a simple pledge

refusing to choose
among the trumps&clintons
fire makes ice makes water makes fire
from this cycle
     purgatory

--- e b bortz

when the storm finally comes

watch the tops of the trees
and stay downwind
keep a shovel nearby
dig a hole if you have time
don't worry about phone reception    

there are trails to follow

that lead to the outcrops
after all
your ancestors
were cliff dweller stone masons
not pokemon

the emergency broadcast signal

is a failure to communicate
we shoulda been worrying
about all of this about the time
of the industrial revolution

before going off the high ground

learn to be a sailor
take all precautions
for the high water
there'll be no kayaks
to rent
or steal

don't bother reporting

suspicious activity

--- e b bortz

earth note 427

you think you know
the depths
of a september river
but you forgot
that there is silt
coming up from the floor
stirring free
     clouding your brain 
rising from dormant
like iron ore waste piles
broken up in life
a life just as well
kept hidden
undisturbed
from every dream
left in fragments
     green landings
     just beyond

--- e b bortz

earth note 426

sometimes the prevailing winds
will be less than truthful
sending out false signals
that the sky is clearing

norway spruce and white pine

on the ridge
go limp
waiting

--- e b bortz

earth note 425

big torch key

struts out a few miles

past the highway
its wetlands and inlets
resisting the bullies
old ways and natural decay
merge in the mangroves
egrets & herons
look for cover

--- e b bortz

earth note 424

key west

on the atlantic side

there's an irregular juxtaposition
most notable
between food trucks
heavy in frying
and the expensive hotels
just across the avenue

the ocean

is the common denominator
settling all disputes
as the tide speaks
you will put away
territorial notions
and just listen

once in a while

a group stuffed
in a convertible
will pull up
onto the beachside sidewalk
for photos
and showing off bodies

we're living through

ego mania like it's
a new survival technique
there's no use complaining
i can't rationalize it
'cause i'm part
of the problem

the city streets

are packed
with once-a-year bicycles
i wear my eco stickers
on my bicycle top tube
and believe i'm doing
my part

yes aleppo

that city in syria
is being bombed again
today
refugees flood toward
the ocean
connecting us all

--- e b bortz

sad times indeed

my dad would often say
be the optimist
find the positive
within the negative

i've tried dad

unsuccessfully

fifteen years out

and the planet
is afire
worse than
my dark imagination

water wells

are not running
oil & gas wells
have pushed everything else
to the edge
an abyss
long
in the making

poverty is the

sole identifying
parameter
for what was once
called life

so many wars

the protagonists
haven't even named
them all

the democrat apparatchiks

still blame ralph nader
for speaking truth

the summer of love

is only a rerun
the creatives now
are all in it for the money

trees are afflicted

throwing up their offspring
leaves going directly
from green to dead

a particulate mask

is the new fashion
madison avenue
denies

leaving only

a throat
as a voice
as a statement
as a rant
as a blank sign
to be filled in
as quick as possible

--- e b bortz

earth note 423

unless you live in a mountain chalet
in durango colorado
with a paved driveway
snaking up to your outdoor hot-tub
the dust never really settles
coming up the dirt road by junction creek
up up to the big pines
of the national forest campsites

the dust near sunset

is sepia
giving you faraway thoughts
of green hills
rubber trees
a big buddha on koh samui
in thirty baht flip-flops

the hikers near junction creek

traverse their way to the trailhead
over-compensating their start
in four-wheel drives
and two hundred dollar hiking boots

i tried but failed

to get good pictures
with the dust suspended
from memory

--- e b bortz

 

earth note 422

u.s. route 20, euclid avenue

the only tangible

philosophy
is one that you can hold
in your palms
rub the earth
behind your fingernails
pickup food and pass it along
like daniel
to the folks who
need it most
and then go rest
in lakeview cemetery
i'm sorry i missed
his transition

the planet is filled

with imposters
war machines
built on so many
twisted fears
the leaves are not
camouflage
but life itself
to shade out the bitterness
the rain will come
and wash us all
thorough
if we're so lucky

those are not clouds
but haze
hanging in the gallows
there are no clever
metaphors
when walking alone
every highway
will leave you
thirsty
for another explanation
so you revert
to the things you think
you know

a couple sparrows

are dumpster diving
into the rain gutters
passing their food around
like a potluck commune
sometimes
it's just
that
simple

--- e b bortz

oil boom to dustbowl to fracking rigs & tornadoes

read the history of oklahoma
or let your eyes really open
on its horizon
and it looks like everyone
     except regular folks
have made all the decisions

factory hog farms & feeder lots

chemical fertilizers
& monsanto terminator seeds
pick up what's left
and bury the prairie
and foothills
in shit
& blue green algae

hear the aboriginal drums

     speak
     now listen
          let the buffalo roam

--- e b bortz

earth note 421

ancient pueblo cliff dwellers
stone and mud mortar
reaching high above fertile valleys
cultivating and harvesting
corn beans squash
their secrets held sacred
fire pits and water basins
pottery a practical art
from ten thousand brown hands
living through millennia
pulling in the sun
through time and space

before the europeans plundered

& the rivers dried up

--- e b bortz

 

digital desperados waiting for the library to open

 durango, colorado

coming down

from the san juan mountains
tent campsite with giant pines
clean pit toilets
and good drinking water
but we've been so spoiled
in this digital world
of smart & unsmart phones
cameras
book readers
that coax our imaginations
even beyond the dirt roads
& smoky coal fired steam engines
winding thru the wilderness
to silverton

rain off & on a few times

with & without lightning
thunder rolling last night
shaking everything
'cept the dreams
lodged below the eyelids
the yearning for
a new day coming
in the spirit
of back country hikers
loading down along
the animas river
boulders rushing
marching with their packs
the shadows standing everyone tall
like the pines
melting into the woods
incognito

--- e b bortz

earth note 420

rico colorado
was about to come alive
or go to sleep
when we saw a pizza & bar sign
out near the road
touching our hunger nerves
impulsively
braking & parking
at the side of the two-lane
in the company of a dozen
broken down buildings
a cook sitting out in front
of one of them
that we passed up for the pizza

the bar was old wood

embedded for decades
in beer & shot glasses
and when we ordered
the largest pizza with mushrooms
i can't say the thought
of dying from mushroom poisoning
didn't cross my mind
but of course that's all
long over with
glad to report
death missed us this time

meanwhile

the mountains peek down
on the valleys
in shadowy reverence
we pay homage
each late afternoon
as the aspens become
wind chimes
or prayer wheels

--- e b bortz

earth note 419

so the rock
jack pine
aspen
and oak
markings above the san juan river
forks east and west
ultimately meeting
beneath the rugged faces
of stone
pitched by the sun
always with the sound
     of renewal

--- e b bortz

earth note 418

touch the skin of a cactus
or the needles of a yucca
just once
     the power of a defensive barrier
     like the one we've been waiting for
barricades grow natural
of this earth
may our spirits
pierce the fog
with truth

--- e b bortz

 

earth note 417

great sand dunes colorado

they were here before humans

from the summits
of the great sand dunes
to a foot of rushing water
in a creek now called medano
the calm of morning
can sometimes
make the world come to peace
in spite of itself
without asking for permission
or checking morning stock prices
centuries of hurt
real and never ignored
but without standing
in the sunrise shadows
of the mule deer
this other planet

--- e b bortz

earth note 416

the wheat lands hotel
became the new sunflower inn
sometime before
the great deluge
yes the rainstorm
that flooded the rippled streets
of garden city kansas today
right after the chinese buffet
went from lunch to dinner
and everyone huddled around
the exit doors like they were
waiting for the skies to close
before a replenishment
of hot & sour soup
and the storm sewers
overflowing their capacities
within a famous kansas fifteen minutes
and then of course there was
the tornado in greensburg kansas
in 2007 that everyone remembered
& the ten lives that were cut short
& the plaque that was built
with the names & ages of the deceased
as we read their names just a hundred miles before
straddled by a line of new wind turbines
watching the clash
westerly
by southerly by northern winds
busting loose from the confines
of main street
nonexceptional america
into rolling sheets of water
and brimstone

--- e b bortz

blue green algae july 4th

flowing toward the abyss
up over the fuselages
of the blue angels
braggadocio warp speed
is just a modern day storyline
repeating john philip sousa
brass sections
     marching double-time
     to higher ground

--- e b bortz

earth note 415

from the dreamcatcher
comes the light of memory
clearly buried inside
but at a crossroads
you've been searching for

each texture turns

below the eyelids
bright and dark filters
even the wind
can be heard and touched

an unexplainable place

separated from logic
knowing and not knowing
rational in its limitations
will never see the color id

--- e b bortz

 

history is now

when the youth & the workers took over
the streets of paris in '68

only the top-shelf champagne & chardonnay were worried

when we filled the streets of chicago in '68

to stop the war and the democrat mayor daley war party

only the liberal & left career seekers thought it was the wrong tactic

dick gregory was on the ballot in pennsylvania & he would get

our nonwasted vote

legions of brute force of the state made it clear

we were on the human side of history

as were our brothers & sisters of the '68 prague spring

when civilians face down tanks & bayonets
that's usually recognized

as an end to democracy

all the focus groups might as well fold up
their platforms & side shows

and get ready for the main event

present tense noted

--- e b bortz

an inferno we can't see

burns in our midst
from the inside out
i run
looking for an escape
grabbing a strong branch
lifting the whole
dead body weight
to slip inside the canopy
like camouflage
the sight of smoke now
comes over the hill
     clear now
     even in darkness

--- e b bortz

 

who knocks on your front door

at dusk on a saturday night
trying to sell you a 'whole' package
of phone-internet-tv crap
that we've been busy shedding
like rattlesnakes
(watch our teeth)
as if there's some new electron
waiting to be claimed & resurrected
from the verizon archives
of obsolete machinery

oh yeah

can't wait
for the sunday morning
news
     monday morning
sellouts
and selloffs

--- e b bortz

 

earth note 414

the trees are offering
the only passive resistance
carbon in
oxygen out
repeat until death
do us part

the high rollers

of neoliberal politics
think they've figured out
just the right slogans
to cover the sham
misnamed an election

when it rains later today

it'll be a wash-out
in the broken tradition
of a rush to judgment
or a wall street circle jerk
gone awry

--- e b bortz

earth note 413

on the road
nothing is mundane
setting up and checking
the tent
this morning
in the driveway
still embedded with grit
from last year
before embarking
     a safety ritual
     or quirk of personality
though the zippers seem
to appreciate it
     in their shallow plastic
     that has replaced steel
before being called upon
by hot southwestern winds
petroglyphs and sand dunes
demanding from witnesses
an awareness
still to be written

--- e b bortz

 

earth note 412

circa 1989

lush is a meditation

not a commercial
it will make up
for the thousands of miles
of asphalt
concrete veins you've become

into another world

the rainforest is but
the original domain
that whispers when you thought
it might shout

from the hin lat falls

the flow is still against the tide
as i remember it
and a speculator's grip
can be made to open

if your sweat is genuine

gathering on your neck
and tastes
of mango

--- e b bortz

 

earth note 411

even dusk takes a short time-out
for one last angle of the sun
a yellow reflection stands
with the steel of the water tower
     trees of the ridge
sway in animated green
the river below prepares for darkness
as shadows move deliberately
up the ridge
songbirds take their last solos
     an improvisational ending
     or beginning

--- e b bortz

surviving another inquisition in the age of lesser-evil

the two choices
come down to
keep them all out
deport the ones still breathing
or surge the unintelligible
jackboot paraphernalia modern day
interrogation apparatus
     bone crushing when necessary
turn every self-hating or scared shitless
     subject
into an obedient informer
in the best traditions of monarchy
& authority

blah blah blah

you know how it goes
and ends
in a whimper

--- e b bortz

(published in opednews.com, June 17, 2016)

barely sixteen and in search of a bass clarinet

reggie & i
would venture over to the crawford grill
circa 1964
to catch
the jazz crusaders
or lionel hampton
or sonny rollins
and how did a misplaced teenager
still stuck in soprano clarinet garb
from the northside of pittsburgh
get hooked in as a jazzer
all of this with nothing
but coffee and cigarettes on the table
all of this
except the cigarettes i now deeply regret
is owed to reggie
who would walk a mile
with his standup bass
if there was a gig
to partake in
     for us
the wailing began when we walked
in the door
and the manager nodded to reggie
as we moved toward a quiet booth
in the back of the bar
and we sipped on coffee
for hours like the trance
would never end
and could only be experienced
but never actually described

the world might be coming apart

or shifting off its axis
but sonny rollins' saxophone
was just getting warmed up

--- e b bortz