is not at the edge
or further down the road
but among us
when we look
where the fire escape last stood
(sold for scrap years ago)
or a fast car
or a fix
or a stickup gun & ski mask
running across the high desert
billboard landscape
a broken down caustic runway
poisons my boots
it wasn't always that way
even from the bleak
war table debates between
round and square
there were words inside
to send on
to the next
an ear of plenty
even in a wasteland
when the minds were blown
sometimes there came
revelations
only to be exposed later
as idol worship
or bottomless dreamscapes
'course nothing mattered then
but now the blown minds
are by design
just enough manipulation
to be convincing
your shoes can be cleaned
you need not remember your past
and you can view the morning after
from a better vantage point
.....embracing the abyss
--- e b bortz
Friday, August 20, 2010
Sunday, August 08, 2010
earth note 141
cicada trees
answering each other
along the ridge
each in unison
as if to tell us
sing it out if you mean it
one cicada stands alone at the backdoor
leaves a message
--- e b bortz
answering each other
along the ridge
each in unison
as if to tell us
sing it out if you mean it
one cicada stands alone at the backdoor
leaves a message
--- e b bortz
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
death of a key west poem
even in the early sun
when the water wakes
a new surf starts up
the earth stays dark
i look back years
to find the perfect truth
dharma image
synthesis
accepts every character
having synched
the past with the present
each year
the light fades
a little more
so i go back to the lovers
on si surat stupa
to liven my legs
for the climb
listening for the voice
of every pelican
still flying
--- e b bortz
when the water wakes
a new surf starts up
the earth stays dark
i look back years
to find the perfect truth
dharma image
synthesis
accepts every character
having synched
the past with the present
each year
the light fades
a little more
so i go back to the lovers
on si surat stupa
to liven my legs
for the climb
listening for the voice
of every pelican
still flying
--- e b bortz
Monday, June 07, 2010
save me from your messiah
and messiah complexes
poetics and poets who
insult the trees from whence
the pages come
and always with the word
me me me
sandwiched between
a luddite east cleveland levy
and a hyper-text delusional stream
of ego
fame
those oil-suffocating sea birds
in the gulf of mexico
are now the quintessential images of
america the corporate
sucking on carbon assholes
until it kills us
so
forget the poets who can't
reach beyond
their own pricks
and gated habitats
words will not make us clean
though maybe
that's all we have
--- e b bortz
poetics and poets who
insult the trees from whence
the pages come
and always with the word
me me me
sandwiched between
a luddite east cleveland levy
and a hyper-text delusional stream
of ego
fame
those oil-suffocating sea birds
in the gulf of mexico
are now the quintessential images of
america the corporate
sucking on carbon assholes
until it kills us
so
forget the poets who can't
reach beyond
their own pricks
and gated habitats
words will not make us clean
though maybe
that's all we have
--- e b bortz
Monday, May 31, 2010
The Great Awakening
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/51965
The Great Awakening
by e b bortz
We need to really think outside the bounds of mainstream U.S. culture and media to find the great awakening...which is most definitely in progress.
By the time you read this, Antanas Mockus, Green Party candidate for President of Colombia will be heading into the runoff round. And no, the specific issues of the Mockus campaign is not really the issue...ideological dogmatists: heads up! What is important to see is that the Green Party program and constituency represents a historic and fundamental surge towards grassroots democracy, against repression, an end to corruption, the beginning steps for economic justice, peace, and ecological wisdom...yes, the beginning of a new Colombia. Antanas Mockus and the Green Party have put together a coalition capable of electing the planet's first Green Party head of state. What is most significant about this is not the "how and when", but in the fact that millions of voters believe in the possibility.
After years of Green Party representation in every major European parliament, a breakthrough was finally realized in the United Kingdom. A rising environmental consciousness and a well organized grassroots new politics propelled the charismatic Caroline Lucas to victory as the first Green MP in the UK Parliament. Something is indeed afoot.
A collapsing economy in Greece, and previously in Iceland, might in fact be a harbinger of the future. How and to what extent the Greens and their allies prepare programmatically for these kinds of crises (more national collapses are possible), could very well determine how successful they'll be in future elections. Millions of people losing their jobs or having their wages and benefits slashed, will have little patience for political leaders "going slow" or treading about with 'solutions' that don't address their immediate and long-term pain and sacrifices. A creative and sustainable green economics, uncoupled from the dictates and volatility of global financial markets, is no longer a futuristic pipedream...the future may be upon us sooner than we think.
At this time, the British Petroleum oil gusher is still spreading it's poison in the Gulf of Mexico. Added to this has been a U.S. government sanctioned reckless deployment of chemical dispersing toxins against the encroaching oil mass. This ecological catastrophe is the direct result of decades of corporate political rule in Washington and in state capitals across the country. By buying their favorite Democrat and/or Republican legislators and the deregulation terms of their endearment, corporations via their de facto representatives have bought the elections by dominating the media, the agenda, and in many cases directly limiting the voter's choices. Today, we are all paying the price for corporate politics. Recent mainstream polls have indicated that only 30% of the U.S. electorate are in support of political incumbents...the voters are obviously fed-up and may be open to new ideas...let this be the beginning of our own awakening.
The wars of empire grind on...the loss in human lives and maimed lives is morally indefensible. Yet, it might be a faltering (bankrupt) economy and an outraged public that actually brings millions back into the streets. Continuing the wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq will never bring us closer to a secure or sustainable future...only more pain and financial ruin. We leave behind a battlefield of unexploded cluster bombs and other munitions along with depleted uranium contamination. This will guarantee more generations of resentment both at home and throughout the world. A Green foreign policy based on nonviolent constructive engagement with the rest of the world is a positive new way forward. It's time to put away all of our weapons of mass destruction and extend the hand of true friendship to all who will take it.
The tide of rising expectations might just be the catalyst for real change in the United States, even within the seemingly all-powerful corporate political state. It wouldn't be the first time outdated political parties were shattered under the weight of their own irrelevance and replaced with new political forces: younger, bolder, visionary yet practical. Our watchword should be: stay active...the manifestations of "a change is gonna come" have yet to be written, much less realized.
***************
The Great Awakening
by e b bortz
We need to really think outside the bounds of mainstream U.S. culture and media to find the great awakening...which is most definitely in progress.
By the time you read this, Antanas Mockus, Green Party candidate for President of Colombia will be heading into the runoff round. And no, the specific issues of the Mockus campaign is not really the issue...ideological dogmatists: heads up! What is important to see is that the Green Party program and constituency represents a historic and fundamental surge towards grassroots democracy, against repression, an end to corruption, the beginning steps for economic justice, peace, and ecological wisdom...yes, the beginning of a new Colombia. Antanas Mockus and the Green Party have put together a coalition capable of electing the planet's first Green Party head of state. What is most significant about this is not the "how and when", but in the fact that millions of voters believe in the possibility.
After years of Green Party representation in every major European parliament, a breakthrough was finally realized in the United Kingdom. A rising environmental consciousness and a well organized grassroots new politics propelled the charismatic Caroline Lucas to victory as the first Green MP in the UK Parliament. Something is indeed afoot.
A collapsing economy in Greece, and previously in Iceland, might in fact be a harbinger of the future. How and to what extent the Greens and their allies prepare programmatically for these kinds of crises (more national collapses are possible), could very well determine how successful they'll be in future elections. Millions of people losing their jobs or having their wages and benefits slashed, will have little patience for political leaders "going slow" or treading about with 'solutions' that don't address their immediate and long-term pain and sacrifices. A creative and sustainable green economics, uncoupled from the dictates and volatility of global financial markets, is no longer a futuristic pipedream...the future may be upon us sooner than we think.
At this time, the British Petroleum oil gusher is still spreading it's poison in the Gulf of Mexico. Added to this has been a U.S. government sanctioned reckless deployment of chemical dispersing toxins against the encroaching oil mass. This ecological catastrophe is the direct result of decades of corporate political rule in Washington and in state capitals across the country. By buying their favorite Democrat and/or Republican legislators and the deregulation terms of their endearment, corporations via their de facto representatives have bought the elections by dominating the media, the agenda, and in many cases directly limiting the voter's choices. Today, we are all paying the price for corporate politics. Recent mainstream polls have indicated that only 30% of the U.S. electorate are in support of political incumbents...the voters are obviously fed-up and may be open to new ideas...let this be the beginning of our own awakening.
The wars of empire grind on...the loss in human lives and maimed lives is morally indefensible. Yet, it might be a faltering (bankrupt) economy and an outraged public that actually brings millions back into the streets. Continuing the wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq will never bring us closer to a secure or sustainable future...only more pain and financial ruin. We leave behind a battlefield of unexploded cluster bombs and other munitions along with depleted uranium contamination. This will guarantee more generations of resentment both at home and throughout the world. A Green foreign policy based on nonviolent constructive engagement with the rest of the world is a positive new way forward. It's time to put away all of our weapons of mass destruction and extend the hand of true friendship to all who will take it.
The tide of rising expectations might just be the catalyst for real change in the United States, even within the seemingly all-powerful corporate political state. It wouldn't be the first time outdated political parties were shattered under the weight of their own irrelevance and replaced with new political forces: younger, bolder, visionary yet practical. Our watchword should be: stay active...the manifestations of "a change is gonna come" have yet to be written, much less realized.
***************
Thursday, May 20, 2010
no explanation needed
a poet's tools can't be sharpened
unless the skin is in decay
even a gasp
can mark a turning point
direction zero
is the best roadmap
when you lift
bend your knees
wear your pen
like a revolver
listen for the agony
& leave clarity for mathematicians
travel light
on multiple planes
don't worry if you're wrong
you'll have the last word
--- e b bortz
unless the skin is in decay
even a gasp
can mark a turning point
direction zero
is the best roadmap
when you lift
bend your knees
wear your pen
like a revolver
listen for the agony
& leave clarity for mathematicians
travel light
on multiple planes
don't worry if you're wrong
you'll have the last word
--- e b bortz
Thursday, May 06, 2010
earth note 139
a couple of alberta spruce
giving a hand on the hillside
are joined today
by two hetzi column junipers
dark green & dense
looking toward eighteen feet
standing against the slide
civil disobedience of a sort
when the cones fall
they'll be painted
in the tradition
of a famous painter
arranged around a circle
a circle we have yet to understand
celebrate nonetheless
& carry on
--- e b bortz
(published in Three Rivers Bioneers, Oct 2010)
giving a hand on the hillside
are joined today
by two hetzi column junipers
dark green & dense
looking toward eighteen feet
standing against the slide
civil disobedience of a sort
when the cones fall
they'll be painted
in the tradition
of a famous painter
arranged around a circle
a circle we have yet to understand
celebrate nonetheless
& carry on
--- e b bortz
(published in Three Rivers Bioneers, Oct 2010)
Friday, April 30, 2010
karma
rolled down the ramp
from the commuter speedboat
in na thon thailand
bicycle wheels following my instinct
island ring road south
still a few hours daylight
big orange hangs
like droopy eyelids
the heat is unique
approaching sunset
the air dries a bit
before the evening mist
makes landfall
off the ocean
a few farmers were picking bananas
on the interior hills
i could see them under big hats
carts filling along palm-lined pathways
their work a tender touch
fused with small yellow skins
lamai beach
coral jagging up
a mix of sharp black rock
rough shore
piercing for the unfamiliar
i spilled my blood
on occasion
knowing the pain was warranted
descriptions come up short
on the last hill
above chaweng beach
drawn like a long necklace
free from the body
it sways with each wave
then releases you
anonymously to karma
runaway doubts
having been liberated
by the weight
of another
--- e b bortz
january 1989
from the commuter speedboat
in na thon thailand
bicycle wheels following my instinct
island ring road south
still a few hours daylight
big orange hangs
like droopy eyelids
the heat is unique
approaching sunset
the air dries a bit
before the evening mist
makes landfall
off the ocean
a few farmers were picking bananas
on the interior hills
i could see them under big hats
carts filling along palm-lined pathways
their work a tender touch
fused with small yellow skins
lamai beach
coral jagging up
a mix of sharp black rock
rough shore
piercing for the unfamiliar
i spilled my blood
on occasion
knowing the pain was warranted
descriptions come up short
on the last hill
above chaweng beach
drawn like a long necklace
free from the body
it sways with each wave
then releases you
anonymously to karma
runaway doubts
having been liberated
by the weight
of another
--- e b bortz
january 1989
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
earth note 138
forty years of earth days
& a slow waltz
if we were dreaming
there'd be an excuse
corporate smiley face
drools a nasty overbite
someone's awake
most every politician
auctions green credit cards
fracking rigs & access roads
where do we make our stand?
--- e b bortz
& a slow waltz
if we were dreaming
there'd be an excuse
corporate smiley face
drools a nasty overbite
someone's awake
most every politician
auctions green credit cards
fracking rigs & access roads
where do we make our stand?
--- e b bortz
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
finding nirvana
at the end of my index fingers
as they rest over my ear openings
a solid pressure to quiet the pounding
.....off the page
& make space for longer days
yet wail the days past
every pulse a new angle of detail
long forgotten landscapes
smell sweet
a liquid green road
comes home
each night
in time for curry
and we always spoke
only in the present
tasted the spice
each moment drawn
out toward the sea
and the mermaid
of songkhla
motionless but watching
for the misstep
& excuses
for choosing the rational
the ego of self-destruction
we knew to be hollow
but now we're past the boundaries
long abandoned
.....the eardrum sings back
.....calling out a last blue streak
.....of day
.....
--- e b bortz
as they rest over my ear openings
a solid pressure to quiet the pounding
.....off the page
& make space for longer days
yet wail the days past
every pulse a new angle of detail
long forgotten landscapes
smell sweet
a liquid green road
comes home
each night
in time for curry
and we always spoke
only in the present
tasted the spice
each moment drawn
out toward the sea
and the mermaid
of songkhla
motionless but watching
for the misstep
& excuses
for choosing the rational
the ego of self-destruction
we knew to be hollow
but now we're past the boundaries
long abandoned
.....the eardrum sings back
.....calling out a last blue streak
.....of day
.....
--- e b bortz
Sunday, April 04, 2010
earth note 137
diesel locomotives
coal cars & squealing brakes
wrap thunder around a steel bridge
primed black
and if the earth answers
it might be an echo
or a shaking
like fire & brimstone
roaring itself up woods run hollow
with a murky river vantage point
the clapboard houses & prison walls
search for a steady current
for a flushing
of the old ways
--- e b bortz
coal cars & squealing brakes
wrap thunder around a steel bridge
primed black
and if the earth answers
it might be an echo
or a shaking
like fire & brimstone
roaring itself up woods run hollow
with a murky river vantage point
the clapboard houses & prison walls
search for a steady current
for a flushing
of the old ways
--- e b bortz
Thursday, March 04, 2010
we are the perennials
the overlooked ones
unconventional
a natural tongue
& a ram's horn
become the witnesses
every ear becomes a speaker
every tear an eye of reason
--- e b bortz
(published in Three Rivers Bioneers, Oct 2010)
unconventional
a natural tongue
& a ram's horn
become the witnesses
every ear becomes a speaker
every tear an eye of reason
--- e b bortz
(published in Three Rivers Bioneers, Oct 2010)
second sun in the last seventy-two days
finally broke thru
almost unexpected
like a veil lifted
an orange cat in heat
came to the door
shared the leftovers
with the other stray cats
of the back porch
it seems just when things
seem the most down
(o.k. it's a personal view)
nature curves the cosmos
works its way
bold bursts
thru barren limbs
a thawing within
--- e b bortz
almost unexpected
like a veil lifted
an orange cat in heat
came to the door
shared the leftovers
with the other stray cats
of the back porch
it seems just when things
seem the most down
(o.k. it's a personal view)
nature curves the cosmos
works its way
bold bursts
thru barren limbs
a thawing within
--- e b bortz
Thursday, February 25, 2010
earth note 136
ice-out this spring
will be unusual
white hills melting
a volume
hard to contain
we're cautious
putting-in
too early
there'll be a blast
of heat & debris first
wait for the river otters
tune into their creeping
below the watchtowers
& bridge abutments
watch the flood line turn down
love is a smooth take-out
--- e b bortz
will be unusual
white hills melting
a volume
hard to contain
we're cautious
putting-in
too early
there'll be a blast
of heat & debris first
wait for the river otters
tune into their creeping
below the watchtowers
& bridge abutments
watch the flood line turn down
love is a smooth take-out
--- e b bortz
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
earth note 135
stirring across the ridge
out back
my boots break a trail
a minor snow crevice
uncovers a few seedlings
not enough to eat
the deer have moved on
leaving the old trees creaking
for sunset
dogs in the valley bark
frustration
as a long-legged one
steps up to a branch
wind-split
his ears popped up
nose twitching
seems the imported coyote piss
saved a few white pines
.....one hand
.....one crow clapping
--- e b bortz
out back
my boots break a trail
a minor snow crevice
uncovers a few seedlings
not enough to eat
the deer have moved on
leaving the old trees creaking
for sunset
dogs in the valley bark
frustration
as a long-legged one
steps up to a branch
wind-split
his ears popped up
nose twitching
seems the imported coyote piss
saved a few white pines
.....one hand
.....one crow clapping
--- e b bortz
a sense of satisfaction
bicycling in southern Thailand...early 1989...published in BikeReport, 1992:
http://www.adventurecycling.org/default/assets/resources/199204_ASenseOfSatisfaction_Bortz.pdf
http://www.adventurecycling.org/default/assets/resources/199204_ASenseOfSatisfaction_Bortz.pdf
Thursday, February 18, 2010
accountability
convert the trillions
of wall street bailout
into one dollar bills
distribute the weight
equally to every yes vote
in the house & senate
include the executive branch
designers & hucksters
throw in their media mouthpieces
if it's too heavy
ask china to carry
some of the load
double the weight portion
for arms manufacturer c-e-o-s
& the joint chiefs
for bank & insurance
bail-out-tees
also provide ankle bracelets
as they all work off their burden
at minimum wage
redistribute the wealth
--- e b bortz
(published in opednews.com, Mar 14, 2011)
of wall street bailout
into one dollar bills
distribute the weight
equally to every yes vote
in the house & senate
include the executive branch
designers & hucksters
throw in their media mouthpieces
if it's too heavy
ask china to carry
some of the load
double the weight portion
for arms manufacturer c-e-o-s
& the joint chiefs
for bank & insurance
bail-out-tees
also provide ankle bracelets
as they all work off their burden
at minimum wage
redistribute the wealth
--- e b bortz
(published in opednews.com, Mar 14, 2011)
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
earth note 134
daydream big snow 2010
a winter move
salt lake city to northern minnesota
started christmas day 1983 or four
wyoming a foot of ice
on the interstate
a rental truck towing a pickup
an Ltd station wagon following
close behind
dad you always pick
the craziest times to move
the boys kept mocking
dreams get lost all the time
was what i thought
but couldn't say
let their dreams stay young
it was cold enough for ice fog
when the right front wheel
started shaking
our lucky day
to be near
a snow-drifted rest stop
& desperate exit
lucky again to have a lug wrench
tighten a loose wheel
& keep on rolling
there wasn't much choice
every motel filled
every dollar allocated
every gallon of gas planned
every darkness brought
a magic sky
milky way & northern lights
nebraska open arms
western swing on the radio
the snow held off
til we hit the minnesota border
tamaracks poplar white birch
frozen bogs
wild swamp grass stalks
milky way brighter
whispers secret messages
to the fishing shacks
frozen lakes vast & free
defy all categories
the homestead wasn't much changed
from when we left five years earlier
there was dry wood
in the cellar
we all pitched in
re-started
with our first fire
of a long winter
--- e b bortz
a winter move
salt lake city to northern minnesota
started christmas day 1983 or four
wyoming a foot of ice
on the interstate
a rental truck towing a pickup
an Ltd station wagon following
close behind
dad you always pick
the craziest times to move
the boys kept mocking
dreams get lost all the time
was what i thought
but couldn't say
let their dreams stay young
it was cold enough for ice fog
when the right front wheel
started shaking
our lucky day
to be near
a snow-drifted rest stop
& desperate exit
lucky again to have a lug wrench
tighten a loose wheel
& keep on rolling
there wasn't much choice
every motel filled
every dollar allocated
every gallon of gas planned
every darkness brought
a magic sky
milky way & northern lights
nebraska open arms
western swing on the radio
the snow held off
til we hit the minnesota border
tamaracks poplar white birch
frozen bogs
wild swamp grass stalks
milky way brighter
whispers secret messages
to the fishing shacks
frozen lakes vast & free
defy all categories
the homestead wasn't much changed
from when we left five years earlier
there was dry wood
in the cellar
we all pitched in
re-started
with our first fire
of a long winter
--- e b bortz
Sunday, January 31, 2010
graveyard crows
read the headstones
smelling each inhabitant
before eating
here lies a slumlord
cluster bomb ceo
hedge fund trickster
.....can't be too cautious
--- e b bortz
smelling each inhabitant
before eating
here lies a slumlord
cluster bomb ceo
hedge fund trickster
.....can't be too cautious
--- e b bortz
Monday, January 25, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
earth note 133
brown leaves from last fall
make a winter thaw debut
sharing
the green of last year's grass
new crops
worms on a mid-january trip
they're flipping off the latitudes
with obscene gestures
--- e b bortz
make a winter thaw debut
sharing
the green of last year's grass
new crops
worms on a mid-january trip
they're flipping off the latitudes
with obscene gestures
--- e b bortz
Monday, January 04, 2010
avatar & connecting the dots in the oligarchy
it couldn't be more plain
conquer the aboriginals
scorch the earth
with the heaviest of heavy
fire breathing steel
let mother nature sort it all out
oh...and that precious mineral
will justify an empire's lust
for external & internal death
sentences
mandates approved by legislative
accomplices
dots can stir undetected for only so long
before the quiet void
bends the light
toward cognition
the core of each free body
interlocked symmetry = liberation
--- e b bortz
conquer the aboriginals
scorch the earth
with the heaviest of heavy
fire breathing steel
let mother nature sort it all out
oh...and that precious mineral
will justify an empire's lust
for external & internal death
sentences
mandates approved by legislative
accomplices
dots can stir undetected for only so long
before the quiet void
bends the light
toward cognition
the core of each free body
interlocked symmetry = liberation
--- e b bortz
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
if this isn't the winter of discontent...what is?
the president can now take claim
for the continuum
hoovervillebushvilleobamaville
you don't need to tread water
just take the skids
having been newly greased
afghanistan lies at the end of the chute
the ill health of the nation
sold
sold like an auction
to the highest derivative trader
insurance profits institutionalized
slush fund maneuvers
expose the intent
but not the principals
a great mother
stops her sentence
unfinished
--- e b bortz
for the continuum
hoovervillebushvilleobamaville
you don't need to tread water
just take the skids
having been newly greased
afghanistan lies at the end of the chute
the ill health of the nation
sold
sold like an auction
to the highest derivative trader
insurance profits institutionalized
slush fund maneuvers
expose the intent
but not the principals
a great mother
stops her sentence
unfinished
--- e b bortz
Thursday, December 17, 2009
earth note 132
sudden gale
woke the dawn
as i grabbed
the rain fly
flapping mad
above the tent
.....angry flag
storm anomaly
south shore lake superior
black flies swarm
vengeance bites
a rolling wave
awakens great blue heron
.....red sun rises
--- e b bortz
woke the dawn
as i grabbed
the rain fly
flapping mad
above the tent
.....angry flag
storm anomaly
south shore lake superior
black flies swarm
vengeance bites
a rolling wave
awakens great blue heron
.....red sun rises
--- e b bortz
Thursday, December 10, 2009
hypothetical speech from the nobel peace prize winner
somewhere today
in the here and now
in the world as it is
a young soldier
lays down arms
in exchange for court martial
disobeying orders to take
another human’s
life
hesitant yet confident yet omnipresent
turning eyes
into the fire
of a president
government
commanding officers
media carnivores
refusing to succumb
in the hypocrisy
of conventional wisdom
--- e b bortz
in the here and now
in the world as it is
a young soldier
lays down arms
in exchange for court martial
disobeying orders to take
another human’s
life
hesitant yet confident yet omnipresent
turning eyes
into the fire
of a president
government
commanding officers
media carnivores
refusing to succumb
in the hypocrisy
of conventional wisdom
--- e b bortz
Monday, November 30, 2009
the president's war secretary
came to my door this morning
asking me to watch & listen
to him
closely tomorrow night
i told her i would
but hoped
there'd be no children listening
in fact
how will he explain
these wars of conquest
he continues
with his own children
i wanna know how many millions
of shoes
hospital beds
winter coats
schools
he'll be sending & building
without marines & tanks
blazing
without drone missiles
i don't care who gets the bounty
we've bled many thousands
of innocents
their pains last
generations
yet our families rush bloated
to the next holiday hog
sale
with greasy palms
we shake congress hands
wipe drooling lips
& leaky assholes
but don't forget
that extra spritz
to make it smell right
we could use some shock therapy
from the conscience doctor
& then a transfusion
minus the toxins
but i'm afraid none of that'll
be coming
tomorrow night
the dark falls as it does
each night
some cries will rise & be answered
some will trail off
into silence
--- e b bortz
asking me to watch & listen
to him
closely tomorrow night
i told her i would
but hoped
there'd be no children listening
in fact
how will he explain
these wars of conquest
he continues
with his own children
i wanna know how many millions
of shoes
hospital beds
winter coats
schools
he'll be sending & building
without marines & tanks
blazing
without drone missiles
i don't care who gets the bounty
we've bled many thousands
of innocents
their pains last
generations
yet our families rush bloated
to the next holiday hog
sale
with greasy palms
we shake congress hands
wipe drooling lips
& leaky assholes
but don't forget
that extra spritz
to make it smell right
we could use some shock therapy
from the conscience doctor
& then a transfusion
minus the toxins
but i'm afraid none of that'll
be coming
tomorrow night
the dark falls as it does
each night
some cries will rise & be answered
some will trail off
into silence
--- e b bortz
Friday, November 20, 2009
earth note 131
avoiding the darkest clouds
of the week
is something of a consolation prize
tho nothing like
convincing yourself
it's the last warm day of glory
before the deluge
unspeakable is sometimes
survival mode
brown leaves pile
then scatter
the fastest ones
lead a path down the avenue
ahead of traffic
i've come to accept this
as being within the confines
of everyman's everyday
cycles of leaves and clouds
the work of each word
the spontaneity of phrase
.....singularity of a moment
--- e b bortz
of the week
is something of a consolation prize
tho nothing like
convincing yourself
it's the last warm day of glory
before the deluge
unspeakable is sometimes
survival mode
brown leaves pile
then scatter
the fastest ones
lead a path down the avenue
ahead of traffic
i've come to accept this
as being within the confines
of everyman's everyday
cycles of leaves and clouds
the work of each word
the spontaneity of phrase
.....singularity of a moment
--- e b bortz
Monday, November 09, 2009
earth note 130
will the moon rise
eagerly
& guide the tides
or will it chuck it all
find a new orbit
leave us
to our own make-believe
polar ice caving
hasn't yet
swallowed up euphoria
or a fossil politician's
blabbering dollars
washing ashore
chirping progress
is our process
your guardian
to the end
--- e b bortz
eagerly
& guide the tides
or will it chuck it all
find a new orbit
leave us
to our own make-believe
polar ice caving
hasn't yet
swallowed up euphoria
or a fossil politician's
blabbering dollars
washing ashore
chirping progress
is our process
your guardian
to the end
--- e b bortz
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
eighteen years old just out of high school
december 1966 pittsburgh
finished up my last shift
at horne's warehouse
caught a notice about sharing a ride
to california
called m in l.a.
asked her how she might feel
about having company
said it was o.k.
would see her in a few days
where was echo park?
i'd find it
a new sedan needed drive-a-way
to the coast
the guy taking it
wanted another driver
i was it
it wasn't about scenery
just go
non-stop 80 mph
'cept for gas & stop lights
3 a.m. thru east saint louis rain
railroad tracks & bridges
by morning there were smokestacks
petering out on the horizon
then out to the endless prairies
oklahoma then texas
finally a whole day's rest
in warm amarillo
felt like a cow-poke town
of neon and broken down hotels
blew across new mexico
white sands blasting the windshield
arizona high desert heat
'cept for flagstaff
pines clearing the highway dust
finally california and the long descent
no phone call just showed up
at m's doorstep in echo park
lucky to catch someone home
co-op type cottage
warm kisses
a few sunny rooms
a couple of deep breaths
beneath the covers
between judy collins thirsty boots
and a trip to delano
picket lines at safeway
no california wine
for the union makes us strong
went to cal state
antiwar rally
m on the stage
a cry for help
in our voices
for those not speaking
griffith park was like
a grand prix
m's little mg
top down
inside on the curves
sun
rebellion
watts tower
venice beach
california
was all about a dream
--- e b bortz
finished up my last shift
at horne's warehouse
caught a notice about sharing a ride
to california
called m in l.a.
asked her how she might feel
about having company
said it was o.k.
would see her in a few days
where was echo park?
i'd find it
a new sedan needed drive-a-way
to the coast
the guy taking it
wanted another driver
i was it
it wasn't about scenery
just go
non-stop 80 mph
'cept for gas & stop lights
3 a.m. thru east saint louis rain
railroad tracks & bridges
by morning there were smokestacks
petering out on the horizon
then out to the endless prairies
oklahoma then texas
finally a whole day's rest
in warm amarillo
felt like a cow-poke town
of neon and broken down hotels
blew across new mexico
white sands blasting the windshield
arizona high desert heat
'cept for flagstaff
pines clearing the highway dust
finally california and the long descent
no phone call just showed up
at m's doorstep in echo park
lucky to catch someone home
co-op type cottage
warm kisses
a few sunny rooms
a couple of deep breaths
beneath the covers
between judy collins thirsty boots
and a trip to delano
picket lines at safeway
no california wine
for the union makes us strong
went to cal state
antiwar rally
m on the stage
a cry for help
in our voices
for those not speaking
griffith park was like
a grand prix
m's little mg
top down
inside on the curves
sun
rebellion
watts tower
venice beach
california
was all about a dream
--- e b bortz
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Confronting the G20
copy and paste this link:
https://greenpagesnews.org/confronting-the-g20/
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
rotting from within
deliberately ignoring all contradictions
never seems to figure out why
everyone is blamed
no one is blamed
the inability to hear the drum beat
there are no mirrors
this ship of state is all smoke
better to demonize
when necessary
make new enemies
build new walls
whatever's fashionable
without expropriating privilege
massacred the original peoples
chained the africans
by god
we earned our positions of privilege
america there are no saving graces
there are no exceptions
the meek shall inherit the earth
and
we belong to the earth
not the earth to us...chief seattle
not a hoard
not a border
--- e b bortz
never seems to figure out why
everyone is blamed
no one is blamed
the inability to hear the drum beat
there are no mirrors
this ship of state is all smoke
better to demonize
when necessary
make new enemies
build new walls
whatever's fashionable
without expropriating privilege
massacred the original peoples
chained the africans
by god
we earned our positions of privilege
america there are no saving graces
there are no exceptions
the meek shall inherit the earth
and
we belong to the earth
not the earth to us...chief seattle
not a hoard
not a border
--- e b bortz
Monday, October 12, 2009
one pure voice could fill the syria mosque
pittsburgh 1967
when it was buffy sainte-marie
awakening our hands
in heat
a natural caress
bringing sweat
across my eyelids
down the spine
to those wide-open dreams
we insisted on living
right now
--- e b bortz
when it was buffy sainte-marie
awakening our hands
in heat
a natural caress
bringing sweat
across my eyelids
down the spine
to those wide-open dreams
we insisted on living
right now
--- e b bortz
Friday, October 09, 2009
obama 1, peace 0
this should be the moment
that spock steps on to the bridge
in his most calm voice and says:
"this illusion defies all logic
thus
it's impossible to unravel
at least until the next military strike"
--- e b bortz
that spock steps on to the bridge
in his most calm voice and says:
"this illusion defies all logic
thus
it's impossible to unravel
at least until the next military strike"
--- e b bortz
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
earth note 129
a hawk struggles
yet soars
diving deep into the canopy
swaying
reprieve or preying
brown wings dress in yellows & reds
an intense face twists around
a wind storm
snaps the weak & dying ones
sparrows go silent
a gray squirrel runs
.....jaws empty
--- e b bortz
yet soars
diving deep into the canopy
swaying
reprieve or preying
brown wings dress in yellows & reds
an intense face twists around
a wind storm
snaps the weak & dying ones
sparrows go silent
a gray squirrel runs
.....jaws empty
--- e b bortz
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
toledo blues
my mother
and stepfather johnny stemple
used to take me & my older brother
over to aunt sabina's place
a storefront downstairs & her apartment up
to visit
as everyone called it then
where they would sit and talk
maybe over a few copies of the daily worker
spread out on the table
and the shiny black hair of sabina
her dark roma eyes dancing across the table
right to me
and my mother's equally dark hair & eyes
answering dramatically in tempo with everyone
and then johnny stemple would tell
the story of the great united auto workers
sit-down strike at willys overland jeep plant
and how the u.a.w. was born
and how all the radical unionists were fired by 1952
and now how johnny
already in his forties
was unloading crates of tomatoes
at the hunt ketchup plant
for 90 cents an hour
and how the blacklist kept him on the run
though there was still time
to teach me
to throw a baseball
out in front of the peeling frame house
on moore street
at sabina's one saturday
we all piled into johnny's '46 de soto
and went to a black church
packed with wailing women and men
preachers sweating
righteous indignation
rising above a lone photo
of a black fourteen-year-old boy
that the world would come to know
as emmett till
--- e b bortz
and stepfather johnny stemple
used to take me & my older brother
over to aunt sabina's place
a storefront downstairs & her apartment up
to visit
as everyone called it then
where they would sit and talk
maybe over a few copies of the daily worker
spread out on the table
and the shiny black hair of sabina
her dark roma eyes dancing across the table
right to me
and my mother's equally dark hair & eyes
answering dramatically in tempo with everyone
and then johnny stemple would tell
the story of the great united auto workers
sit-down strike at willys overland jeep plant
and how the u.a.w. was born
and how all the radical unionists were fired by 1952
and now how johnny
already in his forties
was unloading crates of tomatoes
at the hunt ketchup plant
for 90 cents an hour
and how the blacklist kept him on the run
though there was still time
to teach me
to throw a baseball
out in front of the peeling frame house
on moore street
at sabina's one saturday
we all piled into johnny's '46 de soto
and went to a black church
packed with wailing women and men
preachers sweating
righteous indignation
rising above a lone photo
of a black fourteen-year-old boy
that the world would come to know
as emmett till
--- e b bortz
toledo, 1955
in the commotion
of a front yard football game
the catholic boy jeffrey
slugged me in the chest
calling me a dirty jew
i went for his head
and discovered the head-lock
hitting the ground
his light brown butch-cut
parted the grass
opened the dark moist dirt
his mother screamed from the front porch
beat that jew boy jeffrey
it was over in a minute
jeffrey cried
i let him go
--- e b bortz
of a front yard football game
the catholic boy jeffrey
slugged me in the chest
calling me a dirty jew
i went for his head
and discovered the head-lock
hitting the ground
his light brown butch-cut
parted the grass
opened the dark moist dirt
his mother screamed from the front porch
beat that jew boy jeffrey
it was over in a minute
jeffrey cried
i let him go
--- e b bortz
Friday, October 02, 2009
schenley plaza empty
pittsburgh
words blow in
with a northeaster drizzle
after the armored personnel carriers
went back to barracks
young limbs left blue
a few more creases in the fold
OC gas won't leave
until the trees spit
searching green edges
for every clue
with winds like these
each has a separate story
what grows today
becomes tomorrow
morning sometimes
is just a journey
--- e b bortz
words blow in
with a northeaster drizzle
after the armored personnel carriers
went back to barracks
young limbs left blue
a few more creases in the fold
OC gas won't leave
until the trees spit
searching green edges
for every clue
with winds like these
each has a separate story
what grows today
becomes tomorrow
morning sometimes
is just a journey
--- e b bortz
Friday, September 04, 2009
welcome to your local police state
please proceed rapidly
from the transit exits
refrain from talking
to police & security personnel
unless spoken to
prepare to have your handbags & luggage
scanned for illicit items
the retina of your eyes will be processed
painlessly
remove your glasses at the checkpoint
and again
please refrain from idle conversation
if you're clean
you have nothing to be worried about
you have our word
your personal privacy is our main concern
this is all a painless procedure
if questions should arise with security personnel
please have your id available
there is no point
in being belligerent
remember your security forces have
the training determination & resources
to control you & your immediate family
even your livelihood
welcome to our temporary modified republic
be sure to fill out our feedback survey
& have a nice day
--- e b bortz
from the transit exits
refrain from talking
to police & security personnel
unless spoken to
prepare to have your handbags & luggage
scanned for illicit items
the retina of your eyes will be processed
painlessly
remove your glasses at the checkpoint
and again
please refrain from idle conversation
if you're clean
you have nothing to be worried about
you have our word
your personal privacy is our main concern
this is all a painless procedure
if questions should arise with security personnel
please have your id available
there is no point
in being belligerent
remember your security forces have
the training determination & resources
to control you & your immediate family
even your livelihood
welcome to our temporary modified republic
be sure to fill out our feedback survey
& have a nice day
--- e b bortz
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Saturday, August 15, 2009
see you in pittsburgh in september
one quick stroke
ripping down constitutional rights
people left in shock & awe
protesters
environmental justice
women
young & poor & disenfranchised
welcome to our localized
national police state
of course almost all the politicians
throw up their hands
(leaving their asses uncovered so we can still boot them)
gloves hide fingerprints
cell phone records sealed
another
perfectly orchestrated abuse
crime and power have become
synonyms
august 1968
the democrat convention
young blood & war
beaten & gassed
should have made chicago a life-long lesson
yet it seems the perpetrators
write the history
blame the powerless
build a bigger cage
see you in pittsburgh in september
bring your music
your voice an inalienable right
--- e b bortz
ripping down constitutional rights
people left in shock & awe
protesters
environmental justice
women
young & poor & disenfranchised
welcome to our localized
national police state
of course almost all the politicians
throw up their hands
(leaving their asses uncovered so we can still boot them)
gloves hide fingerprints
cell phone records sealed
another
perfectly orchestrated abuse
crime and power have become
synonyms
august 1968
the democrat convention
young blood & war
beaten & gassed
should have made chicago a life-long lesson
yet it seems the perpetrators
write the history
blame the powerless
build a bigger cage
see you in pittsburgh in september
bring your music
your voice an inalienable right
--- e b bortz
Saturday, August 08, 2009
sleeping with drones
perceived intelligence
their cause célèbre
another family (for peace)
alone in death
the machines of empire
meet out injustice
it cannot be re-colored
in pastels
--- e b bortz
their cause célèbre
another family (for peace)
alone in death
the machines of empire
meet out injustice
it cannot be re-colored
in pastels
--- e b bortz
Sunday, August 02, 2009
earth note 128
after a hard rain
i press the base
around a six foot sunflower
loose dirt
becomes the medium
stalk draws downward
orange yellow
to my fingertips
somehow
putting the world in balance
for an instant
--- e b bortz
(published in Three Rivers Bioneers, Oct 2010)
i press the base
around a six foot sunflower
loose dirt
becomes the medium
stalk draws downward
orange yellow
to my fingertips
somehow
putting the world in balance
for an instant
--- e b bortz
(published in Three Rivers Bioneers, Oct 2010)
Monday, July 27, 2009
earth note 127
gallons of gasoline
exchanged
to blow grass clippings & leaves
off & on oily asphalt streets
status quo concrete driveways
wtf
rituals & indoctrination
hollow out
collective minds
oh my!
collectivist notions
rain carbon individualism
a summer wind storm
dusts up a barren lot
could have been planted
aluminum can curb roll
echo clatter rises
plastic bag flight recorder
no one's listening
coal barges with tail winds
they pimp themselves at the Y
coke works or power station
freight's been already paid
--- e b bortz
exchanged
to blow grass clippings & leaves
off & on oily asphalt streets
status quo concrete driveways
wtf
rituals & indoctrination
hollow out
collective minds
oh my!
collectivist notions
rain carbon individualism
a summer wind storm
dusts up a barren lot
could have been planted
aluminum can curb roll
echo clatter rises
plastic bag flight recorder
no one's listening
coal barges with tail winds
they pimp themselves at the Y
coke works or power station
freight's been already paid
--- e b bortz
Monday, July 20, 2009
blue song
pittsburgh 1969
we walked a few miles before
the summer night cloud burst
soaked us through
somehow we knew
k and g would never
hold together
him back from nam
never settled inside
demons would win
and when the incline
finally made it
to mount washington
we kissed the skyline
in all the haze
a thousand lights
and swore to meet
in ten years
what's real lives on
there comes a beat
only the drum
knows
hands forget
what the heart
remembers
and at dawn
no change
joy-tears create rainbows
the incline makes another round
lights dim
we gather the morning
--- e b bortz
we walked a few miles before
the summer night cloud burst
soaked us through
somehow we knew
k and g would never
hold together
him back from nam
never settled inside
demons would win
and when the incline
finally made it
to mount washington
we kissed the skyline
in all the haze
a thousand lights
and swore to meet
in ten years
what's real lives on
there comes a beat
only the drum
knows
hands forget
what the heart
remembers
and at dawn
no change
joy-tears create rainbows
the incline makes another round
lights dim
we gather the morning
--- e b bortz
Saturday, July 04, 2009
july 4th attempted escape, ohio river
from the fireworks war
lords
their tents & maimstream music stations
throwing up
thom paineless
corporate clutter
anesthetized stepford sons & daughters
missing the toronto humber river trail
i feel like a jilted lover
a hundred cultures
mix hidden curves
ponds and leafy overhangs
you keep alert
& refuse to touch the brakes
--- e b bortz
lords
their tents & maimstream music stations
throwing up
thom paineless
corporate clutter
anesthetized stepford sons & daughters
missing the toronto humber river trail
i feel like a jilted lover
a hundred cultures
mix hidden curves
ponds and leafy overhangs
you keep alert
& refuse to touch the brakes
--- e b bortz
Sunday, June 21, 2009
summer green wave
riverview park pittsburgh
the rocks made random
art
piles here and there
middle and edges of the trail
are the beginnings
of small sacred mounds
hillside runoff
leads a long legged dog
to find a clear route
dodging dead limbs
but finding the new buds
i follow
the news from iran on this
solstice
a green wave the rulers didn't expect
their isolation walls propped up
by shifting oil sands
are no match
in the long run
.....millions of buds
.....blooming
--- e b bortz
the rocks made random
art
piles here and there
middle and edges of the trail
are the beginnings
of small sacred mounds
hillside runoff
leads a long legged dog
to find a clear route
dodging dead limbs
but finding the new buds
i follow
the news from iran on this
solstice
a green wave the rulers didn't expect
their isolation walls propped up
by shifting oil sands
are no match
in the long run
.....millions of buds
.....blooming
--- e b bortz
Monday, June 15, 2009
Sunday, June 14, 2009
earth note 126
if it's a clear day
& i'm crossing the bellevue bridge
& it's june
songbirds will grab your thoughts
& fling them
deep into the valley
where you'll lose them
because you want to
and every restless notion
that consumes
the last days of high school
becomes
a road
defined by immediate context
yet out of the ordinary
a day.....a journey begun
--- e b bortz
(published in opednews.com, June 1, 2012)
& i'm crossing the bellevue bridge
& it's june
songbirds will grab your thoughts
& fling them
deep into the valley
where you'll lose them
because you want to
and every restless notion
that consumes
the last days of high school
becomes
a road
defined by immediate context
yet out of the ordinary
a day.....a journey begun
--- e b bortz
(published in opednews.com, June 1, 2012)
Thursday, June 11, 2009
retro again...maybe it's the tea and humidity
still thinking about
what kind of poems
i'd be writing
if i had stayed
in southern thailand
or montreal
thought the lines
would write themselves
no way
but then there are
the conditions
maybe similar to social science
that break through
all your layers of
protection and denial
it's trite to say but accurate
the muse works in mysterious ways
would the language
enrich or hinder
i like to think
there's a connection
between the way
a word rolls off the tongue
and what puts
sweat on the brow
thumping beneath the breasts
the land has its own influence
a barricade of secrets
rivers and forests where
you
the student
wake and find
sun
projecting a new arc
yet comfort in ambiguity
curried rice
lost in snowstorms
cutting coconuts
with ice skates
sounds contrived
don't blame the muse
words are swallowed
by the ear
flow into the blood
suspended by air
lodging themselves
around another overused
misused word
consciousness
though real
nonetheless
a voice
speaks broken tears
a language of its own
--- e b bortz
what kind of poems
i'd be writing
if i had stayed
in southern thailand
or montreal
thought the lines
would write themselves
no way
but then there are
the conditions
maybe similar to social science
that break through
all your layers of
protection and denial
it's trite to say but accurate
the muse works in mysterious ways
would the language
enrich or hinder
i like to think
there's a connection
between the way
a word rolls off the tongue
and what puts
sweat on the brow
thumping beneath the breasts
the land has its own influence
a barricade of secrets
rivers and forests where
you
the student
wake and find
sun
projecting a new arc
yet comfort in ambiguity
curried rice
lost in snowstorms
cutting coconuts
with ice skates
sounds contrived
don't blame the muse
words are swallowed
by the ear
flow into the blood
suspended by air
lodging themselves
around another overused
misused word
consciousness
though real
nonetheless
a voice
speaks broken tears
a language of its own
--- e b bortz
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
earth note 125
bicycling across neville island pennsylvania
it isn't easy
coming to terms
with abandonment
steel fabricating plant hollowed out
like a ghost town
leaving droopy sheet metal extensions
scattered empty locker rooms & clothes racks
overhead crane runways
disconnected from the body
i used to walk those runways
scared shitless of height
out to stranded motor controls
a meter and tools stuffed around me
usually tons of load
hanging
between lifting or lowering
i'd figure out a way of completing the lift
and then getting a crane ride to the exit ladder
our strike in the mid 1970s
didn't last but a few weeks
the injustice of working
way below
basic steelworker wage levels
brought out solidarity even from
electricians welders fitters
even crane operators
haven't taken a hard look
at that shell of a plant
for over thirty years
green brush growing up around
once-black corrugated steel siding
rust chunks dropping
from the i-beams
stain the earth forever
i'm still listening for distant voices
coalescing near the tracks
rooftop hide-outs
out from a patchwork of shade
a surge
at the river's edge
--- e b bortz
it isn't easy
coming to terms
with abandonment
steel fabricating plant hollowed out
like a ghost town
leaving droopy sheet metal extensions
scattered empty locker rooms & clothes racks
overhead crane runways
disconnected from the body
i used to walk those runways
scared shitless of height
out to stranded motor controls
a meter and tools stuffed around me
usually tons of load
hanging
between lifting or lowering
i'd figure out a way of completing the lift
and then getting a crane ride to the exit ladder
our strike in the mid 1970s
didn't last but a few weeks
the injustice of working
way below
basic steelworker wage levels
brought out solidarity even from
electricians welders fitters
even crane operators
haven't taken a hard look
at that shell of a plant
for over thirty years
green brush growing up around
once-black corrugated steel siding
rust chunks dropping
from the i-beams
stain the earth forever
i'm still listening for distant voices
coalescing near the tracks
rooftop hide-outs
out from a patchwork of shade
a surge
at the river's edge
--- e b bortz
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Monday, May 04, 2009
Deep Green: Culture, Rebellion, Poetry
by e b bortz
"something is happening here
but you don’t know what it is
do you Mr. Jones?" --- b. dylan
If you’re looking for a scientific essay with footnotes, or a practical political platform or even an agenda, this won’t be the place…though you’re more than welcome to stick around. Everything from here on is based on observations, impressions, subtle influences, emotional predispositions…in a word: feelings…which can be as good a place as any for a starting point…leaving the road map-making to others.
First, let’s acknowledge that there’s a growing mainstream green consciousness sweeping across the world, including in the United States. Inherent in this mass green acceptance are the more radical seeds of deep green consciousness which basically rejects (or rebels against) social and cultural foundations, assumptions and social conditioning that rationalizes "human domination" over all other living things on the planet. Maybe within this deep green phenomena there lives the fundamental antidote to the slash-burn-extinction dogma we've all been spoon-fed as "normal."
When we look at the innate interconnection and interdependence of all living things, the ideas of deep ecology, living co-existence and co-evolution are relevant, but this goes beyond what I want to say here.
So for now, let’s just recognize deep green as a growing and developing body of alternative cultural images and logic that needs no conventional wisdom or schedule.
Rebellion in the form of an alternative holistic life style might be one of many natural deep green oppositional responses to a dominant culture based on money-making, violence, and exploitation. Other forms of rebellion are found in music, art, and poetry…countercultural expression if you want to use the handy phrase.
But it’s in poetry that I want to dwell, not as a critic or reviewer, but as a participating poet. Let me use this opening as an open reading to emphasize the theme herein.
earth note 66
round face like the sun
on a mountain path too crooked
to keep a straight face
your wire-rim eyes feel through the darkness
but insist
there is a better way
to carry out our karma fortunes
under one arm
and still use the other
to stop those fleeing
their eyes never seeing
the forest
earth note 37
the strip, pittsburgh
acid apron steam heat blanket
draping river basin
a crack on the thirty-first street bridge
shakes loose unclips my clip-less pedal delusion
street-unwise propensity to rant
at rusted machinery
crippled rolling mill appendages
bandaged round a river beaten through the ages
approximation chaos
greed
a tongue licks inverted water droplets clean
perennials return to carry forth
our burden
earth note 59
provincetown, massachusetts
white underside of a humpback's tail
a series of creamy sand dunes
position themselves
between purple sundown ocean spray
and a nest of juniper pines
their rough green branches
needling our impatience
of living
between morning and evening stars
a cricket song from the hollow
is a million voices
Hope no one can find a specific agenda in any of the above. If a poem works, it can stir thought and emotion that may ultimately lead to practical individual action. These actions can in turn stir new poems and emotions --- something like a closed loop of rising awareness. But the poem is not a power on to itself…it requires an interaction with living beings, submerging parts of itself deep into an unknown living region many would call consciousness. The poem or parts of it may stay submerged and never find expression or utterance again. Or it may burst out into a newer, synthesized form branching into the emotional (life) experience of another being.
Do species other than humans communicate with their own poetry? Can we hear or synthesize from them? Can they hear us?
Sharing the Work…Sharing the Stage
If the goal of a poet, musician, or artist is to create "works" for dissemination, and the objective is to be as honest with the emotional "product" as possible, then that means one must ruminate over what’s inside of oneself continuously. Intense self-reflection and churning up of the internals and experiences is part of the process I have found to be a confidence builder. So much of what I perceive to be "academic poetry" dwells in the "mechanics of poetry" and very little in the realm of consciousness, either individual or societal. A simple sharing of the stage (or internet) with other poets is essentially an aspect of "sharing the work."
Having a holistic vision of the world (that all living things are a part of…even poets), being a close and critical observer of everything around, being as emotionally honest and self-sufficient as possible, keeping the ego in-check, creating not for fame but for passionate self-expression/personal wholeness (which can also serve a broader interest), refusing to suppress "uncomfortable experiences" and thoughts, refusing to homogenize with conventional wisdom or conventional "schools" of poetry (i like to say when in doubt, subvert the paradigm)…these are all exercises and ideas not easily "taught" or transferred via academia for many reasons. It might be useful to examine why this is so.
earth note 62
khanom, thailand
let me taste the early morning light
again
before smoky sunrise mix
distant yellows of a coconut plume
burn
speak seductively sweet
swallowing my words
forgetting the murky river
a charge
coming through the shadows
from who knows where
how
a mother answers the child's question
in the teeter of teak stilts
a balance
earth note 35
bethel, vermont
fog halo granite mountain
the mist tilts east
white river rapids
wild irreverent backwoods chanting
white birch bark peeled away
a trunk of blemishes opened to light
earth note 31
fineview, pittsburgh
a few songbirds have saved the day
just when i thought a cold drizzle
had touched deep in the darkest
of marrow
a gray soup wrung from the hillsides
tension spitting upwind from the ohio
broken city steps become timeless corridors
green agendas
budding sycamore and maple seedlings
creep along the concrete
cardinals and finches shout their venues
of an awakening
forsythia breaking away
for all us local quarry cutters
right at the exit ramp
dropping yellow bell-bottoms
every pothole can testify
if you’re close enough to listen
there’s a halo
that’s been snatched
from those would-be
patricians
us bitter ones
yes!
can see the race for what it is
but like acid to the alkaline
our hands will grow a garden
earth note 44
the mist along the beaver river
leaves a crooked path
for those who follow in its
footsteps
an orange morning cloud is surrounded
by gray ones
may be the face of a seeker
a passion shiftless unfulfilled
in the northwest corner a yellow cumulus cluster
refuses to yield
an altar of its peers speak
from voi-dom
i do not listen
we live by the river and look past
the footprints of yesterday
there's no security
in the old order
asphalt patched concrete
heaving up
from the mantle
pedestals by definition
are abused visions
broken tar
a melting planet
sunflowers
to be borne
Celebrate the Uncontrollable
Poets have died for their words: Federico Garcia Lorca,
Victor Jara, and Ken Saro-Wiwa come to mind. Outright repression of poets is common in many countries (check with Amnesty International for specifics). But the most effective method of suppression and marginalization in the U.S. seems to center around mass media "acceptance" or "disapproval" often involving something close to an incestuous relationship with academia. Community poets, particularly "non-credentialed" ones are creating venues and publications galore, but rarely are recognized in mainstream and academic circles. In a sense, this frees community (including radical and deep green) poets from the pressures and homogenizing trappings of the mainstream. And since poetry as a profession is rarely a subsistence living, the majority of poetry that rages in coffeehouses and bars from coast to coast on any given night, needs only to satisfy the poet, and sometimes the audience. Yet no one should minimize the power of the words and ultimately the artistic influence that springs from the most ignored places, including high schools in broken down neighborhoods, rural hollows, and prisons.
earth note 61
my bucket of words are a pile
of dust
might as well fling them
to the clearcuts
clearfield pennsylvania
broken strip mine draglines
barren hills spread their legs
no seeds to receive
earth note 42
september is a cold river
dying and being born
that bloated highway outta town
of red maple shoulders
to cry on
valleys i wish i could sometimes forget
what brought me back
the mills were dead
(let them rest)
a brown spent monongahela
rolls over the wreckage to the ohio
a rusty railroad trestle picks up acid droplets
lets them eat the deep black primer
of aliquippa
broken ridges slip down to the river
the bass are steadily abandoning
and everywhere evergreens hang on cliffsides
more resilient than the rest of us
earth note 45
something about autumn
that makes me feel so damn
alone
maybe its just the singularity of each tree
becoming leafless
or the japanese water coloring that whispers
quebecois
seeming to know where those
painted cotton clouds are going
and what they mean
i haven't decided
i'm still looking in airports and museums
at every face
for that unintentional gentle love rage
free of judgments
still connected to cave wall brush strokes
of basquiat
a gospel left unspoken
capturing my hollowness and booting it
i look at clouds and wonder if you
have found the answers
**********************************************************
all poems are by e b bortz (ebbortz.blogspot.com) who wishes to acknowledge the following publications:
Whiskey Island, tight, ptrint.org, Green Panda Press, ArtCrimes, Hellbender Journal, Split W*sky, Jawbone, thecitypoetry.com, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, The Exchange
(published in opednews.com, Dec 24, 2010)
(published in greenchange.org, August 2009)
"something is happening here
but you don’t know what it is
do you Mr. Jones?" --- b. dylan
If you’re looking for a scientific essay with footnotes, or a practical political platform or even an agenda, this won’t be the place…though you’re more than welcome to stick around. Everything from here on is based on observations, impressions, subtle influences, emotional predispositions…in a word: feelings…which can be as good a place as any for a starting point…leaving the road map-making to others.
First, let’s acknowledge that there’s a growing mainstream green consciousness sweeping across the world, including in the United States. Inherent in this mass green acceptance are the more radical seeds of deep green consciousness which basically rejects (or rebels against) social and cultural foundations, assumptions and social conditioning that rationalizes "human domination" over all other living things on the planet. Maybe within this deep green phenomena there lives the fundamental antidote to the slash-burn-extinction dogma we've all been spoon-fed as "normal."
When we look at the innate interconnection and interdependence of all living things, the ideas of deep ecology, living co-existence and co-evolution are relevant, but this goes beyond what I want to say here.
So for now, let’s just recognize deep green as a growing and developing body of alternative cultural images and logic that needs no conventional wisdom or schedule.
Rebellion in the form of an alternative holistic life style might be one of many natural deep green oppositional responses to a dominant culture based on money-making, violence, and exploitation. Other forms of rebellion are found in music, art, and poetry…countercultural expression if you want to use the handy phrase.
But it’s in poetry that I want to dwell, not as a critic or reviewer, but as a participating poet. Let me use this opening as an open reading to emphasize the theme herein.
earth note 66
round face like the sun
on a mountain path too crooked
to keep a straight face
your wire-rim eyes feel through the darkness
but insist
there is a better way
to carry out our karma fortunes
under one arm
and still use the other
to stop those fleeing
their eyes never seeing
the forest
earth note 37
the strip, pittsburgh
acid apron steam heat blanket
draping river basin
a crack on the thirty-first street bridge
shakes loose unclips my clip-less pedal delusion
street-unwise propensity to rant
at rusted machinery
crippled rolling mill appendages
bandaged round a river beaten through the ages
approximation chaos
greed
a tongue licks inverted water droplets clean
perennials return to carry forth
our burden
earth note 59
provincetown, massachusetts
white underside of a humpback's tail
a series of creamy sand dunes
position themselves
between purple sundown ocean spray
and a nest of juniper pines
their rough green branches
needling our impatience
of living
between morning and evening stars
a cricket song from the hollow
is a million voices
Hope no one can find a specific agenda in any of the above. If a poem works, it can stir thought and emotion that may ultimately lead to practical individual action. These actions can in turn stir new poems and emotions --- something like a closed loop of rising awareness. But the poem is not a power on to itself…it requires an interaction with living beings, submerging parts of itself deep into an unknown living region many would call consciousness. The poem or parts of it may stay submerged and never find expression or utterance again. Or it may burst out into a newer, synthesized form branching into the emotional (life) experience of another being.
Do species other than humans communicate with their own poetry? Can we hear or synthesize from them? Can they hear us?
Sharing the Work…Sharing the Stage
If the goal of a poet, musician, or artist is to create "works" for dissemination, and the objective is to be as honest with the emotional "product" as possible, then that means one must ruminate over what’s inside of oneself continuously. Intense self-reflection and churning up of the internals and experiences is part of the process I have found to be a confidence builder. So much of what I perceive to be "academic poetry" dwells in the "mechanics of poetry" and very little in the realm of consciousness, either individual or societal. A simple sharing of the stage (or internet) with other poets is essentially an aspect of "sharing the work."
Having a holistic vision of the world (that all living things are a part of…even poets), being a close and critical observer of everything around, being as emotionally honest and self-sufficient as possible, keeping the ego in-check, creating not for fame but for passionate self-expression/personal wholeness (which can also serve a broader interest), refusing to suppress "uncomfortable experiences" and thoughts, refusing to homogenize with conventional wisdom or conventional "schools" of poetry (i like to say when in doubt, subvert the paradigm)…these are all exercises and ideas not easily "taught" or transferred via academia for many reasons. It might be useful to examine why this is so.
earth note 62
khanom, thailand
let me taste the early morning light
again
before smoky sunrise mix
distant yellows of a coconut plume
burn
speak seductively sweet
swallowing my words
forgetting the murky river
a charge
coming through the shadows
from who knows where
how
a mother answers the child's question
in the teeter of teak stilts
a balance
earth note 35
bethel, vermont
fog halo granite mountain
the mist tilts east
white river rapids
wild irreverent backwoods chanting
white birch bark peeled away
a trunk of blemishes opened to light
earth note 31
fineview, pittsburgh
a few songbirds have saved the day
just when i thought a cold drizzle
had touched deep in the darkest
of marrow
a gray soup wrung from the hillsides
tension spitting upwind from the ohio
broken city steps become timeless corridors
green agendas
budding sycamore and maple seedlings
creep along the concrete
cardinals and finches shout their venues
of an awakening
forsythia breaking away
for all us local quarry cutters
right at the exit ramp
dropping yellow bell-bottoms
every pothole can testify
if you’re close enough to listen
there’s a halo
that’s been snatched
from those would-be
patricians
us bitter ones
yes!
can see the race for what it is
but like acid to the alkaline
our hands will grow a garden
earth note 44
the mist along the beaver river
leaves a crooked path
for those who follow in its
footsteps
an orange morning cloud is surrounded
by gray ones
may be the face of a seeker
a passion shiftless unfulfilled
in the northwest corner a yellow cumulus cluster
refuses to yield
an altar of its peers speak
from voi-dom
i do not listen
we live by the river and look past
the footprints of yesterday
there's no security
in the old order
asphalt patched concrete
heaving up
from the mantle
pedestals by definition
are abused visions
broken tar
a melting planet
sunflowers
to be borne
Celebrate the Uncontrollable
Poets have died for their words: Federico Garcia Lorca,
Victor Jara, and Ken Saro-Wiwa come to mind. Outright repression of poets is common in many countries (check with Amnesty International for specifics). But the most effective method of suppression and marginalization in the U.S. seems to center around mass media "acceptance" or "disapproval" often involving something close to an incestuous relationship with academia. Community poets, particularly "non-credentialed" ones are creating venues and publications galore, but rarely are recognized in mainstream and academic circles. In a sense, this frees community (including radical and deep green) poets from the pressures and homogenizing trappings of the mainstream. And since poetry as a profession is rarely a subsistence living, the majority of poetry that rages in coffeehouses and bars from coast to coast on any given night, needs only to satisfy the poet, and sometimes the audience. Yet no one should minimize the power of the words and ultimately the artistic influence that springs from the most ignored places, including high schools in broken down neighborhoods, rural hollows, and prisons.
earth note 61
my bucket of words are a pile
of dust
might as well fling them
to the clearcuts
clearfield pennsylvania
broken strip mine draglines
barren hills spread their legs
no seeds to receive
earth note 42
september is a cold river
dying and being born
that bloated highway outta town
of red maple shoulders
to cry on
valleys i wish i could sometimes forget
what brought me back
the mills were dead
(let them rest)
a brown spent monongahela
rolls over the wreckage to the ohio
a rusty railroad trestle picks up acid droplets
lets them eat the deep black primer
of aliquippa
broken ridges slip down to the river
the bass are steadily abandoning
and everywhere evergreens hang on cliffsides
more resilient than the rest of us
earth note 45
something about autumn
that makes me feel so damn
alone
maybe its just the singularity of each tree
becoming leafless
or the japanese water coloring that whispers
quebecois
seeming to know where those
painted cotton clouds are going
and what they mean
i haven't decided
i'm still looking in airports and museums
at every face
for that unintentional gentle love rage
free of judgments
still connected to cave wall brush strokes
of basquiat
a gospel left unspoken
capturing my hollowness and booting it
i look at clouds and wonder if you
have found the answers
**********************************************************
all poems are by e b bortz (ebbortz.blogspot.com) who wishes to acknowledge the following publications:
Whiskey Island, tight, ptrint.org, Green Panda Press, ArtCrimes, Hellbender Journal, Split W*sky, Jawbone, thecitypoetry.com, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, The Exchange
(published in opednews.com, Dec 24, 2010)
(published in greenchange.org, August 2009)
Sunday, April 26, 2009
earth note 124
a heat wave in april
the hummer is dead
gm & chrysler
hands in our pocket
like an unwelcome
feel-up
four deer
came off the ridge
up to the yard
to munch
a dessert
a flower bed
stop lights
have stopped working
just the caution yellow one
won't give up
a flash
a garbled message
--- e b bortz
the hummer is dead
gm & chrysler
hands in our pocket
like an unwelcome
feel-up
four deer
came off the ridge
up to the yard
to munch
a dessert
a flower bed
stop lights
have stopped working
just the caution yellow one
won't give up
a flash
a garbled message
--- e b bortz
Sunday, April 05, 2009
what looks green in april
between chaiya and thachana
surat thani province thailand
can be soothing
or deceiving
when the bicycle road turns hot
& rough
immediately aware
your water
near empty
a lone water buffalo
works distant fields
slow motion haze
draws heavy on the lungs
an oasis of coconut shade
distant
the only reprieve
from the tar & scorch
i collapsed beneath
the tallest ones
on my back the coconut leaves
broke the sky blue into small parts
sun spilled over the leaf edges
but filtered out the harshness
no moisture left
body pores dry
eyes giving up
& drooping
i imagined a waterfall
wake up was a group of teenagers
crossing the road to see the stranger
& without words
a wiry kid shimmies up the tallest tree
slashes down a couple of large coconuts
a hole is cut
we all drink
talk
drink again
coconut milk joins a water bottle
a symbolic send-off
a dozen eyes form a circle
.....sun and spirits speak
.....their own tongue
--- e b bortz
surat thani province thailand
can be soothing
or deceiving
when the bicycle road turns hot
& rough
immediately aware
your water
near empty
a lone water buffalo
works distant fields
slow motion haze
draws heavy on the lungs
an oasis of coconut shade
distant
the only reprieve
from the tar & scorch
i collapsed beneath
the tallest ones
on my back the coconut leaves
broke the sky blue into small parts
sun spilled over the leaf edges
but filtered out the harshness
no moisture left
body pores dry
eyes giving up
& drooping
i imagined a waterfall
wake up was a group of teenagers
crossing the road to see the stranger
& without words
a wiry kid shimmies up the tallest tree
slashes down a couple of large coconuts
a hole is cut
we all drink
talk
drink again
coconut milk joins a water bottle
a symbolic send-off
a dozen eyes form a circle
.....sun and spirits speak
.....their own tongue
--- e b bortz
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Notes from the Greenhouse
Notes from the Greenhouse, Tel Aviv
October, 1991
Cheng was a student from Beijing who had gotten out just in time and had no intentions of going back in the near future. The blood hadn't washed off of Tiananmen Square and never will, but if things ever ease up and people aren't just picked up and beaten, humiliated, and incarcerated for speaking their minds, then maybe she'll return and pick up the pieces of her life, see her family again, and yes, dream and strive for a democratic China.
Dimitri had been living in Israel for two years now, spoke fluently in Hebrew, English, and his natural Russian tongue, but as he approached his thirtieth birthday he was still unable to find a niche in the fast and often rude lifestyle of Tel Aviv. He worked hard at several jobs that had no future, made friends easily, but had his eyes and heart set on moving to the States --- the place of "opportunity." Everyone wished him luck.
The several pairs and small groups of South Africans that passed through the Greenhouse doors brought with them all the variations and colors of that society. Black, Dutch, English --- Christian and Jewish --- their prejudices, anxieties, and dreams found their way into our conversations around a large rectangular wooden table in the common living room. I guess we all learned something from each other.
Cynthia was a beautiful young woman from Singapore who had traveled Europe and Asia as an exchange student, was fluent in Mandarin, English, and French, and who had a character that radiated with the adventure of the remote and compassion for the dispossessed. She trekked through the length and breadth of Israel, saw the best and worst of Jewish and Muslim life, felt a particular closeness to the Christian history, and left with a smile and positive feeling about her experiences. She'll be back.
Eamon wailed away the blues each night along Dizengoff Street near the fountain with his saxophone case open and inviting to the waves of upbeat passersby. He crashed each night at the Greenhouse feeling half-empty from the few shekels he gathered, but more than half-full from the musical expression. A couple of weeks passed and he was on his way back to upstate New York, but not before a short stopover in the streets of Paris.
There was a work ethic and routine of cleanliness at the Greenhouse that made it rather unique among hostels in this part of the world. Be that as it may, it was still a transient place, a quiet place in the midst of a noisy city, a shelter from the storm, a place where you began to think of your next steps and previous steps along your unique pathway, where you thought of the people you had met and the ones you had left, but where life had a way of melting together a most unusual group of people in need of each other, if only for a short time, in a world often too busy or indifferent to feel the human touch.
There was no substitute for being there.
--- e b bortz
Notes from the Greenhouse, Part 2
about eighteen years ago
for several days in a row
the hostel staff
as kind as they were
had to tell me
to get the hell off my bed
leave
for the well advertised five hours
of daily hostel cleanup
it was totally unlike my normal routine
to lay around
moping
i usually got out early
sometimes looking for a temporary job
(impossible)
but often just leaving morning rush-hour
bicycling to the countryside
or to the library
to scribble a few words
thinking
agonizing over what israel
was not
like what was not
fair
like the expropriation
of the cramped beaten streets
soon to be gentrified jaffa
like the dominance of military uniforms
militarism injected into the body of an entire new generation
(except the yeshiva boys of course)
like the newly arrived young ethiopian brothers and sisters
that some ashkenazi israelis swear/assault as they utter
shvartza
(at the ethiopians in their fatigues)
and where palestinians ripped from their homes
and their land
bulldozed into refugee camps and ghettos
in an attempt to smash
their life color
their spirit
like an enemy
like a self-fulfilling prophesy
this was an israel
first-hand
without the makeup
disco jewelry
beach life magazines
but my moping wasn't just social reckoning
sometimes it takes that personal
hurt
to unravel the entire illusion
like a french love flower
that never has a chance
to take root
you end up with
dead hollow leaves
maybe in that emptiness
a greater consciousness grows
and so it did
replacing beach facades
lost luster
haifa to ashqelon
the frame still includes
all those fucking plastic bottles
washed ashore at caesarea
and all the orange groves
of a kibbutzim
dream
i rescheduled a return ticket
to the states
uneasy yet cognizant
of the uncertainty
yet to come
--- e b bortz
Notes from the Greenhouse, Epilogue
It's taken a fast eighteen years to write "Part 2"...even if the whole thing seems like one continuous stream...rapids and all.
The social network of the Greenhouse should be a book in itself...some potent lessons particularly in light of the Israel I see today...it has changed and so have my eyes...the war makers and racists dominate the government in Tel Aviv/Jerusalem bringing me to the embarrassing conclusion that they relish in their fears and sadism...maybe all the way to the abyss...suicide.
When I was very young my image of Israel was formed by the stories of courage of the Jewish fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising during Nazi occupation. Every molotov cocktail thrown at the shiny German uniforms had with it the cries of millions of the dead...millions of oppressed. I gave little thought to the aspirations of Palestinians who were destroyed in the land between the river and the sea when the "two states" were mandated...the hundreds of thousands of indigenous people brutally driven from their homes, schools, olive groves...and the many who died with their dreams in refugee camps.
Someday, there will be peace in the contiguous land from the river to the sea, that will live cooperatively, with "one person / one vote"...and for those that refuse to accept this simple premise...maybe they'll leave and hopefully take their fears with them.
--- e b bortz
(Notes from the Greenhouse, Tel Aviv previously published in
Golden Triangle, 1992 and Voices of a Wanderer, 1993)
October, 1991
Cheng was a student from Beijing who had gotten out just in time and had no intentions of going back in the near future. The blood hadn't washed off of Tiananmen Square and never will, but if things ever ease up and people aren't just picked up and beaten, humiliated, and incarcerated for speaking their minds, then maybe she'll return and pick up the pieces of her life, see her family again, and yes, dream and strive for a democratic China.
Dimitri had been living in Israel for two years now, spoke fluently in Hebrew, English, and his natural Russian tongue, but as he approached his thirtieth birthday he was still unable to find a niche in the fast and often rude lifestyle of Tel Aviv. He worked hard at several jobs that had no future, made friends easily, but had his eyes and heart set on moving to the States --- the place of "opportunity." Everyone wished him luck.
The several pairs and small groups of South Africans that passed through the Greenhouse doors brought with them all the variations and colors of that society. Black, Dutch, English --- Christian and Jewish --- their prejudices, anxieties, and dreams found their way into our conversations around a large rectangular wooden table in the common living room. I guess we all learned something from each other.
Cynthia was a beautiful young woman from Singapore who had traveled Europe and Asia as an exchange student, was fluent in Mandarin, English, and French, and who had a character that radiated with the adventure of the remote and compassion for the dispossessed. She trekked through the length and breadth of Israel, saw the best and worst of Jewish and Muslim life, felt a particular closeness to the Christian history, and left with a smile and positive feeling about her experiences. She'll be back.
Eamon wailed away the blues each night along Dizengoff Street near the fountain with his saxophone case open and inviting to the waves of upbeat passersby. He crashed each night at the Greenhouse feeling half-empty from the few shekels he gathered, but more than half-full from the musical expression. A couple of weeks passed and he was on his way back to upstate New York, but not before a short stopover in the streets of Paris.
There was a work ethic and routine of cleanliness at the Greenhouse that made it rather unique among hostels in this part of the world. Be that as it may, it was still a transient place, a quiet place in the midst of a noisy city, a shelter from the storm, a place where you began to think of your next steps and previous steps along your unique pathway, where you thought of the people you had met and the ones you had left, but where life had a way of melting together a most unusual group of people in need of each other, if only for a short time, in a world often too busy or indifferent to feel the human touch.
There was no substitute for being there.
--- e b bortz
Notes from the Greenhouse, Part 2
about eighteen years ago
for several days in a row
the hostel staff
as kind as they were
had to tell me
to get the hell off my bed
leave
for the well advertised five hours
of daily hostel cleanup
it was totally unlike my normal routine
to lay around
moping
i usually got out early
sometimes looking for a temporary job
(impossible)
but often just leaving morning rush-hour
bicycling to the countryside
or to the library
to scribble a few words
thinking
agonizing over what israel
was not
like what was not
fair
like the expropriation
of the cramped beaten streets
soon to be gentrified jaffa
like the dominance of military uniforms
militarism injected into the body of an entire new generation
(except the yeshiva boys of course)
like the newly arrived young ethiopian brothers and sisters
that some ashkenazi israelis swear/assault as they utter
shvartza
(at the ethiopians in their fatigues)
and where palestinians ripped from their homes
and their land
bulldozed into refugee camps and ghettos
in an attempt to smash
their life color
their spirit
like an enemy
like a self-fulfilling prophesy
this was an israel
first-hand
without the makeup
disco jewelry
beach life magazines
but my moping wasn't just social reckoning
sometimes it takes that personal
hurt
to unravel the entire illusion
like a french love flower
that never has a chance
to take root
you end up with
dead hollow leaves
maybe in that emptiness
a greater consciousness grows
and so it did
replacing beach facades
lost luster
haifa to ashqelon
the frame still includes
all those fucking plastic bottles
washed ashore at caesarea
and all the orange groves
of a kibbutzim
dream
i rescheduled a return ticket
to the states
uneasy yet cognizant
of the uncertainty
yet to come
--- e b bortz
Notes from the Greenhouse, Epilogue
It's taken a fast eighteen years to write "Part 2"...even if the whole thing seems like one continuous stream...rapids and all.
The social network of the Greenhouse should be a book in itself...some potent lessons particularly in light of the Israel I see today...it has changed and so have my eyes...the war makers and racists dominate the government in Tel Aviv/Jerusalem bringing me to the embarrassing conclusion that they relish in their fears and sadism...maybe all the way to the abyss...suicide.
When I was very young my image of Israel was formed by the stories of courage of the Jewish fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising during Nazi occupation. Every molotov cocktail thrown at the shiny German uniforms had with it the cries of millions of the dead...millions of oppressed. I gave little thought to the aspirations of Palestinians who were destroyed in the land between the river and the sea when the "two states" were mandated...the hundreds of thousands of indigenous people brutally driven from their homes, schools, olive groves...and the many who died with their dreams in refugee camps.
Someday, there will be peace in the contiguous land from the river to the sea, that will live cooperatively, with "one person / one vote"...and for those that refuse to accept this simple premise...maybe they'll leave and hopefully take their fears with them.
--- e b bortz
(Notes from the Greenhouse, Tel Aviv previously published in
Golden Triangle, 1992 and Voices of a Wanderer, 1993)
Sunday, March 22, 2009
six years
and still counting
corpses lost in statistical aberations
trivial bullshit dished out
and consumed
still
while the larger question
of war criminal behavior
(and behaviorists)
are uncontested
sure
if you bury the evidence deep enough
in the washington consensus
the path may go cold
but for the memories
of the millions of witnesses
too many to ignore
too many screams
that carry with it
the burden of truth telling
in a cradle of the next generation
there may be justice
--- e b bortz
Monday, March 16, 2009
earth note 123
circa 1980
hart prairie snowfall
came early november
the year we moved to flagstaff
the peaks rose with aspen
for three-fourths their vertical
we broke our ski trail
first on the prairie
then to the gradual contours
mysteries
deep into the mountain spirits
my four sons were old enough to walk miles
so when we gathered up cross-country skis
from our minnesota days
and headed to the prairie
there was the anticipation of new adventure
friday after thanksgiving day
the sun had instances of being dominant
yet the cold was sufficient to keep the snow
powder
and every swoosh had the lightest of glide
the ski almost lifted itself
for the next step
loggers had cleared whole tracts
from the lower elevations
but by the time we climbed
into the ponderosa and aspen groves
quiet took over
our own breathing
a rhythm
our ignorance deprived us
of the hopi and navajo stories
from the mountain
yet anyone who ventured there
intuitively felt the presence
of something much greater
than themselves
as we did
for ancestors all come from the same
mothers and fathers of africa
about the time we reached the tree line
voices and a few screeches
drifted over the mountain
seems we had invaded the downhill ski resort
in our not-chic guerrilla clothing
no-pay ski pass
crashing the toll gate
my sons all smiled mischief
i did nothing to discourage them
we would return many times
to the peaks over hart prairie
each season with its
unique angle
on the light
shepherded by footsteps
of the seekers
unbound in the trails
not yet followed
--- e b bortz
hart prairie snowfall
came early november
the year we moved to flagstaff
the peaks rose with aspen
for three-fourths their vertical
we broke our ski trail
first on the prairie
then to the gradual contours
mysteries
deep into the mountain spirits
my four sons were old enough to walk miles
so when we gathered up cross-country skis
from our minnesota days
and headed to the prairie
there was the anticipation of new adventure
friday after thanksgiving day
the sun had instances of being dominant
yet the cold was sufficient to keep the snow
powder
and every swoosh had the lightest of glide
the ski almost lifted itself
for the next step
loggers had cleared whole tracts
from the lower elevations
but by the time we climbed
into the ponderosa and aspen groves
quiet took over
our own breathing
a rhythm
our ignorance deprived us
of the hopi and navajo stories
from the mountain
yet anyone who ventured there
intuitively felt the presence
of something much greater
than themselves
as we did
for ancestors all come from the same
mothers and fathers of africa
about the time we reached the tree line
voices and a few screeches
drifted over the mountain
seems we had invaded the downhill ski resort
in our not-chic guerrilla clothing
no-pay ski pass
crashing the toll gate
my sons all smiled mischief
i did nothing to discourage them
we would return many times
to the peaks over hart prairie
each season with its
unique angle
on the light
shepherded by footsteps
of the seekers
unbound in the trails
not yet followed
--- e b bortz
Saturday, March 14, 2009
earth note 122
marshall trail pittsburgh
winds left their mark this year
snapping off the tops
of the aged ones --- oak and maple
tumbled hillside limbs
barren open arms
dark rich fertile leaf bed
spreads the wealth
egalitarian
wonder
--- e b bortz
winds left their mark this year
snapping off the tops
of the aged ones --- oak and maple
tumbled hillside limbs
barren open arms
dark rich fertile leaf bed
spreads the wealth
egalitarian
wonder
--- e b bortz
Monday, March 09, 2009
earth note 121
i squeezed into a tee-shirt fifteen years old
from the bottom of my clutter
that shows a bold pack of grey wolves
(aka timber wolves)
howling at the sky
they didn't ask the executive branch
of the federal government
for permission
and i'm sure there are a shit-load
of right-wingers
cool-aid drinkers
and even some left-wingers
who are cheering
(or complacent)
about the obama administration
de-listing
of northern rocky grey wolves
from the endangered species list
maybe it'll bring back those raucous years
when cross-country skiers
and snowmobilers
had pitched battles over the trails
in the boundary waters of minnesota
while the grey wolves just kinda laid back
watched it all
cheered on their home team
i still think about
one very early a.m.
when grey wolf
the size of a great dane
crossed the road before me
and waved his thin majestic head upward
as to say
his habitat was not for sale
freedom.....courage
are not commodities
--- e b bortz
from the bottom of my clutter
that shows a bold pack of grey wolves
(aka timber wolves)
howling at the sky
they didn't ask the executive branch
of the federal government
for permission
and i'm sure there are a shit-load
of right-wingers
cool-aid drinkers
and even some left-wingers
who are cheering
(or complacent)
about the obama administration
de-listing
of northern rocky grey wolves
from the endangered species list
maybe it'll bring back those raucous years
when cross-country skiers
and snowmobilers
had pitched battles over the trails
in the boundary waters of minnesota
while the grey wolves just kinda laid back
watched it all
cheered on their home team
i still think about
one very early a.m.
when grey wolf
the size of a great dane
crossed the road before me
and waved his thin majestic head upward
as to say
his habitat was not for sale
freedom.....courage
are not commodities
--- e b bortz
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
earth note 120
a bicycle wheel that's trued
doesn't guarantee
a soft or especially
free ride
but do it anyway
for all the coal parts
that break sunlight
pay-me-later fly-ash dust
a fool lung repeats
clean coal
coughs
to fuel crash of stock
illusion
the old methods aren't working
but if you can dig a garden
i'll bring you water
--- e b bortz
doesn't guarantee
a soft or especially
free ride
but do it anyway
for all the coal parts
that break sunlight
pay-me-later fly-ash dust
a fool lung repeats
clean coal
coughs
to fuel crash of stock
illusion
the old methods aren't working
but if you can dig a garden
i'll bring you water
--- e b bortz
Thursday, February 19, 2009
earth note 119
key west
green gulf and sundown
has an expression
most would say
is the beauty of the moment
when seduced by observers and advocates
uniqueness can become routine
uneventful
the crash of the waves is all about inertia
the sun's pitch is one of determination
the boats strutting about
nothing short of showing off
a certain arrogance
being tuned in comes with
silence
a crash of orange
a pelican watching the water
then diving
--- e b bortz
green gulf and sundown
has an expression
most would say
is the beauty of the moment
when seduced by observers and advocates
uniqueness can become routine
uneventful
the crash of the waves is all about inertia
the sun's pitch is one of determination
the boats strutting about
nothing short of showing off
a certain arrogance
being tuned in comes with
silence
a crash of orange
a pelican watching the water
then diving
--- e b bortz
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
earth note 118
key west
the blue heaven has become
so damn chic
unlike the endless wild old days
before hotel plunder
lined A1A
now shoveling the homeless & poets
against the tides
neoliberal forget-me-not
singing green parrots
i'm still hopin' fat tueday's cajun band
will get us off our asses
break the sound barrier
the military choppers
seem to dominate now
let one human family
(the mantra of key west)
include every outcast desperado
from maine and pennsylvania
who inched their way south
like caterpillars
hoping only to bloom
like monarchs
far from the rust and wasted horizons
abandoned workshops
empty rails
yesterday's broken promises
have lived out their usefulness
tomorrow is for the dreamers
--- e b bortz
the blue heaven has become
so damn chic
unlike the endless wild old days
before hotel plunder
lined A1A
now shoveling the homeless & poets
against the tides
neoliberal forget-me-not
singing green parrots
i'm still hopin' fat tueday's cajun band
will get us off our asses
break the sound barrier
the military choppers
seem to dominate now
let one human family
(the mantra of key west)
include every outcast desperado
from maine and pennsylvania
who inched their way south
like caterpillars
hoping only to bloom
like monarchs
far from the rust and wasted horizons
abandoned workshops
empty rails
yesterday's broken promises
have lived out their usefulness
tomorrow is for the dreamers
--- e b bortz
Friday, January 16, 2009
earth note 117
frozen river memory
tho the cracking is real
and not recent
joining the rest of my narrow
historical bag of references
i've swallowed hard
shouldering skis
i hide above rolling green hills
abundance
cloaking misnamed urban definitions
from riviere des prairies/francophone/anglophone
.....hegemony
(aboriginals shoved again to the wind)
watching every north-bound empty rail
of silent whistles
prods another voice
.....upon and within
your last touch
cold
now
--- e b bortz
tho the cracking is real
and not recent
joining the rest of my narrow
historical bag of references
i've swallowed hard
shouldering skis
i hide above rolling green hills
abundance
cloaking misnamed urban definitions
from riviere des prairies/francophone/anglophone
.....hegemony
(aboriginals shoved again to the wind)
watching every north-bound empty rail
of silent whistles
prods another voice
.....upon and within
your last touch
cold
now
--- e b bortz
Sunday, January 04, 2009
sand sculptures from gaza
touched by a hundred brown hands
beach figures gently formed
loving forms
of adolescence
like in santa monica or the jersey shore
the grit of a shared future
possible?
who knows
deferred
neath the crush of tanks and boots and shrapnel
kicked in and dispersed
piling up with the shattered doors of baghdad
& all the complicit baseless doublespeak
replacing the justice
of reasoning
--- e b bortz
beach figures gently formed
loving forms
of adolescence
like in santa monica or the jersey shore
the grit of a shared future
possible?
who knows
deferred
neath the crush of tanks and boots and shrapnel
kicked in and dispersed
piling up with the shattered doors of baghdad
& all the complicit baseless doublespeak
replacing the justice
of reasoning
--- e b bortz
Friday, December 12, 2008
earth note 116
this might not fit here
after all
the ground we claim as habitat
has no owners
under whose ‘authority’
is it claimed?
(who won the last war?)
(which village was massacred?)
this so-called poem
has about as much ‘right’
to ownership
as your friendly or unfriendly
corporate personhood instrument
wall street or main street
notwithstanding
dogma won’t convince
my dog
or doggerel
that he isn’t a rightful owner
--- e b bortz
after all
the ground we claim as habitat
has no owners
under whose ‘authority’
is it claimed?
(who won the last war?)
(which village was massacred?)
this so-called poem
has about as much ‘right’
to ownership
as your friendly or unfriendly
corporate personhood instrument
wall street or main street
notwithstanding
dogma won’t convince
my dog
or doggerel
that he isn’t a rightful owner
--- e b bortz
Thursday, November 20, 2008
hope
we haven’t forgotten
what it takes to make
real change
come out of the mist
look for the sun
trailing off as it does
without asking permission
a lesson from the high desert:
a motionless prairie dog
bold
but just coy enough
to stay alive
standing erect & noticed
on the interstate
vanishing
like a shifty dust twister
hope is not a stupor
but its antithesis
leave the dirt on your hands
bring it with you
--- e b bortz
what it takes to make
real change
come out of the mist
look for the sun
trailing off as it does
without asking permission
a lesson from the high desert:
a motionless prairie dog
bold
but just coy enough
to stay alive
standing erect & noticed
on the interstate
vanishing
like a shifty dust twister
hope is not a stupor
but its antithesis
leave the dirt on your hands
bring it with you
--- e b bortz
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
post-election rising
we may live in the belly of one
but there really are no ‘beasts’
(the word applies only to humans)
each fear has been designed & built
on a previous one
sometimes a small candle
is enough to make
bottomless dark
light
call it non-negotiable
containers forever overflowing
can’t spill into mediocrity
broken streets
filled with feet
tears
hands of candleholders
will rise
--- e b bortz
but there really are no ‘beasts’
(the word applies only to humans)
each fear has been designed & built
on a previous one
sometimes a small candle
is enough to make
bottomless dark
light
call it non-negotiable
containers forever overflowing
can’t spill into mediocrity
broken streets
filled with feet
tears
hands of candleholders
will rise
--- e b bortz
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