them in stride…never easy come…

sometimes stormed…rare times acted clever…

never considered the chute staying closed

so to speak…wonder if the Spirit posed

a question about my fate…and then chose…

 

Roger Armbrust

September 8, 2020

ZOOM

I’m so used to looking at friends up close

and personal every day now… to see

a full body in motion when my shoes

lead me out to toss the trash or empty

the mailbox…or nab a bag from Bite Squad…

seems like a hologram…medium rather

than human…masked phantom floating…like what

Hamlet confronted that haunting night there

at the castle wall…How everything’s changed…

my once-cropped beard seeming Santa present

in summer…my body cells beg me to chance

a shower again…why do I resent

their concern…I can’t even recall spring…

or yesterday…now my screen’s everything…

 

Roger Armbrust

September 7, 2020

A KIND OF NOWHERE

It’s where I’d like to take and hold my mind

sometimes…far from here or anywhere

human…where I imagine the wild wind

must go those days or nights it feels despair

and just wants peace…exhausted from constant

whirl and curling…bending and breaking trees

and windows…turning gentle rain to instant

storm…Does it pray, do you think…howling please

end my tortuous wandering…I once

walked Cabot’s downtown…years ago…after

a tornado crushed it to rubble…no sense

to how it left a single building here…

another there…like thin surrendered warriors…

made clear how humans really have no power…

 

Roger Armbrust

September 6, 2020

FAR-OFF LIGHT

I keep thinking of far-off light, not night

light like I wrote of a while back, but day

and distant like photos of cloud and bright

light breaking through, like ol’ Tom Parr portrays…

sea scenes off Sandy Hook near sunset…scenes

majestic…turbulent…Turner would smile

at seeing them…what they really portend 

of our psyches…we humans silent while

threatening to explode…fed up with wars

and political lies…I’m listening

to Mendelssohn’s violin invite stars

and feelings of peace…recall Jews listening

to Mendelssohn before der Führer’s boys

sent them to showers and that hissing noise…

 

Roger Armbrust

September 5, 2020

ANOTHER NIGHT ALONE

Another night alone…and yet I’m not

alone…just sharing this pandemic world

with billions…the White House Fascist without

care for the suffering and dying…curled

up in self-absorption while my loving

caregivers…relentless as angels…try

to save the dying…try to save…shoving

their fears aside to save…go ahead…cry…

get it out…My brief walk tonight…the moon

tried to break through that stonewall sky…almost

made it…maybe tomorrow…maybe soon…

next year maybe…we’ll unmask smiles and boast

of our healthy globe…I hear Ella’s soft rhyme…

“someone to watch over me”…that was a time…

 

Roger Armbrust

September 4, 2020

NO ONE WONDERS WHERE I AM

No one wonders where I am. They believe

they know. Visions of me in my townhouse…

meditative…mind straining to conceive

an image…a phrase…a line…getting soused

through frustration…for inspiration…eyes

turning bloody from guzzling and glaring…

but that’s not the path…instead I watch…spy

on all the earth before me…hear blaring

life and sacred silence…breathe in cool air…

taste and retaste the tuna sub…mostly

await the Muse…spirit who chooses her

own sweet time to whisper or sing…ghostly

in the kindest way…subtle in her glance…

smiling when she’s ready…and then we dance…

 

Roger Armbrust

September 3, 2020

THE LONG RAIN

The long rain’s finally stopped for a while.

It needed to stop. Fertile earth filled up.

We hope it continues to come and go. Smile

so it will. Pray so it will. Raise your cup

so it will. We’re no good without its fall

and rise and fall and rise…we made mostly

of water. Think of your parched tongue…your call

to the sky for water…the drought…your plea

for water…Think of your soaked body…earth’s

flood…your prayer for rain to end…Think of how

powerless we are over water…birth

and death…think of vital balance…think now

of rivers…of ocean, moon and constant flow

of water...think what it knows that we don’t know…

 

Roger Armbrust

September 2, 2020