earth note 273

brown leaves have been lying
building a decay
since the fall
even as the traffic
passes for concern
what's gray above
is really the afterlife
there's no sadness
in any of this
what is
is
existence ain't necessarily
existential
in fact it's all way beyond
my comprehension
but when the wind speaks
     i listen

--- e b bortz

enigma

what's buried in the sand
collapses at high noon
as you dig deeper

and so the answers to all questions

will have that iridescent covering
just out of reach

even as you've committed

to the dig
the tide will shift

and you'll start again

--- e b bortz

(published by Green Panda Press, Mar 7, 2014)

heading north

road dust
lays down
a re-entry path
     procrastination
is the best i can muster
the cold will come & break
     your bones
     will answer
if there's a sun
to be had
    train your eyes
    for the arc

--- e b bortz

earth note 272

big torch key

when big torch goes down
a pattern left in the foreground
leaves the mangrove
to shift for itself
explaining in detail
every coral fragment
shadowing every striped grunt
where even a secret gesture
     will be noted
          & acknowledged

--- e b bortz

beaks & seagrass polemic

we can learn from the beaks
     no hierarchy
     no billboards
(don't tell me about pecking order
     there are no armies involved)
sharing a tide
is what's obvious

--- e b bortz

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

earth note 271

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

finally

the clouds shift
giving the sun
stardom
& a grand entrance
bouncing off the water
getting the attention of the cormorants
looking skyward
like a choir

--- e b bortz

state of the union chemical poisoning

the pipelines & holding tanks
are never empty
poised to fill & dispense
another lethal dose
so depended on
like an inrush of new capital
to the fossil industrial complex
breaking down a body's natural resistance
as the migrating waters
move toward death
     don't say the consequences
     are never perceived
     when the spin doctors
     call it investing

and as the old pipes fail

new ones
become a seamless weld
asphyxiating a land
once breathing
tissue once living
lungs forgetting
their instinctive function
     abandoned
     to leafless miles

without homage
without home

--- e b bortz

(published in firedoglake.com, Jan 31, 2014)

ego check

grab that pneumatic jackhammer
     and take it to the pedestal

has your body ever rumbled like that

     become a part of the broken concrete

in every pedestal

     a coming reckoning

--- e b bortz

earth note 270

fast moving water
through the culvert
beneath the road
kept the fish schooled
to a small space
against a rock wall
like leaning on each other
for warmth
mingling close to deep-rooted
mangrove legs
a crab holds on
     like an outsider

--- e b bortz

the census takers in florida

climb through the mangroves
in the keys
barging in and counting
every homeless person
they run in to
     i can imagine some folks
     saying
     you counted me already
     yesterday
     over on big torch
now get lost      i’m fishing

and what about that kayak

out in kemp channel
maybe that’s another domicile

by now

with all the homeless people
i’d bet the bureaucrats have resorted
to wildlife methods
of aerial reconnaissance
& extrapolation
     maybe that was what
     those noisy
     low flying choppers
     were a few days ago
     or maybe they’re just practicing

and with all the college graduates
out of work
of course the pool
is plenty big
if you have a sharp pencil
good boots
& insect repellent

--- e b bortz

from borders & resources & means of production

millions have gone missing
breaking apart
into simple earthly elements
left after life
detached
of family and nations
     one
     with nature
no longer in servitude
nor exploited by power
     indoctrination by factory
     collective and non-collective    
the great melting pot
     an illusion
     a tool
     finds itself empty

from hands and tongues

     unbound imaginations
          plant traces
          leave discreet trails    
          unmapped
          distinct in every pupil and iris
     from the inner ear
     a song
     becomes an amplifier

and a soul found
becomes liberated

--- e b bortz  

crossing paths

it seemed odd that
the adulterous wife by camus
would cross paths
with a cabana table
of french speakers
on sombrero beach
marathon florida
     call it serendipity
french tongues landing
from quebec
just as the page turns
on the wife
slipping out from her husband’s bed
running through the night
weaving through the narrow streets
and burnooses
to lie down on the highest floor
of a fort
in 1950s algeria
her arms wide open
breathing at last
with the stars
and cold stone walls

--- e b bortz

 

how to revoke a corporate charter

start by spelling
4-methylcyclohexane methanol
remember
‘freedom’
industries
‘clean’
coal

remember

fly ash tailings
retention pond disaster
(december 22, 2008 roane county tennessee)

if you can’t smell licorice in the elk river

or see an oil slick
it doesn’t mean everything’s o.k.

learn to smell out the scoundrels

poison comes in many forms

political       even human
poison has its own timeline

coffers overflowing
on election day
what did it get you

a rash of migraines and nausea

help out the unaware

and the children
and the forgetful
and the folks of other languages

we are all

canaries in the mine

--- e b bortz

(published in opednews.com, Jan 14, 2014)

earth note 269

south wind fills the wooden flute
like a song is universal
lips move in unison
     taste
the dampness
vibrato
of the channel

--- e b bortz

from the new surveillance revelations

it's clear that every key stroke
ever acted on
or maybe even
thought on
has found a hole
to be placed in
the vast storage underground
of the great equalizer
rubbing shoulders
with the infamous
glamorous
     even entire football teams
     some coming up just short
     of the playoffs
the embittered
and eternal optimists
all strewn
through the sea
of no redemption
nihilism of a red-white-blue face
all predicted by the great minds
     ignored by power
     forever eating
     its own siblings

--- e b bortz

(published in opednews.com, Dec 31, 2013)

earth note 268

rain swept in from the north
     it left nothing untouched
fronds losing their composure
cutting in the wind
slicing coconuts
in a storm that surprises
     even the path it takes
until bottoming out
in the coral shallows
both sides
of ocean highway
taking a breath
sighing
waiting
for another pass

--- e b bortz

christmas in the keys...camus & rebellion

if you stay true to the scientific method
not of the technocrats
but of the pureness
of the mindscape
it will be clear
even on a midnight clear
that yesterday's revolutionary
is today's banality
all the way back to the early christians
and then on to 
de sade        marx lenin stalin mao
     opening space for jimmy buffett & endless sunsets
the end of history
the end of progress
the last of the rebel poets vanquished
from plato's republic
rejecting the rejectionists
     noble
as an aboriginal rebel poet
     & migrating millions
     driven from a breathing land
     all of whom
     the great philosopher left out
like a lost pod of short-finned pilot whales
dying in the shallows
off snipe point

camus reminds us that
the rebel is no
vanguardist professional revolutionary secret police apparatchik
with show trials and executions and drones and nsa technology
     no
but the simple spirit of
a resister
a worker
a jesus
     what's forgotten
is life
beyond the confines of dogma & man
as it struggles with burning seas
forest fragments weeping
at no-freeway no-exits
     where synthesis
     & honoring a pelican
is no wisdom of luxury
where nonviolence & noncompliance
in a new world order
of new moneychangers
might at last
be salvation

--- e b bortz

so the winter solstice

passed over our collective bodies again
     leaving scars from the year
of the snake
who will witness
even in the darkness of the longest night
the death of thousands
     by war      starvation      disease
from the hand of one abuser
     there's the enabling of another
from an empty vault
there's no space for empathy
     recurring cries of the evicted
     are dismissed in the silence
          of the noise

--- e b bortz

earth note 267

a northeast wind
in the florida keys
is like a distant cousin
of a new england nor'easter
related but never acknowledged
by the family
their steadiness & eruptions similar
even fifty degrees apart
the eventual rains
like a bloodline
of opposites
growing
fading
in their own path

--- e b bortz

warsh (wash) day

climbed up a ladder today
close to half the elevation
of little torch key
(o.k. some of the key might be below sea-level)
just to re-attach a clothes line

problem was of course
the ladder was too short
for an average height
so a piece of rebar
had to substitute
to give my arms
that extra two feet needed
to fling the pulley
over the hook on the pole

after a couple of tries
the pulley made a perfect landing
with still enough sun
for another
load of clothes
     i vote to forgo that
     today
     & instead pay homage
     find a new spot
     & watch the sunset

--- e b bortz

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

half a highway story

about the time
we split-up hitchhiking
near toledo
on the ohio turnpike
the afternoon was droopy
sinking like a last gasp
of summer
1965

we took our turns
at the entrance ramp
     finally
     each of us being singly
     picked up & thrown
     down the highway
some miles closer to chicago
what seemed like incremental lapses
passing thru the rain and darkest
of indiana

the steel mills of gary & east chicago
rose to meet a glimpse of dawn
beneath an acid sky
my ride      a salesman downing the last
of his jim beam whiskey
disguising his condition
     i've often thought many times
whether death of a salesman
unrelated as it might be
ever met him halfway

not sure how i found a commuter train
to the west side of chicago
in time to make a meeting
but it happened
just that way

and even if
i was late
(oddly each of us arrived minutes apart)
     certainly
     the revolution would
     go on without us

--- e b bortz

earth note 266

on state road 4A
the seagulls have occupied
the osprey nest
at the top of the utility pole
screeching
squawking
for reinforcements

a shoulder on the bridge
crossing torch key channel
blacktopped & open again
with creamy gray jersey barrier
pre-cast concrete guard rails
a bicycle's view
is not for sale

away from the highway
middle torch key
its subterranean roots
become big torch key
mangroves almost seamless
'cept for a left turn

quiet as a pelican's glide

--- e b bortz

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

at nineteen

a friend told me
she wouldn't wait
for me to grow up
and figure out
what i wanted in life

and she didn't

& my question was
and still is
what's the hurry
is everything so
goddamn plain
that the roadmap
you have stuck
behind your eyebrows
will somehow fade
and be unrecognizable
if you just floated along
for a while more
looking more
closely
at the terrain
outside of
yourself
thinking more deeply
might just be
a revolution in itself
bringing forward an unexpected
revelation
not just another crescendo
or dousing
of your inner heat
like a transaction
     you never intended

--- e b bortz

earth note 265

desperate jellyfish
cashing in their
credit default swaps
at money key channel
something like defending their turf
throwing some stingers
from the floor
of the kayak shallows
     out of sandbars
     & camouflage seagrass
     arms & legs take some hits
reminding all
to poke around gently
when you're in someone else's house

--- e b bortz

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

morning in paradise

i'm going to stop moving
for a minute
and see if this
love pain
from a past life
will move on
if not
i guess i'll just have to
find new motions
carve a new trail
past the beer cans & houses
snap a few more nature pictures
crank the pedals without letup
cover the kayak in the mangrove
face the anger of the wind
     the vision of the osprey

--- e b bortz

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

earth note 264

light green
to dark blue
to light green again
until the sky and sea
meet at the horizon
some scattered clouds
drop their secrets
directly on your feet
bury themselves
in every grain of sand

--- e b bortz

three months

is a window
opening to the sea
though
i'm trying my best
to not see it
like a schedule
creating seems
like unwrapping
a box of dreams
which may not
always jump out
& take the form
you first imagined

if the breeze
has the strength
to turn over
or reverse a tide
surely words
will breathe
in and out
as the spirit
moves them

--- e b bortz

untitled again

the gap
at the old bahia honda bridge
     a section surgically removed
seems to parallel a void
i keep flashing back to
years in the making
emptiness is a process
that i'll never give up on
in it
are the bare essentials
driving the mind
to touch new limits

--- e b bortz

earth note 263

heat returns from the mangrove
in the form of a tortoise
every deliberate step
a body of work

pavement starts suddenly
like the crazy ingrate
revving his engine
in the afternoon

bicycles pass
from a cluster of coconuts
silent water
waves

--- e b bortz

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

earth note 262

little torch key

nothing divides the atlantic
from the gulf
as the last of the darkness
shrouds two-thirds
of the moon
north wind-torn
black water murmurs
nothing is still
the big dipper
has lost a leg
moorings strain
boats hang on

--- e b bortz

long highways

always seem
to bring on loneliness
     unlike the landscape or destiny promised
concrete & engines provoke the void
     as the void leads to tunnels
     tunnels stripping life
     right off the trees
          a startling opening
          a gambit
          with no opponent

--- e b bortz

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

critique

poems are emotions
i don't need footnotes
alienation
love
the planet
politics
it can be scratched into a wall
or it can bring a wall down

--- e b bortz
 
(published in opednews.com, Nov 15, 2013)

foresight

i've come to despise
the word
inevitable
mistrust all its promises and despair
hot summers of love
growing out of scoundrel times
iron heels
lopsided & skewing
every new fashion statement
there are hidden agendas
in the pastels
forbidden colors
that warm you up
pick you up
off the park bench
to escape
the bone chilling rains of autumn
getting you down
on this day
on any given day
there'll be a thousand voices
coming at-cha
about the great coming
     choose your own inevitable

--- e b bortz

impatience leads

like there might not be
an escape
or a next

and the politicians blow out
one more fracking scheme

and the regiment of schemers
grows in the up-tick of the dow

and even on a cloudless day
the sun sneaks off before awakening

and the bus riders step off in town
with strollers and blank stares from the street

and when night finally ellipses light
a million more stars have gone missing

when the eyes
have it
be sure & open them wide

--- e b bortz

(published in opednews.com, Nov 7, 2013)
(published in firedoglake.com, Nov 8, 2013)

earth note 261

when the crows speak
it's usually with an exclamation point
& a bright contrast between black & autumn gold
nothing is
as it appears
on a postcard
even from the glut of cyber sound
     the wind simply responds
     with a change in direction
     sometimes too small to measure
just before the sparrows leave the wires
     you know the crows will say it all
          and after every pause
               more cries

--- e b bortz