summer green wave

riverview park pittsburgh

the rocks made random
art
piles here and there
middle and edges of the trail
are the beginnings
of small sacred mounds
hillside runoff
leads a long legged dog
to find a clear route
dodging dead limbs
but finding the new buds
i follow

the news from iran on this
solstice
a green wave the rulers didn't expect
their isolation walls propped up
by shifting oil sands
are no match
in the long run
.....millions of buds
.....blooming

--- e b bortz

david castleman / dusty dog reviews 1994

earth note 126

if it's a clear day
& i'm crossing the bellevue bridge
& it's june
songbirds will grab your thoughts
& fling them
deep into the valley
where you'll lose them
because you want to

and every restless notion
that consumes
the last days of high school
becomes
a road
defined by immediate context
yet out of the ordinary
a day.....a journey begun

--- e b bortz

(published in opednews.com, June 1, 2012)

retro again...maybe it's the tea and humidity

still thinking about
what kind of poems
i'd be writing
if i had stayed
in southern thailand
or montreal

thought the lines
would write themselves
no way

but then there are
the conditions
maybe similar to social science
that break through
all your layers of
protection and denial
it's trite to say but accurate
the muse works in mysterious ways

would the language
enrich or hinder
i like to think
there's a connection
between the way
a word rolls off the tongue
and what puts
sweat on the brow
thumping beneath the breasts

the land has its own influence
a barricade of secrets
rivers and forests where
you
the student
wake and find
sun
projecting a new arc
yet comfort in ambiguity
　
curried rice
lost in snowstorms
cutting coconuts
with ice skates
sounds contrived
don't blame the muse

words are swallowed
by the ear
flow into the blood
suspended by air
lodging themselves
around another overused
misused word
consciousness
though real
nonetheless

a voice
speaks broken tears
a language of its own

--- e b bortz