Watch a performance by Christopher on YouTube.
Telling. Autobiographical. Honest and unashamed. Witty, observant and nostalgic.
Buzz words. Buzzwords. I could fill this page with buzzwords to describe the first published work of Christopher Ethan Burton. They would be accurate, but they would be pale in meaning and be lost in the ocean of milk-toast descriptions. This slim, self-published work deserves, in my humble opinion, a much closer inspection.
Between the covers of this unassuming volume is a microcosm(s). Pulsing through these pages are what I call an alchemical blend that is matter-of-fact punk-rock simplicity combined with rich imagery. Through this medium Mr. Burton creates a vehicle that can transport us to NYC in the 80’s through a child’s eye, dusty Hudson Valley libraries where the literary ‘greats’ reside or to bleak upstate Penitentiaries. Through this blend, Mr. Burton offers us the opportunity to experience a myriad of emotions. Righteous indignation, ennui, longing for the bitter-sweet past, the ego debasing and ultimate freedom of the quest for redemption, love, both young and innocent, tainted or that wise perfect love seldom described with accuracy. All of these are possible destinations within the pages of Once Upon a Time in America.
That said, I encourage anyone who wants to take the trip, to pay the fare and hop aboard.
Gold Rush
Searching for Chinese food
in these odd times,
like panning for gold in California
after the rush was over
and so many natives dead.
San Francisco transformed by that fever
into a robust city of vice.
America, today flooded
with toxic politicians,
polluting our air waves.
It is mind numbing to think
the populous falls time
and time again for the old ruse
of smoke and mirror tricknology.
The river alive with speed boats
and families fishing for catch
hazardous to eat.
Everywhere we look
rubber gloves on the ground,
like empty heroin bags
and used syringes.
Face masks finding their way
out into the ocean.
The gold was never in the mountains
or streams.
It was never in the oceans or rivers.
The gold is the mountains and streams.
The oceans and rivers.
The gold is everywhere but our wallets.
The gold is that piece of ourselves,
like “Blue Birds trying to get out,
we fight to keep down.
“Pouring whiskey on
while inhaling cigarette smoke,
and the whores and bartenders
and grocery store clerks,
never know that it is in there.”
Order Once Upon A Time in America on Amazon.
C.E. B.
Christopher Ethan Burton is a forty-year-old poet from New York. He began writing at fourteen, shortly after his father was murdered. Fifteen years of his life were spent incarcerated, over ten of those years in New York’s worst maximum security prisons. Today he lives a simple life with his girlfriend and her two children in Germantown N.Y. He is the author of two chap books, “Once Upon a Time in America” and “A Dog’s Life.”
