earth note 633

a yearly hundred-year flood

is no cliche

the riverbanks speak

for the unspoken

sumacs bend and hold their ground

after everyone else

runs for the hills and malls

if it's a weekend

muscle cars at the carwash

throw a mean uppercut

just before hauling ass

out     of     town

getting lost in the exurbs

on the backside of a politician sign

who knows no cease-fire

the grocery store pharmacy

is packed with pain and relief

the line snakes

all the way out the door

a price bump

leads to a pill splitter

--- e b bortz

earth note 632

key west

the old trees in old town

can still subvert the sidewalk

raising and cracking the slabs

like an underground rising

d.a. levy has more to do with this

than the midterm election results

there's heat coming up the gulf

a wind that hasn't said a word yet

the cruise ships bully toward the sunset

a hundred hands try to block them

allen ginsberg will make you weep

when he comes to shore with his final poem

only a black sky can give you light

most of the time it's best to hide

among the mangroves

always give the jellyfish the right-of-way

stock island is filled with ghosts

some of them by way of whiskey island

the old frame houses on fleming

take in and save the lost raindrops

a cistern is a heart that opens

for every beat there's a singer's blue note

daniel thompson     jim lang     maj ragain

have more to do with this

than the midterm elections

--- e b bortz

earth note 631

before the rain freezes

the doves will probably come back

to the flat roof of the porch

get a drink or two

before heading out for better cover

the woods are beckoning

yesterday

they pecked at the ice

like a glaze on a nyc sidewalk

still thirsty

--- e b bortz

notes from the other side, part 2

potato farm, gera province, gdr, 1968

we made a campfire together

burning for hours

and the thought never left me

how was it decided

that these teenagers

would end up working on a collective farm

very little music

in their lives

and

who decides this shit

all i could think about

were the kids in pennsylvania

who were sent up to the farm

     reform school

north of pittsburgh

so this was rehabilitation

     east and west

in the group there was a ringleader

stocky baby face

a joke and story teller

the translator edited for our ears

who then

went and retrieved a guitar

brought it into the circle

and handed it off to me

i froze for a minute

before tuning the strings

and then rolling in to

     don't think twice it's all right

by the end of the song

i noticed tears rolling down

from a few eyes
including mine

no translation

needed

--- e b bortz

notes from the other side, part 1

east berlin, gdr, 1968

he might have been a sailor

or a machinist

from the roughness of his hands

or a printer like the hundreds of hands

at the karl marx printing factory

but actually

he was a writer

a poet twisting in a straightjacket

unable to break free

"this is the shit"

he'd say

of the reality

of socialist realism

mind you

he was the true revolutionary

caught between the passion

and the facts of life

past the age of forty and still advocating

for the great transformation

even my comrade with his superior analytical precision

and pointing index finger

couldn't apply the dogma

to the reality

the room in the apartment

was filled with smoke

and a few expatriates

everyone was squirming

the musty indian rug was worn

yet warm to the touch

the lighting dull

a touch of cognac or vodka

nothing but a stale taste to hide pain

the writer kept repeating

"where can i go where it isn't like this"

i thought

maybe vietnam

i never found out

what happened to him

whether he survived the purges

and prisons

or got his words published somewhere

the cobblestones of east berlin

were laid out in a grid not a garden

without space to grow

intransigence locked in

between paranoid concrete walls

and raw power

from the end of a rifle

to a cannon mount

on a tank turret

taking aim

at the poets

--- e b bortz

earth note 630

woke up just in time this morning

to feel a cold rain

awash in the coming snow

i touch it like manna

wish it over

to the california wildfires

wishing of course gets us nothing

the black smoke of the apocalypse

is not another far-fetched conspiracy

turn your head into the wind

time to face up

to the killers of the dream

there's no negotiating

with carbon propaganda

my words have fallen far short

considering

what's coming

are we ready to take the surgery

without the anesthesia

until then

try not to breathe

--- e b bortz

election day

some of the leaves

are holding out

and voting green today

gasping at a fading sunshine

the yellow comes thru

waving like a true independent

most of the reds are still in hiding

once in awhile one of them

will stand alone and preach to the choir

i've never seen a true blue

though i've heard they will sing

if the price is right

--- e b bortz

earth note 629

the contours of the land

might let you think

that it's all endless

another plain

leads to a mountain

there are gold leaves

in the short term

and after that

you open your arms

to the decay

and the ultimate

transformation

the earth will carry on

past the boarded up

and abandoned

where forests have paid in blood

a new circle of stewards

will arise

from the black loam of millennia

nurtured by a mother's hand

and from every river

a revelation

--- e b bortz