earth note 433

 

one maple

can change the world
if we let it speak
for itself

high cirrus

find their own way
past the jets
& political hot air

a warm morning

is so out of place
leaves not knowing
which way to turn

there's peace

in the high grass
rolling in to clumps
of silence

--- e b bortz

earth note 432

fifty-five years ago
my dad would say
as we crawled & bumped along
     endless stop & go
in his appliance repair panel truck
his tools rattling inside
a wooden box used as my seat
antsy against the traffic on mcknight road
especially when it snowed
     feh he'd say
who'd want to live out here

today the dozers & backhoes

are tearing down a mall
in order to build a bigger one

looks like a lotta dust to me

--- e b bortz

stop denigrating poetry

like it's an appendage
on the academic lecture circuit
smoothing over the dissonance
like an obedient subject
providing milque-toast
to the toastmasters
rationales to the powerbrokers

poetry comes from the deepest

of the deep
the most subversive
where blood
is paid like duty
where chains are unlocked
only after death
where the voice
never signs-off

--- e b bortz

the rubicon continues to fall into place

a few minutes to midnight

syria iraq yemen in flames

ukraine & the baltic states
like chess pieces
shoved down a fossil throat

cheap politicians

trade epitaphs
for their future grave markers
and currency

moguls find new clothing

change quickly
in the senate cloakroom
steal the latest itune

in this kind of world

encryption wraps king tut
like an adolescent's
wet dream

hate and/or neglect

speaks the language of the airwaves
levees break upstream
an outstretched arm pokes from a rooftop

elites gush

like they just found the secret code
browbeating & interrogation
morphs into guilt by association

a chameleon on every block

a snitch in every bedroom

--- e b bortz

 

earth note 431

a groundhog with a nasty road-rash
hobbles thru the backyard
deliberate but recovering
it seems
just in time for winter

cars shoot over the hill

rush down toward the river
work and work
is the four letter word
before this week's football game
or next week's so-called presidential
debase

--- e b bortz

earth note 430

key west night
away from duval street
no shuffling crowds
just the heat and smell of mint tea
in old town
creaking porches
and loose coconuts
the street sweats in papaya
i'm still walking free
looking
for the open mic

--- e b bortz

earth note 429

the wet pavement
is a mirage
on the waving grasslands
of northeastern new mexico

late summer

everything is brown
the radio station carries
for a couple hundred miles

the country schools

are having a paper sale
still looking
for teachers

you don't need a weatherman

just look at the big sky
it takes a long view
before knowing the future

i'm told there's another crossroads

to contemplate
i'm not so sure
it didn't disappear

behind the dried up water tower

--- e b bortz