WHERE’S THE LOST MOON

Where’s the lost moon when you really need her?

Dark sky like an empty pocket or bed.

Marathon runner without a breather.

Bruised body limp, lifeless from all its bled.

Where are your eyes and smile when I need you?

Great Spirit alone seems never aligned

on a night like this, all stars fled from view,

Beethoven challenging my bleakest mind.

When Diana’s cloak hides her glowing disk,

when she flies deep into darkest forest,

loneliness tempts anxious lovers to risk

it all…slip from cave in bullet-proof vests…

dash through shadows to the distant valley…

serenade windows with lyrical pleas…

Roger Armbrust

April 14, 2020

EASTER SUNDAY 2020

9:23 a.m. … Across wet drive

Grace Lutheran church’s parking lot sits

empty. Earlier, no 8:45

bell calling faithful for morning service.

No light inside, stark sight on this rain-soaked

day when millions honor the risen Light.

In my writing room, my glazed eyes still cloaked

in semi-sleep, I honor glowing light

of my monitor, my fingers, keyboard

recording our small history. A rare

hawk soars past my twin windows. Bach’s bright chords

fill the townhouse. My mind wanders: the fair

lady in the valley. My daughter’s rooms

of art. My mother’s womb. The empty Tomb.

Roger Armbrust

April 12, 2020

LOVE IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS

Early Wednesday, embraced by Beethoven

on New York classical radio though

half a continent from there, while Kevin,

Marcia, John, Charlie pulsate with life through-

out their mute, narrow Manhattan spaces.

I recall Beethoven using silence,

and think of my four friends, their sweet graces

of silence as they read, pray, reliance

on the Great Reality at their centers.

Love in the time of coronavirus

makes us all hermits, loving dissenters

to natural desires, drives within us

to gather and embrace. Though I’m now gone

from them, I pray we’ll all hold on…hold on.

Roger Armbrust

April 8, 2020

“THE PLAY’S THE THING”

In 1606 Shakespeare wrote three plays…

count ‘em … “King Lear”, “Macbeth”, and “Antony

and Cleopatra”. Stages, scholars say,

were forced to shut that year. The Plague, you see.

Like us all today, The Bard weighed choices:

slump restless in his dark room, lost, depressed,

or ask the Muse to guide his writer’s voice

and bring light. He wrote three plays. He was blessed,

and so are we…with his masterpieces

four centuries later. No. I don’t plan

to match his feat, or even try. What pleases

my Muse, I believe, is this: Take my pen,

pray for guidance, love, honest words, and write.

Honor small steps: a few lines every night.

Roger Armbrust

April 3, 2020

I'M TIRED

I’m tired. Tired of my townhouse’s inner

walls. Tired of the onslaught. Exhausted with

my solitary life. I’m a sinner

after all. Wish this virus was a myth,

just another ugly Russian rumor.

It’s not. It’s a python crushing our globe,

dissolving our lungs, reeking rancid tumors

through our psyches. Time to drop my old robe,

step in the steaming shower. Relax and

recall my Higher Power’s the answer

to faith and sane action. Wash not just hands

but my whole body. Flex like a dancer.

Pray I’ll be lifted from this deep sorrow.

Trust the voice: “You’ll be all right tomorrow.”

Roger Armbrust

April 2, 2020

“BLACK ’47”

for Kevin Patrick Dowling

Feeney, Ranger deserting King’s shilling

in Calcutta, returns home to find Great

Famine in Connemara, sees killing

of his nephew, frozen carcasses fate

of his sister and niece. His mother starved,

his brother hanged a year earlier, what’s

left but to seek justice as his knife carves,

his musket fells a slew of brutal Brits

and Irish traitors. “I kill, they call it

murder,” he tells Hannah. “They kill, they call

it war.” I think of you throughout, fillets

of images you’ve told of Éire, of souls

bone thin, naked. Here, so tragic their plight,

our eyes turn color film to black & white.

Roger Armbrust

March 30, 2020

TAKE ME THERE, MUSE

Right now I want to view the Atlantic

from above -- Highlands, NJ, the Twin Lights

near Max’s old home. Gazing out through thick

vegetation and old rusty fence, sight

blue water enfolding but not flooding

Sea Bright’s ancient slender landmass of shops

and homes. Take me there, Muse. Keep my loving

eyes on that wandering beach, sea-oat crops

where I set tense scenes for that old screenplay.

Revisit those characters caught up in

drama to change our world. Take me away

to old friends’ dear smiles, those bright nights we’d spin

a playwright’s tale on stage, then raise steins after.

Make mine booze-free now, but bring back the laughter.

Roger Armbrust

March 29, 2020