THIS CONTINENT

This continent containing us, its mass

of mountains, plains and deserts containing

lakes, rivers – all this containing lark, bass

and deer, cattle, crops and all sustaining

us – continuing tract of our lives. This

continent of your body, boundary

of your beauty and grace, your synthesis

combining concrete/abstract chemistry

of your psyche, your deepest writer’s sense.

This continent of your face, curved mainland

of sensitive expression, flamed essence

from your eyes and smile – how they can command

this continent of my being, expose

my bare landmass I wish you would enclose.

Roger Armbrust

September 25, 2015

ECOLOGY

Light shines. We shine. We

are Light. Earth breathes. We breathe. We

are Earth. So We Love.

ROCK ME

Rock me with showers of screaming angels.

Rock me with torn strings of nail-clawed guitars.

Rock me with power of melting angles

in Dali’s art, with wretched wrecking cars

slashing into crashing seas. Rock me, rock

ME…Rock me with drumbeats of ancient tribes.

Rock me with tongues like syncopated clocks

despairing at midnight. Rock me like scribes

gargling rhymes with their gurgling drinks. Rock me

like chimpanzees ripping keys from pianos,

abandoning choirs of naked wires. Free

us with brute-force cracking of broken toes

escaping your sad, hopeful eyes. Shock me

with tortured laughter. Oh…rock me…rock ME…

Roger Armbrust

September 21, 2015

SUMMER’S ANGELS

In my dream, you smile while walking to me,

holding slender date palms in each hand (their

fronds like angel feathers or quills to free

our poetry), your pearl summer dress bar-

ing your swimmer’s tan thighs, celestial eyes

flowing through mine and me. All of you flows,

it seems, as you offer me palms, reply

to my arm gently embracing your waist

by embracing mine. We’re caught up in throes

of warming breeze, walk clear beach matching your

dress, study ebbed ocean from which we came.

All soft: our words (knowing nothing’s the same

since we’ve risen as angels), breathing pure

air of spirit’s faith, our only sure cure.

Roger Armbrust

September 1, 2015

OPERA SERIA

I sing your praises to High Sierras

and they chorus back to me -- not echoes

but lyrics of their own: hidden sorrows

of your deep wounds, your secret tears exposed

through terror’s screams to save yourself. Those howls

I thought a legion of wolves reveal wind’s

memories of your journey – gashing scowls

of pain and near despair. Then sunrise sends

slow reflections over Tahoe’s surface:

sign of spirit’s mute miracle mirrored

in your smile, visions of your shining face

rippling throughout clear waters – all we’ve feared

now vanished, healed by honesty’s soft light.

Our peaceful eyes study a starling’s flight.

Roger Armbrust

August 31, 2015

PIERNÉ’S HARP AND ORCHESTRA

His concert soars how I feel when I look

in your eyes: not even heaven or earth

but pure air and light – some rare clear-blue nook

of atmosphere in High Sierras – birth

of poetry flowing from your eyes. Or

gentle-strong swimmer glowing through ocean’s

roaring pacific ebb and flow – all your

eyes see and interpret through each motion

of swimming – blurring forms creating verse

you’ve yet to form. In your classroom today,

can you sense his strings and woodwinds traverse

splendor of how mountain forests convey

poetry through universe of being

you? Through each minute image you’re seeing?

Roger Armbrust

August 28, 2015

BIRTHSPIRIT

for Catherine, my daughter
on her birthday


Tahoe science center's "Sandbox" plateaus
grains of white, rose, and tan. Placing your hand
over them, a light radiates shadows
like flowing water, filling curving land's
valleys -- symbol of birthspirit bringing
lake of life. Frank and Kay's book "Stopping Time"
offers before-and-after photos, signs
of devastation to Tahoe's nature -- crimes
by loggers stripping earth without care. Then
years later, forests renewed -- science
working with nature -- birthspirit's art seen
through rebirth. This somehow leads to essence
of our nature: light of your birthspirit,
and my gratitude, being part of it.

Roger Armbrust
August 21, 2015