Thursday, April 29, 2021

earth note 797


a mourning dove
blue jay
and robin
sitting on the fence
in the church courtyard
just down woods run
from the sign in
don's diner
for extras
as in actors
for another episode
of whatever
and since the blue jay
is the loudest
it only makes sense that
he or she would jump
to the front of the line
with the glossy 8 x 10s
under wing
the director pulling up
just in time in his lexus rental
telling everyone within earshot
that they would all be considered
when suddenly the red robin
lifts a union card from under breast
and the mourning dove breaks out weeping
like an official funeral crier

don't break a leg

--- e b bortz 

Tuesday, April 27, 2021

two panhandles travel advisory

oklahoma & texas
make for a noisy kitchen
and dusty parking lot
'course there's nothing like
refried beans and huevos rancheros
to take your mind off
the bull riders and bullshitters
you might just say
send 'em back to the phony wooden sidewalks
of dodge city
plastic is forever
     give the termites a break
& way too many
real life shoot 'em ups
& you know the blood just gets thicker
every school year
& this ain't no movie set
or the brainchild of some up & comer
hero-director

we just keep going the miles
until we make a hard perfect 90 degree turn
the sky can never get bluer
a hundred miles in any direction
there will a lost radio signal or two
asking for school teachers and nurses
to send their résumés in for consideration

not if
but when
the tornado clouds roll in
don't stop until you find a basement
     in other words don't stop

every motel keeper keeps a good supply
of fly-swatters
and you'll need to keep one close
like on the night stand with your sweet dreams
     the flies go crazy when the weather changes

--- e b bortz

Friday, April 23, 2021

earth note 796


there's no end to the kansas two-lane
or the hollow sound of an empty silo
july asphalt
sticky tires
a dusty horizon finds nowhere else to hang
peers all the way out
until it vanishes

--- e b bortz 

Wednesday, April 21, 2021

contingencies


if i run out of ink
i'll use a pencil

if it snows in april (it is)
i'm shovel ready

keep the aclu phone number
& bob kaufman's jail poems
in your back pocket

the snow's piling up outside
wait another day to go to the thrift store

the flowers are trying to close up
& shutdown before they freeze

none of this is a fluke
we don't need a fluke to believe in

the next time you hear bad news
don't call it a fluke

the robin's breast will make you smile
even in a spring snow storm

--- e b bortz 

Friday, April 16, 2021

earth note 795


i gathered up rain
in my hands
dropping it across a bed of phlox
purple & strawberry
as a news truck rolled slowly
down the avenue
looking for a story
beyond the shootings and pandemic

--- e b bortz

Thursday, April 15, 2021

earth note 794


green buds start filling in
the tops of the canopy
enough to let daydreams
rise up
releasing them
without notice


a season is a patchwork
making a forest
a ring
a life year
a document
your footprints are your paper trail


starlings speak
like gleaners
some migratory without borders
finding a way here
their journey
our journey

--- e b bortz 

Tuesday, April 13, 2021

first taste of an allegheny river fog when you're early enough & the deer are still bedded down


for a thirteen-year-old
it seemed like a long greyhound ride
from cleveland heights to rural pennsylvania
just after my thirteenth birthday

life changing you might call it
like from winkie's sixteen-cent hamburgers
at the corner of cedar & lee
to throwing hay bales in 90 degree heat


we lived in a 32-foot trailer
but by the time theresa
& butch & johnny joined us
we were busting at the seams


in spite of this radical departure
theresa knew how to make sense out of it all
like when we all piled into the turquoise ford
and went down to pittsburgh for a pete seeger concert


worried man blues
we seemed to live it

so i ran the hills of butler county
like i was on a mission
like i was roger bannister
but without a country


on the first day of school
my eighth grade history teacher
said to the class "are there any jews here?"
as everyone turned to me olive skin & curly dark hair


so it only seemed natural that we would
settle everything on the wrestling mat
or the rutty 440 yard running track
circling the football field


i never believed acceptance
had to be earned
like who said inalienable rights
needed gatekeepers


by the time we moved again
the allegheny was coughing up blood
i traded down to a trench coat
and a turned-up collar


there were streetcars that could sing harmony
but the fog never lifted
as far as i could tell

--- e b bortz 

Friday, April 09, 2021

the rain in southern thailand was always warm


rain forest morning mist
before the sun beats through
has a sweet taste to it
what looks like a calm ocean
is deceiving
a dip before going to work
is a wake up

the equator rolls up the waves
and sends them falling
with a strong undertow
a rip tide is a force of nature
you can't negotiate with
look for a parallel escape

when you get a day off
bicycle at dawn
down the long hill into phunphin
the train stops there
and there are connections
that will take you all the way south to malaysia
or north to the indigenous hills

if you wait until dusk
the mist might come back
the rain      still warm
is probably just past your reach

--- e b bortz

Wednesday, April 07, 2021

i'm looking for new ways to find the morning (seasonably adjusted)


the arc of the sun used to be enough
just those first rays
would wake you
if you were at all tuned in

the first blue jay calls

or a robin red breast staring in the window
a neighbor's rooster the authorities have made illegal
faint early dog barks from down in the valley

among the most verbal

is a dog's lick on the arm
a nose
is a memory

sometimes the maples turn their heads

brush off the avenue traffic
listen intently for the secrets
just beyond

--- e b bortz 

Monday, April 05, 2021

earth note 793


there's a woodpecker
knocking at the door
seems like it's time
to get up and see what's up

it's been a couple days
since the flat roof dried out
until then it was a birdbath
waiting for a baptism

some of the trees on the ridge
have fallen in to each other
not quite ready to throw away
the winter crutches

i'm waiting a few more days
until the trail dries out
or until the woodpecker
knocks again

a sudden pass through storm
the other day got a pair of hawks
up and soaring just above the treetops
the dog barked and scared away the deer
     and other mammals

i told you what i know
please don't ask me for the latin

--- e b bortz