earth note 116

this might not fit here
after all
the ground we claim as habitat
has no owners

under whose ‘authority’
is it claimed?
(who won the last war?)
(which village was massacred?)

this so-called poem
has about as much ‘right’
to ownership
as your friendly or unfriendly
corporate personhood instrument
wall street or main street
notwithstanding

dogma won’t convince
my dog
or doggerel
that he isn’t a rightful owner

--- e b bortz

hope

we haven’t forgotten
what it takes to make
real change

come out of the mist
look for the sun
trailing off as it does
without asking permission

a lesson from the high desert:
a motionless prairie dog
bold
but just coy enough
to stay alive
standing erect & noticed
on the interstate
vanishing
like a shifty dust twister

hope is not a stupor
but its antithesis
leave the dirt on your hands
bring it with you

--- e b bortz

post-election rising

we may live in the belly of one
but there really are no ‘beasts’
(the word applies only to humans)

each fear has been designed & built
on a previous one

sometimes a small candle
is enough to make
bottomless dark
light

call it non-negotiable
containers forever overflowing
can’t spill into mediocrity

broken streets
filled with feet
tears
hands of candleholders
will rise

--- e b bortz

earth note 115

grand canyon winter 1979

fog held steady on the north rim
wondering if my footing
down the south rim
would be any better
than jimmy carter’s freefall
dragging descent to the edge
revenge induced vietnam war criminals
gave hustlers their sleight of hand
faking populist economic culture claptrap
effectively covering a bare-assed fascism
in ronald reagan g e scripture

halfway down the bright angel trail
the mules came thumping up
worked me over to the canyon wall
passing
like night shift miners
just shy of the light

and the growth that jumped from the rocks
had an evergreen
poking up like a scarecrow
making it’s own horizon
giving the eagles
a good enough reason
to move on

--- e b bortz

pundits

& establishment pols
foisted on an angry population
eating it raw
throwing it up
packaging & sending rationalizations
to the unsuspecting
this is full-tilt boogie
breakdown
a weave of our blood dollars
into frazzled hair transplants
new hairdos & ass lifts
ego & machines stay oiled
.....the city burns

--- e b bortz

since this is pittsburgh

let’s just start with comic relief
& say
there’s a little w-a-r-sh
in the middle of every wash
& sunflowers never take on
a normal life span
& poetry in lieu of rent
won’t cut it
& all those billions dumped to the bankers
won’t stop those oil tankers from floating
toward the edge (nor bring those steel jobs back)
& yes
the abyss might be a state of mind
but real souls
have choices
only the forest knows
and the calling
comes when we least
expect it
& every lonesome ride
to the border
must be a beginning

--- e b bortz

photos by Sandra L Hazley

embellishing a weird dream

my passport was stolen
from the backseat of my van
a hidden place violated
and in its place
an expired passport of a guy
born in 1922
(let him remain anonymous)
though his thick brown moustache
could give him away

and there’s more:
right rear wheel was gone
van creaked left on a scissors-jack
spare tire walked
or never was

scene two:
a dozen of us marching
up centre avenue on the sidewalk
signs say stop police violence
a motorcycle cop
buzzes over with a cold tense look
ultimately
peels away without word

it was the centre avenue before
urban removal
people actually sitting on their stoops
watching us......not quite believing
we were pale gray
tho our banners
many colors

destination a bushy hilltop
known as sugar hill
we scatter what time is left
for dreams imagined
& real

--- e b bortz

earth note 114

ohio river trail across from bruno island

goose shit
green spread
surveillance new sodium pink lights
like eyeballs
semi-renovated hundred-year prison
hand-built twenty-eight foot stone walls
in-tact
for new tasks
gray homeland security suv
circling.....more eyeballs
occasionally a shout from inside
interrupts goose & duck squawk
the only protests of record
steel bridge swaying aching coal cars
twenty-first century arthritis
looking for another fix

--- e b bortz

earth note 113

breakneck ridge near portersville pennsylvania

a grassy plateau
rolls right up
to a synthetic fabric tent
all but forgetting the forest canopy
& cool musty cave
just below the outcrop
.....long after primeval animal skins
.....formed a lean-to

the lightning drove deep
into moistened loam belly
everything that was moving
.....stopped
.....diving low
.....still

it’s always been this way

--- e b bortz

red dust still stirred

in the winter of ‘76
though the north hibbing minnesota
rich iron ore pit was abandoned
just the cold remained
one eye closed
on north country blues
while the other one
joined the wanderers & work seekers
a beginning still hard to describe
as new
as new as taconite
landing scraggly beards
uprooted back-to-the-landers
in another go around
with the pitch black northern lights
deep tamarack
white pine
poplar sheltered hidden lake
frozen two thirds down

in that year
zimmerman’s bar mitzvah synagogue
still stood on the edge of hibbing
and the old caretaker told us
the story of carrying live chickens
on the streetcar to the rabbi on friday mornings
even in the depression 30s
all of this
from the edge
of the great north woods
three fourths the minnesota distance
to the canada border

nothing was out of place
as steam poured out
from a log shed sauna
the door was supposed
to slam open
with the snow squall
you were expected to take
the short dive into the snow bank

--- e b bortz

empty hands

are the source
of every emotional ritual
nothing to give up
no finger pointing
acceptance
of every element surrounding them
as if the sun and snow
converge
without compromise
cracked joints and missing fingernails
ignored in the greater scheme
no fist.....handshake
or caress
in the act
of opening

--- e b bortz

morning petitioning notes

three iron rangers from minnesota
.....i noticed their t-shirts
from towns just down the road
from our former hardscrabble homestead
nashwauk
a bend in the road not far from the continental divide
now here in pittsburgh
for a steelworkers meeting
bitter about nafta & cafta
worried about their children/grandchildren
country’s crash.....has arrived

yesterday’s papers gave out
a glimpse of fundamental corruption
misappropriation of public funds
to squash ballot access in pennsylvania
for greens & independents

yet the iron rangers we’re split
on how to reject outright
things as they are
yet still safely bury
one’s most inner beliefs
conforming matching pragmatic resignation
sacrifice to the void
of self-censorship

--- e b bortz

ego is considered rational

narrow/personal
(don’t believe it goes beyond that)
self-interest
might be the dirtiest
word
of any language

it’s got us where we’re at
whoopee

id is gone
long live the id

--- e b bortz

(published in The City Poetry, Fall 2008)

complaint dept note 1

heard a few say
their best poems
were processed
by cheap wine
then pissed or puked
into the toilet
forever lost

some
bitch about
all the reviews they never receive
as if poetry is a well-defined
career path
academia mapped
& packaged

then there’s the fucking writer blocks
meticulous constructs
red badge of....
don’t say courage
obviously
more blocks
more walls
still needed

maimstreetmedia
funding grants
corporate jingles
never seduced
lorca
.....died for his poems
yet we complain
about oppression
seemingly
locked in position
on our knees

--- e b bortz

quiet time surat thani thailand

just after morning tea
just before my 6am
walk thru the back streets
on out to the avenue
traffic buzz
i wait for my hour-long
ride to the power plant

srimorn pulls in a firm gentle embrace
i start for the door
wanting immediately to turn back
melt into the teeming brown
chongkasem neighborhood
of her brown hips
or our walk thru downtown markets
& motor scooters

this morning our lips taste
the last cool air
before the heat wave

--- e b bortz

previously flat-roofed porch

roof
is growing cisterns
on the edges
some looking
like long troughs
an inch of water
rests short
of the downspouts
telling us
we should
be collecting and
redistributing
to each according to needs
hoping for three foot sunflowers
before the frost
white pines pushing up
winter wind barriers

still
hard rain & good intentions
won’t get it done

--- e b bortz

asking a big favor

let me know
the minute
you think
i’ve lost
that spark

you’ll know it when you see it

each syllable will struggle
with every other one
broken into too many vowels
filling in where thought
anticipating eyes
emotion once thrived

when it happens
i’ll throw myself
at the altar
embracing thickest maples
walk greenest ridges
straddling alleghenies
soft-needled strapping pines
rounding apache white mountains
frozen lakes deep laurentides
or maybe the hot & humid rubber bounty
trees of khao sok

let me know the minute of transition
i’ll need to find my way there
and back

--- e b bortz

you don't need validation

by a politician
even one you believe in
perceptions of ‘strength’
‘the leader’ has got it
back ass words
your power is in your sweating
belching being
not your allegiance
vanguards authorities conventioneers
can be cut from the same cloth
and cheaply dyed to suit

don’t ask me
ask yourself

--- e b bortz

earth note 112

marshall trail, pittsburgh

via the road from kent ohio
     jawbone
a resurrecting of every voice
in a year
when wilderness brings
each soul
a stage
in spite of oneself

i defer to the spirits of may 4, 1970
from every field & forest
     seeds
    
and the trail canopy
grows rich in spite of
all the awkward intrusions
a broken-hearted doe
     stands quiet
& refuses to run

--- e b bortz

forsythia breaking away

for all us local quarry cutters

right at the exit ramp
dropping yellow bell-bottoms
every pothole can testify
if you’re close enough to listen
there’s a halo
that’s been snatched
from those would-be
patricians
us bitter ones
yes!
can see the race for what it is
but like acid to the alkaline
our hands will grow a garden

--- e b bortz

yonge street refugee toronto

isn’t a put-down
thousands grasp
my own small view
is that it’s a damn good thing
to have a place to run away
to
when iron heel limousines
block the peace bridge on-ramps
i’ll take my kayak north
below the radar
edicts
& new world order
shit-faced enforcers
who will be at a loss
to explain
any laws or rights
that supercede
those grown by generations
of dead patriots

--- e b bortz

head frazzled

loose ends
filling every angle
a line of sight
not to be confused
in revolutionary terms
with a kind of infantilism
can’t stop the sloganeering
popping its blindsided
emotionally sided
overdrawn tissue
cerebellum’s the missing piece
hardcore bank raiders
selling ‘em short
let’s take our margins against the wall
scratch the vault
alley cats
let us in
we’ll share the fire escape
& last refuge
paint the landscape void
a rust of isolation
a river out of here
limping

--- e b bortz

today i stand shiva

at the military recruiting center
for the million iraqis
four thousand americans
limbs & torsos stretched
needlessly upon the death spiral
finishing a fifth year
an appropriate cold rain
& dark silence fills in
where too few bodies
go on breathing

--- e b bortz

(published in khubz, Spring 2008)

is there a way out of this arrogance?

sand creek and wounded knee
my lai
new orleans
fallujah
when will the images
inside shifty bloody pools
become self-evident
crimes against humanity

we’ve become
the culture of silence
‘cept for the flutter
of our own wings

--- e b bortz

central park 1967 summer concert

stevie wonder once again

found harmonica heart

was made to love her

as we loved

marian & me

kendra & franklin

trying to make sense

& dialectics of the whole

two hundred thousand individual bodies

with their own path to enlightenment

without the map makers

& confusion of history

so stevie sang past the pain

to a place

just beyond our reach

yet we reached

to find chills & warmth

all at the same time

the stuff beneath

that makes you understand

how the rain can soothe

even a parched body

--- e b bortz

windless light snowfall

drops straight
clean
putting depth perspective
front & center
three small white pine
coated veil
covers a stoic ice frame

hundred crows pass through

--- e b bortz

poetry without walls 2008

poster by
Adam Brodsky

earth note 111

1991...somewhere near poriyya, israel

it was hard bicycling the drum beats
to bob marley
legs ache last ascent
an overlook sea of galilee
vista & hostel without travelers
opened a door
and let me in

an hour later the surrounding hills
were the darkest passage
no moon
but the clarity of the milky way

so i walked down the road
to smell a landscape of scruffy pine
& stooped down from time to time
to feel the warm asphalt surface
& road break
with rocky brush
a perimeter into the unknown
much like a skin covering the organs
a darkness with purpose

feet wander where they want
and when the familiar road
left me
it became an opportunity
to stop and listen
without definition or direction
not a car nor dog
nor light nor gleam from galilee
lost & peace at the same time

was there a link
between these footsteps
and those before me
or was i an intruder
how does the earth
keep such a record
of those living
& deceased

a cool wind
from the north
gave me bearings
& i turned toward it

--- e b bortz

Change Revisited

I was twelve years old in the summer of 1960, as my father
whispered to his closest friend at the kitchen table
in our hot cement-block farmhouse.

“Hymen, it looks like the people might vote for change
this year.”

“I’m not sure Lou. But I think Lenin said something
like ‘give me three workers and we’ll make a revolution’.”

“Yeah, but right now, the people are on the move...
they aren’t waiting for us,” Lou answered.

In our family, the 1950s was a time of economic desperation,
caused directly by the witch-hunts against us personally, and
against communists, labor and left-wing activists of all kinds,
all over the country.

But 1950s America was also the Korean War, economic stagnation
and poverty, segregation, lynching of African-Americans,
the suppression of women, the disenfranchisement of black people
and young people...a political system so corrupted by the thugs
of big money machines, racism, and fear, that anything close to
thoughtfulness was seen as almost radical.

This was the context in which JFK was elected 35th President
of the United States.

And of course that was only the opening of the decade and the
beginning of rising expectations...an uncharted course of turmoil
and transformation lie ahead...a cultural-generational-human rights
revolution bringing millions into the streets with marches, boycotts,
sit-ins, teach-ins, draft resistance in the face of a war that
extinguished the lives of millions...Vietnamese, Cambodians, Americans.

Are we a better, more conscious people because of all this?

You’ll have to answer that question yourself.

Maybe there are isolated windows in time when symbol is as important
as substance. When a society has proclaimed moral abandonment as
its mantra for decades, the not-so-simple act of awakening and
unleashing our imaginations can be a revolutionary message in itself.

--- e b bortz

(published in The New People, February 2008)
(published in khubz, Spring 2008)

when all else fails

phuket 1989

close your eyes and go forward
crawling out of darkness
or into a beginning sunset

a prison falls
on orange & red
indian ocean andaman sea
(before the tsunami)
broke the ruler’s rules
started a wave
and without so much as embarrassment
placed the farang
upon his alter ego
sifting thru the trinkets
of silver & rubies (smuggled from burma)
the mist off the sea
heated
did not cool
the broken expats
with their cocks in their hand
lumbering thru curry back alleys

and every brown eye
in the marketplace
sized & dismissed
those intentional motives
looking only at the magic
from the water

--- e b bortz

earth note 110

never looked at tea leaves
looking for answers
or the future
but those strawberry plants
we put
inside the acid rain belt
new york southern tier
seven miles
into northern appalachia
just above the susquehanna watershed
sprouted manna
or maybe just luck

but the hundred pine seedlings
in a june minnesota bog
dried out
waiting in the sauna
died of shock therapy
needed a more tender hand
or better timing

life can’t wait
for the learning curve

--- e b bortz