Parkhurst Brothers, Inc., 2013 Paper: 978-1-62491-006-7 | eISBN: 978-1-62491-007-4 Library of Congress Classification PS3601.R554A6 2013 Dewey Decimal Classification 811.6
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Witty, humorous and wise reflections on loving
There is a mythic quality to the poetry of Roger Armbrust. Whether his subject is surgery or angels, his language and vision—while expressed in an earthly lexicon—are focused on the life of the spirit.
We constantly heal each other, love, true
to our senses, sharing our secret vaults
of fear and longing, faith and confusion,
doubt and delight.
Armbrust’s love poems are not ethereal, however, but rooted in real bodies…
My poetry honors your architecture’s mystery.
Fanciful, yet rooted in real experience, Armbrust’s one hundred-plus sonnets incite passion and introspection, so that the collection makes an inspired lover’s gift.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Roger Armbrust was national news editor of NYC’s Back Stage magazine, taught writing at NYU, edited books on national social issues, and fathered a remarkable artist. He currently serves as co-curator of the online journal The Clyde Fitch Report: The nexus of arts and politics. His other books of poetry include How to Survive and The Aesthetic Astronaut.
REVIEWS
"Whether Armbrust’s subject is surgery or angels, his language and vision—while expressed in an earthly lexicon—are focused on the life of the spirit. Armbrust’s love poems are not ethereal, however, but rooted in real experience, Armbrust’s one hundred-plus sonnets incite passion and introspection, so that the collection makes an inspired lover’s gift."
— Raymond Hammond, Editor, The New York Quarterly, The New York Quarterly
This stylish galaxy of love sonnets could only be crafted by a poet who has won and lost at love many times and co-habited with love’s ghosts for long periods, enabling him to acquire first-hand knowledge of “the feeling of stars dancing,” as he puts it in one of these 14-liners. To this poet, sexual love equals spiritual love, and spiritual love is nothing less than boundless, arising out of the most unlikely earth-bound circumstances and stretching into the “swirling liquid sums of the universe.” As Armbrust writes: “It doesn’t take much for each/gesture to create a universe…” Armbrust’s is book worth reading many times.
— Tom Tolnay, Birch Brook Press www.birchbrookpress.info
Rhapsodic and radiant, visceral and incandescent, Roger Armbrust revels in the sonnet; he crafts his fourteen lines until they achieve rhythmic fluidity. The sublime musicality of his ear is everywhere on display, and his use of assonances such as “horns of Asian water ox—notched” strikes the listening reader as not only surprising but inevitable. Like Shakespeare’s dark lady, Armbrust addresses a mysterious “love.” Whether in the poet’s bed, Manhattan’s Union Square, Aix-En Provence, or at Earth’s core-mantle of 4,000 degrees Celsius, each view is a marvel of intimacy. In Oh, Touch Me There the subject matter ranges wildly from the cedar waxwing to the “soft, pink chickpea” of “Clitoris.” Armbrust dares to echo not only Shakespeare in his masterful iambic pentameter but Catullus in the grittiness that explodes lustily from his pen. This is gorgeous, explosive poetry.
There is a mythic quality to the poetry of Roger Armbrust. Whether his subject is surgery or angels, his language and vision—while expressed in an earthly lexicon—are focused on the life of the spirit.
We constantly heal each other, love, true
to our senses, sharing our secret vaults
of fear and longing, faith and confusion,
doubt and delight.
Armbrust’s love poems are not ethereal, however, but rooted in real bodies…
My poetry honors your architecture’s mystery.
Fanciful, yet rooted in real experience, Armbrust’s one hundred-plus sonnets incite passion and introspection, so that the collection makes an inspired lover’s gift.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Roger Armbrust was national news editor of NYC’s Back Stage magazine, taught writing at NYU, edited books on national social issues, and fathered a remarkable artist. He currently serves as co-curator of the online journal The Clyde Fitch Report: The nexus of arts and politics. His other books of poetry include How to Survive and The Aesthetic Astronaut.
REVIEWS
"Whether Armbrust’s subject is surgery or angels, his language and vision—while expressed in an earthly lexicon—are focused on the life of the spirit. Armbrust’s love poems are not ethereal, however, but rooted in real experience, Armbrust’s one hundred-plus sonnets incite passion and introspection, so that the collection makes an inspired lover’s gift."
— Raymond Hammond, Editor, The New York Quarterly, The New York Quarterly
This stylish galaxy of love sonnets could only be crafted by a poet who has won and lost at love many times and co-habited with love’s ghosts for long periods, enabling him to acquire first-hand knowledge of “the feeling of stars dancing,” as he puts it in one of these 14-liners. To this poet, sexual love equals spiritual love, and spiritual love is nothing less than boundless, arising out of the most unlikely earth-bound circumstances and stretching into the “swirling liquid sums of the universe.” As Armbrust writes: “It doesn’t take much for each/gesture to create a universe…” Armbrust’s is book worth reading many times.
— Tom Tolnay, Birch Brook Press www.birchbrookpress.info
Rhapsodic and radiant, visceral and incandescent, Roger Armbrust revels in the sonnet; he crafts his fourteen lines until they achieve rhythmic fluidity. The sublime musicality of his ear is everywhere on display, and his use of assonances such as “horns of Asian water ox—notched” strikes the listening reader as not only surprising but inevitable. Like Shakespeare’s dark lady, Armbrust addresses a mysterious “love.” Whether in the poet’s bed, Manhattan’s Union Square, Aix-En Provence, or at Earth’s core-mantle of 4,000 degrees Celsius, each view is a marvel of intimacy. In Oh, Touch Me There the subject matter ranges wildly from the cedar waxwing to the “soft, pink chickpea” of “Clitoris.” Armbrust dares to echo not only Shakespeare in his masterful iambic pentameter but Catullus in the grittiness that explodes lustily from his pen. This is gorgeous, explosive poetry.
— Stephanie Dickinson, Skidrow Penthouse
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Evidence
Thesis
Cosmis Latte
Parallel Universes
Sometimes Loving You
Fortune Cookie
Did You Know
Moon and Venus
Tahoe
Rebekah
Fire Falling Away
Apocalypse
Lightning Bolts
Luisa
Okanagan
Perihelion and Aphelion
3511 Tsvetaeva
Moon Illusion
F Words
Empty Room
Keeping the Faith
Oculus
Lingering
What I've Never Figured Out
Oh, Touch Me There
Light
Wisteria, Austrian Field
Symphonu
Le Coeur A Ses Raisons
Narcissus
Tai Chi Lovemaking
Ox
NYC
Moon
Clitoris
Chullo
Wind Chimes
Birthday Present
Tuff
Acorn
Jane Olivor
Anna's Marches
Petra Tou Romiou
Short Runs of Love
Morning Breath
Cypress Trees
Kate Wolf
A Private Conversation With The Universe
When We Dance
Loneliness is a Gray Wolf
Twilightwombday
Stuff
Chasma Boreale
Solar Prominence
Hearts
Homecoming
Leaf and Hand
Autumnal Equinox
Praesepe
Poland Early Spring
I’m Writing While
Denver Airport At Dusk
Cleansing
Beast
Quivering Silhouettes
Beloved
Lake of Stars
Great Passion
Jupiter Opposition
Lavender
Dark Sky
Penis Envy
Vagina
How Deep Is Sadness?
Visions, I See Visions
Solstice Moonrise
Glaze
Fogbow
Antihymn From Far Away
Groin
Soul
Childsong
To Hold You In My Mind
When You Smile . . .
Making Love To A Galaxy
Logarithmic Spiral
Wisdom
No Way To Say Goodbye
Pardon Me, Please
Constipation
I Really Like Holding You
Particles
Aix-En-Provence
Spring Tide
The Responsibility of Feeling
Polish Town Sharing My Zip Code
Valentine's Day
“Here's Looking At You Kid"
I Lonely Am
By The Way
Deep Loneliness
Cedar Waxwing
Reading Amy
Your Healing Hands
How Wizards Fall In Slowest Motion
Pictures At An Exhibition
Keep Dancing, Love
Love Similes
Mountain Thanksgiving
How Deeply We Love
The Rain Is Writing A Poem
Christmas Candle
Winter Solstice
Widening Circles
Hymns You Never Hear
A Great Presence Stirs
You're Crying, Love
To Free What Waits Within
To Make Each Four Holy
I Write This Poem
About The Poet
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC