Autumn Poems
Seventeen verses to share for fall.
SECRET SOUND OF OUR SPIRIT
It’s a hissing we hear which no one else
does, I’m sure. A layer of sound within
our heads, coating the world’s ocean of whisks
and blasts and grinds swirling, pouring myth and
reality through our ears, into our cells,
informing, warning, chiding, howling…sea
of out there trying to drown us. It tells
us…this secret sound of our spirit…to breathe
in and out…match its eternal hissing
through nostrils and mouth so we can survive
life’s aural onslaught. Breathe. Keep on kissing
and holding close, no matter what. We live
and love each other despite desperate floods
from out there, grasping tight to what is good.
Roger Armbrust
October 6, 2025
BOB DYLAN AND THE BAND
What better time to watch “Down in the Flood”
than under this immaculate Harvest Moon.
Memories rise of how life was so good
yet how (oh god!) it always ends too soon.
Spirit and song melding in the Pink House
found souls parting then uniting again
through years of creating and stumbling loss
of time, years of sad laughter and deep pain.
Saw them that first and last time in Memphis
when the Seventies seemed to sing forever,
when lyrics and music promised release
from fear, hope for healing. Felt it in her
body swaying with me as they sang. Felt
we could love despite life and all it dealt.
Roger Armbrust
October 8, 2025
PAPER EATERS, DIGITAL READERS
We used to be paper eaters. Remember?
We’d take the printed documents we call
memos, bound books, or daily newspapers,
cut up each sentence, chew, digest them all,
realize them as intricate parts of
our beings. Carry their images with
us, inside. Call them history or love.
Understood how each one was truth or myth.
Today, I turn on my computer as
the sun rises, accept what each 0, each
1 creates on the screen, watch each line pass,
roll up and out of sight. My hand may reach
for the keyboard as my psyche must yearn
to learn. Yet I know all these scrolls will burn.
Roger Armbrust
October 10, 2025
MAP OF NIGHT
I flip out the light, fill the creaking bed,
close my eyes, and sudden as sacred breath
my charcoal grey space becomes a blurred
whirl of spirits dancing, each back from death,
I suppose, but can’t really tell. They pause
brief as a gasp by my side, then dance on.
Some glance over my shoulder, as if laws
of spirit demand they catch my thought, one
whisper revealing my prayer. I stay mute
as a monk, barely breathe when a near fog
shaped like an old lover in a mist suit
quivers before me, lays a cloth on my leg.
“I leave you this map of night,” she rasps. “I took
it from an archangel.” I refuse to look.
Roger Armbrust
October 16, 2025
CONTRITION
After I realized some phantom’s gentle
brush had picked my pocket at the Louvre as
I circled the crush to see Mona Lisa,
I walked outside until I found breath space,
an empty park bench distant from brute crowds,
sat and prayed for our world’s sanity, for
humans to love one another, not loud
in church hymns but quiet bed of lovers,
or at least be kind, at least not shoot each
other, not sign bogus contracts, not curse
some human’s skin color. I won’t shout, preach
some gospel of care. I’ve given up on earth’s
inhabitants. So I pray to some higher
power who might forgive us, banish all fear.
Roger Armbrust
October 21, 2025
ASCENSION
Roundball heaven tonight with NBA
double-header early season, and I
turn off sound on my 55-inch display
(I know the game -- don’t need announcers’ sly
remarks), click on FM classical. Hey,
nothing like watching Karl-Anthony Towns
rip a barbaric rebound to Tchaikovsky’s
1812 Overture, Mikal Bridges flowing
through air, catching, dunking with dancer’s grace
to Chopin’s Ballade No. 4. I still
recall those hardwood days, flying through space,
blessed to be free from earth for two thrilling
seconds, ball leaving my flicking fingertips,
sharp ears attuned to the net’s symphonic swish.
Roger Armbrust
October 24, 2025
SO LONESOME I COULD CRY
Ken Burns “Country Music” and Dwight Yoakam
incinerating Columbia Records
for suddenly dropping Johnny Cash, sham
of greed, after his songs made the firm hoards
of cash. You know the term: “It’s just bizness,
it’s not personal.” Ol’ Dwight and Johnny
and you and I know better, don’t we. Bless
the liars. They need it. Nothing funny
about bizness. Deadly serious. Recall
Hank Williams, that nasal twang voice so dear,
died drunk in the back seat, godawful fall
from life, falling far, landing who knows where.
Someone’s auditioning right now, Bluebird
Café, Nashville. Best lyric you ever heard.
Roger Armbrust
October 25, 2025
“AN 18-YEAR-OLD LOOKS BACK ON LIFE”
When New York Times Magazine published Joyce
Maynard’s essay, J.D. Salinger, he
of The Catcher, wrote a letter of praise.
In a year she left Yale, moved in with the
legend in New Hampshire, that state Frost made
famous. Sal wrote a lot. So she wrote a lot,
finished her first book. After eight months, he bade
her leave. She did. Didn’t write about it
till two decades later. Respect, or shame,
or both perhaps. What do I know. I’m Holden,
16 and angst-scarred in our phony world, lame,
slumped in the thick rye, so alone and cold,
hoping to catch children from growing old.
Roger Armbrust
November 5, 2025
LUCKY IN LIFE BACK THEN
I would lift silent hymns of thanks watching
her blue eyes watch me, her immaculate
skin shunning makeup, her soft smile catching
me in self-forgiveness for coming late
into her life, grateful I stumbled to
her like some awkward teen overwhelmed by
her glow, aura she never seemed to know
controlled me. Radiance of grace. Holy
nights holding her. Praying not to explode
and flare us both to stars. I, seven years
into recovery, yet not sober
enough to comprehend her humble power.
I couldn’t see it coming, but should have.
She loved me, but left. She was very brave.
Roger Armbrust
November 6, 2025
IT’S ALL A RIVER
It’s all a river. I stumble-dream myself
awake, stumble more and slump before my
too-bright monitor, the only light swell-
ing through the townhouse like a cop car’s spotlight
or the unwanted Second Coming.
It’s all a river. Thoughts flow undammed yet
feeling damned, streaming straight then curving
in the distance and out of sight. Forget
memories, please. Think only of actions
and loves that never happened. Consider
how it’s all a river. You’re just a fraction,
a drop dissolving in the torrent. Fear
and screaming won’t matter. Courage either.
The river will dissolve into ether.
Roger Armbrust
November 9, 2025
SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE
This glistening thought…
this exploding light…this gift
of Reality…
“IF I’M STARVING, YOU’RE IN DANGER”
James Baldwin understood the reality,
didn’t he. If you’re causing my starving,
one of us will be dead soon, or maybe
both of us. Or maybe you’re not harming
me, just passing by but get in the way.
My assault explodes. Sorry about that.
Perhaps you’ve baked a pie, left on display
on the open window’s sill to cool. What
am I to do if I’m starving? Victor
Hugo knew about starving, led Valjean
to steal a loaf of bread to feed his sister’s
craving children. The rest you know, or have known.
Hugo’s first words told all, for what it’s worth:
Social condemnation creates hell on earth.
Roger Armbrust
November 13, 2025
MIGRATING
Through our cracked-open window I can hear
distant call of the blue-winged teal as they
glide over the river, flowing south where
warm waters await their chattering ways,
their rising pitch like humans reaching climax.
We, too, are migrating, aren’t we, storing
our short sleeves, slipping on long johns, wool slacks,
stout sweaters to protect us from boring
grind of north wind digging for our thin skins,
mining for our psyches, our chattering
ways as we plan for our holidays, when
we flow to warm arms and hearts, and we sing
old lyrics of hope and light. But, oh, we’re mute
now, migrating in bed. I glide into you.
Roger Armbrust
November 16, 2025
HAWK
The hawk glides through morning fog, wings spread wide
like slices of chocolate marble cake,
black glistening eyes seeking what hides
in tall, thick grass near shore of vast blue lake.
I watch this from our cabin’s porch, study
the hawk swoop and rise, swoop and rise, attack,
succeed, then flap out of sight. No bloody
screams, no shriek of victory. Just fly back
to stick nest and eyas through smoke ghost day.
I breathe deep, resigned to how the dark hawk
is searching for me, and one silent day
or night will swoop and rise, swoop and attack.
Succeed. No bloody scream. No victory shriek.
Just sharp beak snapping, rising through ghost smoke.
Roger Armbrust
November 20, 2025
ANCIENT CELTS
Ancient Celts perfected farming, abstract
art. Farmers funded their warriors raging
against Romans and Greeks, brutal attacks
with naked bodies painted blue, staging
their assaults with maniacal screams and
growls unnerving disciplined centurions.
Sacked Rome to the last crumb. But couldn’t stand
those marble halls, so took gold contributions
and left, returning to fertile fields, their
small villages filled with raucous love. Later
came within a spear’s throw of beating Caesar.
But he enslaved Vercingetorix, featured
in his Rome parade, the local soothsayer
whispering in the hopeful dictator’s ear.
Roger Armbrust
November 24, 2025
SCATTERED IMAGES
Some nights they dash recklessly like children
in an uncontrolled schoolyard, skirt across
closed inside of my eyelids while I lean
forward in bed, body battling morose
idea of rising from rest to push
again to my writing room, the sleeping
computer fooled, unaware of mad rush
of wild visions galloping and creeping,
trying to keep me off balance. I rouse
my monitor’s bright white field of blank page,
offer another prayer, the patient Muse
smiling at my stumbling faith, my old age,
my typing a word, phrase, line, pushing the mouse
forward as we bring order to the chaos.
Roger Armbrust
November 26, 2025
6:32 A.M.
and gazing out my writing room windows
I watch slow floating fingers of pink clouds
navigating wind through pale blue. They don’t
stay long, the pink I mean. That proud sun prods
our sky’s hue and texture. I say “our sky”,
but we know better, don’t we. It’s a gift,
isn’t it. All of it. Don’t ask me why
humans can’t accept that. Why we must lift
ourselves away from reality with
fear and greed, fight to destroy gifts rather
than share them. Continue to growl the myth
of ownership. I desire to gather
those fall roses, take them inside. I’m free
to do that. But let’s leave them for all to see.
Roger Armbrust
November 27, 2025
Such an array! No surprise that "Ascension" grabbed my eye and held on to its conclusion. Good to see proof that the creative spring is still bubbling.