have i finally crawled out or in?

for Aung San Suu Kyi

from every identifiable place
darkness lifts or not
inconspicuously
or scarring
every marking has a point

where the colors
have collapsed
a common blend
becomes a stain

rationales
have ended
most without
scrutiny

there are no final judgments
in fact judgments are not germane
a mouth is a circle
is a chant
is a spirit
all its own

--- e b bortz

counterculture

plays a rhythmic washboard
before every honest voice dies
     let the drumbeat lead
inhale the fire of the earth
& use the word culture
as it was intended
to open every pore
release the heat
begin again

--- e b bortz

earth note 146

rivers have a way

of getting even

with those who would

harness & bleed

their very being

an icy smile gets smacked down

wiped off the face

of the 40th street trestle

--- e b bortz

lowell george little feat & dawn

dusty tucumcari
makes the sun work that much harder
and every speck
needs a place to rest
even before
giving thanks
the chicano chef
slices the turkey
and pumpkin pie
so we're tempted to ask
the waitress whether
willin
was in the radio queue
because we were thinking
of dawn and how she passed
from our grasp
as the dusk
came up fast
and it would have been
grace
to have another slice
of her voice
gravelly thru mesa redonda
the empty backroads
leave her messages
in dry canyons
& the old towns
turn their backs
on the interstates
just to survive

we put her faint smile
in our pockets
roll the road
that comes
when the signs
are taken down
& the taste of honey
awakens our lips

--- e b bortz

earth note 145

only the dark surf
raging on myrtle beach south carolina
seems real
against the empty streets of ocean boulevard
ripley's is haunted all to themselves
a plastic kingdom
decidedly more irrelevant
than even what passes
for the daily news

a black dog finds
a dead jellyfish
the sky misleads
in its brightness
if there was ever a season
to consider what's coming
you'd have only to look around
at the thousands of empty motel rooms
each one of them with a pastel story
but certainly no answers
for deadpan poets
plowing deeper
deeper
than beach sand compactors
fixated metal detectors
stop & frisk agents
.....generation paranoia

--- e b bortz