earth note 560

waiting on a youghiogheny spring

to break things wide open
     a straight trail
can fool you into believing
you've been following
the straight and narrow
     fess up right now
the pipelines can't be hidden
like the puppeteers in the white house
     naw
this ain't politics
so stop bullshitting yourself

--- e b bortz

earth note 559

 

 

 koh samui to phuket
1988-89

near the equator

the transition between seasons
might escape you

i landed in winter
somewhat disoriented
but by the time summer came
i was fully acclimated
to the heat and moisture

from both east and west coasts

thailand is a bounty of fruit
and lush green
sweet steamy hills
and yellow grasses  

when a farmer or a welder

or a fisher has a day off
there's still the sweat
of mother hands
scrubbing out the laundry

the tides pull you
unconsciously toward the horizon
a blue-green theatre
which needs no script

you make your own

from bicycle wheels
to bob marley cassettes
bananas and mangos
sunday morning heat
leading to a waterfall in a rainforest
just before the monsoon

the road quickly becomes a mad hot river
i think i hear prayer wheels 
a singing bowl 
the brush of orange robes
or silence 

     forever
in the shadows

--- e b bortz

earth note 558

dancing snowflakes and

a grey lazy overcast
spirit none the less

--- e b bortz

i still hear marley

hope might be

     going or gone
the people have been robbed
the planet is burning
hair-triggers itching
no woman no cry

who woulda thought

a free field of cannabis
mainstreamed and televised
enough to buy off
a generation or two
would be enough to buy obedience

complete liberation

doesn't come so cheap
the secret banks and the
not so secret political hacks
claim victory every day
of the manufactured consensus
like it's an easy tax write-off

good friends we've had

and good friends we've lost
along the way

for them

we must still traverse
every river
canyon
mountain
ocean
in search of the pure water
the holy water

we have but our feet

our only carriage

--- e b bortz

women march...a continuum

somewhere near the maumee river

in downtown toledo ohio in 1956
my mother with her large handbag
over her shoulder and our hands
moving together like poetry
passing out flyers
for adlai stevenson
a small crowd would gather
     ya know my mother was a real looker
and then her voice would rise above the mumble
     "o.k. shopworkers, this is the time for change
     take a flyer & pass it on...and don't forget to
     support bud ashley for congress."

or the time my mother

     from the housewares department
& the women clerks from tiedtke's department store
marched out on strike for several days
because the company refused to renew
a contract with the workers
and my mom seeing every sales woman
from every floor pour out of the doors
and stand in the street
all heads up high
& my mom saying we're going to win
this one
and we did

so even though i walked with

mister zimmerman to shul on many friday nights
     he & his wife lived upstairs & owned the old frame house
     we lived in downstairs on moore street
i wasn't brought up with what you might call orthodoxy
in fact when i asked my cousin
     "well, what does your family believe in"
she gave me the most direct answer
     "brotherhood...sisterhood"
     that's all?
yeah she answered
that's plenty

--- e b bortz

earth note 557

for this morning moment

the ice still makes a bond
with the earth
a bond of physics
but also a bond of commitment

does anyone doubt this alliance

doubt at our own risk

before the invasion of turtle island

the hemlocks along the ohio valley
were a pathway to enlightenment

the hemlocks are mostly gone now

eaten by moneychangers
traded for bloodstained fur and airports

enlightenment can't be forced

the earth is more than a physical space
there's a river waiting for new direction

touch and taste are more than senses

--- e b bortz

under the crow wing

during the hot cold war
of the 1950s
the strategic air command
rattled every schoolhouse
in america with sonic booms & flyovers

our teacher ordered us

to hide under desks
& line up in basement hallways
stand straight & firm against
     whomever

often i thought

where's the courage
to face down the nukes
at high noon with a smile on your face
and that last deep breath
of the earth on your lips
as you had come
to love it

'cause ya know a bomb shelter

is only as good as
its madison avenue deception

if you've got family jewels

don't bother hiding them

crows make their flight path

     regardless
they're survivors     they'll find a way
the markets will crash on the plain
of inter-continental-ballistic-missile-claptrap

there's no more money

     in fear

--- e b bortz

earth note 556

 

wild mountain thyme, yellowstone

the clancy brothers & tommy makem

will lead you to the heather
     lavender
     the origin of eternal awe
     looking for a holy truth
     rolling with the river
finding one
of many questions

--- e b bortz

earth note 555

gros ventre to the grand tetons

you've been chosen

like the summer grass
waving and brushing your insides
there are butterflies
like an opening performance
     charisma
is a buffalo

--- e b bortz

so you think you have a way of remembering

surat thani thailand, 1989

without the painful wince
     doesn't happen that way
it all originates
from a whole heart
     every cell
free to imagine
     every mango
     caress
where the sunset makes it
to the lip of the ocean
bloody at times
deep in orange tears
where the undertow
     magnetic
always draws you in

the language is soft

as a rubber tree
singing rice offerings
and small browning bananas

you drove the scooter with steady hands

your straight black hair blowing through
     to my face
weaving into every steamy back alley
& market stall
     i rode
     spooned in the small of your back

there was ginger and curry

rising off the streets

--- e b bortz

quick tour

who would of thought

a couple of french women
would break off from a
hotel lobby full
of artist-hippie-proletarian french travelers
to ask me on an elevator
where's a good place for coffee

i know pickup lines when i hear them

and believe me
this wasn't one
my own non-expert palate
staying sheepishly silent
after the pissy new york coffee experience
     next door
which just about drove me
to abstinence

--- e b bortz

(published in earth notes and other poems, Least Bittern Books, 2015)