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

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

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

Ecology and Consciousness, 1998

my article in Synthesis/Regeneration 15, Winter 1998:

http://www.greens.org/s-r/15/15-10.html

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

Confronting the G20

my article in Green Pages, Oct 2009.

copy and paste this link:

https://greenpagesnews.org/confronting-the-g20/

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

poets on the loose

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

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

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)

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

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

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

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

david castleman / dusty dog reviews 1994

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)

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

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

poetry without walls 2009

poster by
Adam Brodsky

head frazzled video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNDlvQqvmM4

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)

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

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

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)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

earth note 115

grand canyon winter 1979

fog held steady on the north rim
wondering if my footing
down the south rim
would be any better
than jimmy carter’s freefall
dragging descent to the edge
revenge induced vietnam war criminals
gave hustlers their sleight of hand
faking populist economic culture claptrap
effectively covering a bare-assed fascism
in ronald reagan g e scripture

halfway down the bright angel trail
the mules came thumping up
worked me over to the canyon wall
passing
like night shift miners
just shy of the light

and the growth that jumped from the rocks
had an evergreen
poking up like a scarecrow
making it’s own horizon
giving the eagles
a good enough reason
to move on

--- e b bortz

pundits

& establishment pols
foisted on an angry population
eating it raw
throwing it up
packaging & sending rationalizations
to the unsuspecting
this is full-tilt boogie
breakdown
a weave of our blood dollars
into frazzled hair transplants
new hairdos & ass lifts
ego & machines stay oiled
.....the city burns

--- e b bortz

since this is pittsburgh

let’s just start with comic relief
& say
there’s a little w-a-r-sh
in the middle of every wash
& sunflowers never take on
a normal life span
& poetry in lieu of rent
won’t cut it
& all those billions dumped to the bankers
won’t stop those oil tankers from floating
toward the edge (nor bring those steel jobs back)
& yes
the abyss might be a state of mind
but real souls
have choices
only the forest knows
and the calling
comes when we least
expect it
& every lonesome ride
to the border
must be a beginning

--- e b bortz

photos by Sandra L Hazley

embellishing a weird dream

my passport was stolen
from the backseat of my van
a hidden place violated
and in its place
an expired passport of a guy
born in 1922
(let him remain anonymous)
though his thick brown moustache
could give him away

and there’s more:
right rear wheel was gone
van creaked left on a scissors-jack
spare tire walked
or never was

scene two:
a dozen of us marching
up centre avenue on the sidewalk
signs say stop police violence
a motorcycle cop
buzzes over with a cold tense look
ultimately
peels away without word

it was the centre avenue before
urban removal
people actually sitting on their stoops
watching us......not quite believing
we were pale gray
tho our banners
many colors

destination a bushy hilltop
known as sugar hill
we scatter what time is left
for dreams imagined
& real

--- e b bortz

earth note 114

ohio river trail across from bruno island

goose shit
green spread
surveillance new sodium pink lights
like eyeballs
semi-renovated hundred-year prison
hand-built twenty-eight foot stone walls
in-tact
for new tasks
gray homeland security suv
circling.....more eyeballs
occasionally a shout from inside
interrupts goose & duck squawk
the only protests of record
steel bridge swaying aching coal cars
twenty-first century arthritis
looking for another fix

--- e b bortz

earth note 113

breakneck ridge near portersville pennsylvania

a grassy plateau
rolls right up
to a synthetic fabric tent
all but forgetting the forest canopy
& cool musty cave
just below the outcrop
.....long after primeval animal skins
.....formed a lean-to

the lightning drove deep
into moistened loam belly
everything that was moving
.....stopped
.....diving low
.....still

it’s always been this way

--- e b bortz

red dust still stirred

in the winter of ‘76
though the north hibbing minnesota
rich iron ore pit was abandoned
just the cold remained
one eye closed
on north country blues
while the other one
joined the wanderers & work seekers
a beginning still hard to describe
as new
as new as taconite
landing scraggly beards
uprooted back-to-the-landers
in another go around
with the pitch black northern lights
deep tamarack
white pine
poplar sheltered hidden lake
frozen two thirds down

in that year
zimmerman’s bar mitzvah synagogue
still stood on the edge of hibbing
and the old caretaker told us
the story of carrying live chickens
on the streetcar to the rabbi on friday mornings
even in the depression 30s
all of this
from the edge
of the great north woods
three fourths the minnesota distance
to the canada border

nothing was out of place
as steam poured out
from a log shed sauna
the door was supposed
to slam open
with the snow squall
you were expected to take
the short dive into the snow bank

--- e b bortz

empty hands

are the source
of every emotional ritual
nothing to give up
no finger pointing
acceptance
of every element surrounding them
as if the sun and snow
converge
without compromise
cracked joints and missing fingernails
ignored in the greater scheme
no fist.....handshake
or caress
in the act
of opening

--- e b bortz

morning petitioning notes

three iron rangers from minnesota
.....i noticed their t-shirts
from towns just down the road
from our former hardscrabble homestead
nashwauk
a bend in the road not far from the continental divide
now here in pittsburgh
for a steelworkers meeting
bitter about nafta & cafta
worried about their children/grandchildren
country’s crash.....has arrived

yesterday’s papers gave out
a glimpse of fundamental corruption
misappropriation of public funds
to squash ballot access in pennsylvania
for greens & independents

yet the iron rangers we’re split
on how to reject outright
things as they are
yet still safely bury
one’s most inner beliefs
conforming matching pragmatic resignation
sacrifice to the void
of self-censorship

--- e b bortz

ego is considered rational

narrow/personal
(don’t believe it goes beyond that)
self-interest
might be the dirtiest
word
of any language

it’s got us where we’re at
whoopee

id is gone
long live the id

--- e b bortz

(published in The City Poetry, Fall 2008)

complaint dept note 1

heard a few say
their best poems
were processed
by cheap wine
then pissed or puked
into the toilet
forever lost

some
bitch about
all the reviews they never receive
as if poetry is a well-defined
career path
academia mapped
& packaged

then there’s the fucking writer blocks
meticulous constructs
red badge of....
don’t say courage
obviously
more blocks
more walls
still needed

maimstreetmedia
funding grants
corporate jingles
never seduced
lorca
.....died for his poems
yet we complain
about oppression
seemingly
locked in position
on our knees

--- e b bortz

quiet time surat thani thailand

just after morning tea
just before my 6am
walk thru the back streets
on out to the avenue
traffic buzz
i wait for my hour-long
ride to the power plant

srimorn pulls in a firm gentle embrace
i start for the door
wanting immediately to turn back
melt into the teeming brown
chongkasem neighborhood
of her brown hips
or our walk thru downtown markets
& motor scooters

this morning our lips taste
the last cool air
before the heat wave

--- e b bortz

previously flat-roofed porch

roof
is growing cisterns
on the edges
some looking
like long troughs
an inch of water
rests short
of the downspouts
telling us
we should
be collecting and
redistributing
to each according to needs
hoping for three foot sunflowers
before the frost
white pines pushing up
winter wind barriers

still
hard rain & good intentions
won’t get it done

--- e b bortz

asking a big favor

let me know
the minute
you think
i’ve lost
that spark

you’ll know it when you see it

each syllable will struggle
with every other one
broken into too many vowels
filling in where thought
anticipating eyes
emotion once thrived

when it happens
i’ll throw myself
at the altar
embracing thickest maples
walk greenest ridges
straddling alleghenies
soft-needled strapping pines
rounding apache white mountains
frozen lakes deep laurentides
or maybe the hot & humid rubber bounty
trees of khao sok

let me know the minute of transition
i’ll need to find my way there
and back

--- e b bortz

you don't need validation

by a politician
even one you believe in
perceptions of ‘strength’
‘the leader’ has got it
back ass words
your power is in your sweating
belching being
not your allegiance
vanguards authorities conventioneers
can be cut from the same cloth
and cheaply dyed to suit

don’t ask me
ask yourself

--- e b bortz

earth note 112

marshall trail, pittsburgh

via the road from kent ohio
     jawbone
a resurrecting of every voice
in a year
when wilderness brings
each soul
a stage
in spite of oneself

i defer to the spirits of may 4, 1970
from every field & forest
     seeds
    
and the trail canopy
grows rich in spite of
all the awkward intrusions
a broken-hearted doe
     stands quiet
& refuses to run

--- e b bortz

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

--- e b bortz

yonge street refugee toronto

isn’t a put-down
thousands grasp
my own small view
is that it’s a damn good thing
to have a place to run away
to
when iron heel limousines
block the peace bridge on-ramps
i’ll take my kayak north
below the radar
edicts
& new world order
shit-faced enforcers
who will be at a loss
to explain
any laws or rights
that supercede
those grown by generations
of dead patriots

--- e b bortz

head frazzled

loose ends
filling every angle
a line of sight
not to be confused
in revolutionary terms
with a kind of infantilism
can’t stop the sloganeering
popping its blindsided
emotionally sided
overdrawn tissue
cerebellum’s the missing piece
hardcore bank raiders
selling ‘em short
let’s take our margins against the wall
scratch the vault
alley cats
let us in
we’ll share the fire escape
& last refuge
paint the landscape void
a rust of isolation
a river out of here
limping

--- e b bortz

today i stand shiva

at the military recruiting center
for the million iraqis
four thousand americans
limbs & torsos stretched
needlessly upon the death spiral
finishing a fifth year
an appropriate cold rain
& dark silence fills in
where too few bodies
go on breathing

--- e b bortz

(published in khubz, Spring 2008)

is there a way out of this arrogance?

sand creek and wounded knee
my lai
new orleans
fallujah
when will the images
inside shifty bloody pools
become self-evident
crimes against humanity

we’ve become
the culture of silence
‘cept for the flutter
of our own wings

--- e b bortz

central park 1967 summer concert

stevie wonder once again

found harmonica heart

was made to love her

as we loved

marian & me

kendra & franklin

trying to make sense

& dialectics of the whole

two hundred thousand individual bodies

with their own path to enlightenment

without the map makers

& confusion of history

so stevie sang past the pain

to a place

just beyond our reach

yet we reached

to find chills & warmth

all at the same time

the stuff beneath

that makes you understand

how the rain can soothe

even a parched body

--- e b bortz

windless light snowfall

drops straight
clean
putting depth perspective
front & center
three small white pine
coated veil
covers a stoic ice frame

hundred crows pass through

--- e b bortz

poetry without walls 2008

poster by
Adam Brodsky