SEVEN DEADLY SINS

for Michelle Renee

Once bold-faced, powerful in controlling

energy, their stark spines melt like seared frowns

as they fall deep into sun, its boiling

yellows, scorched browns surrounding mind’s splotched gowns

of ash and blood. All dissolve in honest

fire as they come here, go away. How night

softly weaves room for forgiveness, our best

artists and instincts might say. Our far sight

can only sense what memory recalls:

curved self-portraits of someone else, perhaps.

Perhaps chalked frames of indifference. All

give way for brief seconds to loud green map

for surviving: banality. What free

gifts save us? You say grace and dignity.

Roger Armbrust

September 20, 2013

PSYCHE

Risen from underworld into daylight,

hoping to steal beauty from Venus’s

sculpted pyxis, she faints in endless night’s

torpor. What can save her but Eros’s

care? His lithe arms lift her away to love’s

endless joy. No wonder savvy Plato

argues for immortality; voice of

Aristotle sings of three souls. Ego’s

Freud’s term for our force of conscious balance.

Jung cites der Seele to seal the whole package.

William James feels we’re all saved when we dance.

I believe spirit lives within the page,

whether blank awaiting pen, or marked through

with phrases of praise, each describing you.

Roger Armbrust

September 17, 2013

UH OH…THE MOON…

…rotates like never before. Its dark plains—

vast basalt born of ancient volcanic

eruptions—endeared maria (Latin

for seas) by our scientists (romantics,

for sure), seem still shots of floods to focused

telescopes’ eyes. Yet now earth’s orbiter

reveals far side’s bright lunar highlands, fused

breccias formed by impacting meteors.

What shall we make of this revolution’s

revelation, love?  Are our tides locked as

moon to earth, our valleys and crests fusions

of moods and imagination? Let’s pass

psychic cosmic questions to other guys.

Let me orbit your face, your sacred eyes.

Roger Armbrust

September 16, 2013

TAJ MAHAL

Legend calls it love at first sight, that day

Emperor Shah Jahan gazed on Mumtaz

Mahal. Still, they waited five years, delay

set by court astrologers. I’m amazed

how long I’ve gazed, seen your grace symbolized

in its pristine marble structure—jeweled

tribute to her memory; realized

how its changing color through the day led

me to study moods in your language, your

honest eyes. I marvel how it glows gold

at night, how your aura glows, the allure

of your struggle for faith making me bold,

inspiring me to mirror Jahan’s realm:

honor your presence with jeweled poems.

Roger Armbrust

September 13, 2013

LIGHT ECHO

Maybe that’s what I observe with you: first

your nova flash, rapid brightness never

ending. Then your reflection, magic burst

from stellar dust of memory—clever

as your smiling eyes, projecting toward me

and away. What happens at speed of light,

physicists may describe. I only see

our constant conscious contact—your soul’s sight

even when you’re not here. It’s always been

that way, or so it seems. When our light meets

in sweet dreams, my figure always bows, keen

to your energy. My poet’s conceit

defines our pulsating star, expanding

and contracting—search for understanding.

Roger Armbrust

September 9, 2013