carson street shuffle, pittsburgh

circa 1969

looks like what was once
a walnut street pre-gentrified high
when i was on second shift
most every night we dropped in
for a pitcher & chess
sometimes a joint in the little alley
off ivy street
and then
the animated talk & hand gestures
as my opponent castled
i looked away
wondering how i could just
walk away
blow this grimy town
grow my hair down to my ass
find a new way to survive
a war-weary country
& hardhats that embarrassed
even the company stooges

and if it was friday night
the sidewalks overflowed
into the streets
and every few feet
an impending draftee
would bump into you
stoned or drunk
and you’d see
the fuck-it attitude
or fear on his face
that a ride to canada
could fix

there were the broken old men
then
too
who said the kids had
no work ethic
and that the country was
going to hell
anyway
they were right about the hell
but missed
the civics lessons that were never taught
about who owns what and why
and who stole whose land

i wouldn’t say all this
if it didn’t happen
or thought it wouldn’t
happen again

--- e b bortz

(published in opednews.com, Jan 26, 2011)

coal veins of jock yablonski

are still moving up the ohio
today
six heaping barges pushed upstream
maybe mined near bellaire ohio
making their way to the cheswick power station
on the allegheny

it was one of those sticky hot august days
in ‘69
as jock mounted a makeshift stage
in the middle of a beat-up football field
in bellaire
to speak to a couple hundred miners
and their families
about the most radical of all notions
in these parts
union democracy

the sweat poured down his face
across a hoarse open throat
and slumping tie
and every once in a while
a pointing finger came at us
making sure we heard the cry
of the thousands who came
and died before us

gk repeated it like a mantra
that this was only the beginning
the miners were just awakening
from the long terror of the thugs
and that jock
was the catalyst messenger
the brother from the early dark cio 30s
when solidarity wasn’t just a word
or a whisper
but a way of life

the union election was stolen
jock & his family were murdered new year’s eve in ‘69
a few thugs went to prison
miners for democracy wept
& carried on

after years
of continuous mining machines
mountain-top removal
black lung tens of thousands
a coal miners’ diaspora
spreading broken bodies
like polluted chewed-up forests & streams
climate havoc
foreign oil wars
betrayal

solidarity
lives and dies in the veins
of jock yablonski

--- e b bortz

twenty minutes and eight arms full

of dress shirts
surreptitiously walk past starbucks
i’ve never been here before
but know there’s gotta be
a wash & starch drop-off nearby
for the corporate courtrooms
boardrooms
land speculator trysts
movin & shakin down
every loose financial instrument
not bolted down

the front page of the daily
has three burly policemen
clubbing down & holding
head & arms
a housing demolition protestor
new orleans drips blood on the street

starched shirts missing

--- e b bortz

thinking below the noise level

is insular protection
our choices are limited
in survival mode
but not powerless
a kind of self-preservation
the soul
stays above the pit
as fire singes our faces
outmoded tools
to the open hearth

--- e b bortz

earth note 109

forgiveness is a lame snowfall

before the big melt
& cross-country skis
go washing down
a mad river maelstrom
thread
snow packed trails again
touch deepest quiet
breathe weeping ridges
find the last surviving hellbender
and river otter
seek higher ground
meditate whitetail
free

lives of solitude
before the dark

--- e b bortz

red-blue-red, part 2

no color this morning
gray waves blanket
red east rush
the d word
slips in the back door
there won’t be an i
this blue mix
has nowhere to go

let red maples
steal
what time is left

--- e b bortz

earth note 108

last planting
before an indecisive winter

a couple of young alberta spruce
small spiral dense green needles
having wandered home
to a wet ground sanctuary
& mission
to hold
body-block
a slipping hillside
interdependence
tho the paranoid rail
all is futile
we’re lost
‘cept for the waiting

i refuse to accept this

--- e b bortz

subliminal message

it seems
keeps poking itself
into morning
or is it night
as every voice speaks
in the past tense
though it may
be the present

a glassy gulf of thailand heat wave
gathers water
drops
find secluded orchid patches
to breathe
but i’m afraid of nodding off
& missing sunset

snow crust creaks at zero degrees f
ski tracks weave minnesota poplar
pine & peat bogs
perfect shadows
mostly cloudless blue
a small strong sun
chases storm clouds east

the voices only have faces
mouths that move
but no sound
i’m thinking these must be
perfect love songs
no one can hear
least not me
lips shaped full
wet
smooth dark
hot red
silence

--- e b bortz

even a fifteen day fast

against war
with another eleven days
to go
couldn’t shake the frat boys
into anything close to
what’s beyond their next beer

but some were reached
like a weepy eyed grandmother
some veterans
a whole lotta
deep hippies
deep green
deep believers
a new counterculture revolution
earth goddess gaia
to jesusmohammedmoses

we stand
with the fasters
not fasting ourselves
a military recruiter
gazes away quick
maybe thinking why
they’re still here
trucks & buses spit
unburned diesel
over crowded streets
emerging & broken dreams
the here & now
is the message
don’t wanna
even visualize
a resurrection

--- e b bortz

(published in The New People, Nov 2007)

Alternative September 11th

Of course, there are Republican and Democratic politicians who abuse
the memory of those who died on Sept 11th for their own agendas of
war, empire, and vengeance.

Of course, there are Republican and Democratic politicians
who use the climate of repression to further repress...breaking up
immigrant families with brutal detentions and deportations. It’s hard to
determine who screams the loudest for the watchtowers and walls
along the Mexican border.

Of course, there are Republican and Democratic politicians who whine
in panic about the shortfall of military recruitment...they lament
the ‘good old days’ of an endless reservoir of human beings...cannon fodder
for the death machines provided by military conscription.
No Draft...No Way!

Of course, there are the real power brokers of Republican and Democratic
administrations...the war machinery and weapons manufacturers,
the military base builders, the fossil and nuclear energy corporations,
the sicko health industry and pharmaceutical lobbyists that block
national single-payer healthcare, the forest plunderers and mall developers...
these are but a few of the corporate paymasters masquerading
as political contributors.

And then, there is us...who remember those who died on Sept 11th
by rededicating ourselves to a just, peaceful, and sustainable world
by demilitarizing and democratizing our own society. On this and on
all future Sept 11ths, war-makers will shrill at the wind...
but WE must build community.

--- e b bortz
Sept 11, 2007
Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh

questions from a cold rain

have we created a darkness
of no return
convinced ourselves
that everything remaining
is the embodiment of light?

when my thumbs cover
my eardrums
does the pounding stop
or has it just moved over
two blocks?

what constitutes a beginning
if all deeds become
unaccountable apparitions
shadows replace what was once
sight

kiss the rain

--- e b bortz

(published in opednews.com, May 18, 2011)

recovering notes from the deep, part 2

when the iron ore strike began
in august 1977
i suddenly felt
a huge decompression
a liberation coming
i was out with thousands
from northern minnesota
& michigan upper peninsula
no more
swing shifts
4 a.m. getups
radio calls
for electrical troubleshooting

my kids began talking to me more
throwing the ball around
we grew

and as the picket duties
lapsed into the fall
i dusted off an old underwood typewriter
and began recalling
and observing
maybe for the first time
what was around me
or had been dormant
for years

i saw the hay fields
go to seed
and the ground freeze up
a movement of canada geese
with better formation
than our picket line

the quiet of the north woods
broke through
watching a snowshoe rabbit
run for cover
frost covering the tamarack
on frozen wet lands

still
i thought back
on the decade before
on the streets of chicago in ‘68
the un-democratic party convention
refusing induction into the u.s. army
the slippery cobblestones
from pittsburgh’s north side
and all the teenage heartbreak
jive five
still ringing from those back alleys

the alberta clippers came
my chainsaw worked overtime
to grow the wood pile
it was either that
or no heat

everything became retrospective
the new age hadn’t
emerged
and this strike was becoming
more defensive
than anything else
trying to keep up with the cost-of-living
we stayed out four months
and if nothing else
won respect

the words beaten out
on that underwood
somehow got misplaced & lost
there were some sleepless nights over that

but i guess i’ll just move on
& make up
what i don’t remember

--- e b bortz
(published in The New People, Nov 2007)

earth note 107

the climate change movement musicians
closed up their cases and went home
or back on the road
some of the reunited bands stayed together
others went separately

and then everyone listened
for the groundswell
that has yet
to come

of course that’s the problem
waiting
for what your neighbor might do
for what so-and-so politician
might do
the paid-for will only go
so far
the paid-for have agendas
to keep them
paid-for

but you already know this
from the many times
you
pledged allegiance
without reciprocation

selling comfort zone
crash insurance
has its limits

where is our sweat
in the receding flood waters?

--- e b bortz

aren't we all brothers & sisters?

lifetime
fleeting moment
what’s a legacy?
what will be passed on?
last tree on the plain
cared enough to even think about it
when will we wake up?
is there a tomorrow in today?
compromises make empty promises
in every death
there must be life

--- e b bortz

pain begins

when there’s recognition
those still anesthetized
sleep thru the alarms

for the conscious ones
a nation’s self-respect
must be reborn from love
by those willing to walk
lonely hollows
back street dumpsters
death bed confessions

let
the anointed ones scramble

--- e b bortz

earth note 106

april 1989

93 degrees 93 percent humidity
bannasan
suratthani province thailand
raises a mountain cliff
of clouds & rainbows
equator rock tear leaving
a few nerves upended
just after ditching my bicycle
at the base
to get a better view

a spontaneous jolt
to even go there
that sunday
hot-under-the-collar road
down from the stalls & markets
of suratthani city
rolling past sweet coconut
smell
of a sun steeped in orange blaze
a couple of tuk-tuks sped out around me
a field of farmers hold their scythes
in resignation

avoiding the straight-up rock face
cathedral without priests
i soak with the rainforest
of miniature buddhas

--- e b bortz

kayak dragon boat adam

plays the china card
allegheny rigor mortis of history
will ignite tomorrow’s blue haze
a story awaits a muse

let sumac & grass
sprout in rusted hulls
of old coal barges
as we cut the wake
on a distant point
see crumbling pilings
abandoned fuel tanks
speak haiku morning
visualize
yet another dawn

--- e b bortz

gross power disparity

take your pick
war
poverty
injustice
pollution
media
elections

corporate hegemony
or
grassroots democracy control
forget dem/repub focus groups
greenwashy middle ground

a thousand shoulders
move the boulders

--- e b bortz

dust covered layer

blinds the face of a transparent backpack
a nosy (nebby) officer
gives it the once over
there’s nothing for you here
don’t wipe it clean
just some personal stuff
best kept hidden
stowed but not forgotten
beneath desolation angels
a place on earth
who would of ever thought
anything close to exposure
would come
years after
the dust settled

--- e b bortz

sometimes silence can be the best poetry

like the space between the stanza
don't bite your fingernails
let the words grow under them
first
speak everything into an inner ear
floppy tongues can make
dull bedfellows

--- e b bortz

(published in The City Poetry, issue 20, Sept 2007)

neoliberal prescription

for war is not
no war
but conscription
coerce the misery
a whole generation adrift
they say
waits to be steeled
they say

(bullshit...inequality has/will always be a prerequisite)

those who speak for a draft
lack the conscience
to resist one

tanks will starve
hollowing out an ancient legion
of empty uniforms
empire hucksters
conformity
vengeance idolatry
just war flimflam
death tricksters

--- e b bortz

(published in opednews.com, April 4, 2013)

earth note 104

joseph city, arizona, 1979

from the water tower
it’s a short hike to a dried out
ancient little colorado
even the omnipresent
flyash tailings pond
hissing at the wind
bullying it off its natural course
can’t muffle the original pueblo spirits
protectors of the canyons
stringing north to the grand one
thru rock like windows
perception is all in the
keepers of the vision

--- e b bortz

iraq vigil/dirge

in front of a congressman’s office
the comfort of an empty cold rain
is at least honest
as the “ayes” have it
another paymaster 100 billion
for death rows iraq
& occupier embassy
walls
boots
choppers
build a monolith
of broken flesh

--- e b bortz

poetry without walls 2007

poster by

Adam Brodsky

any poet that says

there wasn’t one written
way back
that needs to be disowned
is probably in some kind of
protected witness program
like incognitos anonymous
redundancy
for shitty writing

i looked one over this morning
head was still clear
wondered how
a recall might be advertised
anonymously

--- e b bortz

your armchair activism

has lost its stuffing
nothing left to soften the real
yet we look everyday
self-reflection
words of sages
distorted but still cognitive
a broken mirror can be a message
in itself

--- e b bortz

a speech

the other night
by a president
carpet-bombed guernica
again

we mute the sound
let the children
sleep
bach bourree segovia

--- e b bortz