Three Lonely Poets with Our Backs to the Wind (by George Wallace)

George Wallace at The Lit in Cleveland – photo by JC 

THREE LONELY POETS WITH OUR BACKS TO THE WIND

cleveland so cold the trains stopped running, even the barrooms closed, the three of us stuck in our tracks for days and we could not stay inside with the great american midwest howling historically on the other side of the door, could not resist it and listen to the news, hunker down with the others, we thought we could experience the thing on our own terms so we drove out into the blinding cold to witness lake erie, beyond where the cuyahoga river dumps stupidly down through its maze girders and iron industrial death and spills its guts out, to a place called whiskey island, the homeless sometimes go there at night to light fires in oil drums, to warm their hands and faces against the violent ancient grip of a society they cannot stomach, only no homeless on whiskey island in this cold, the cleveland homeless are not stupid or poetry dreamers and they’re not from new york, the news said forty below with the wind chill figured in but what did we know, that’s a force cleveland hadn’t experienced in decades, historic cold, coldest night america can throw at you, tough old cleveland wouldn’t want any part of a thing like this, a cold too big for the exercise of ambition or defeat or curiosity, no human enterprise but the deep dark burrowing down, the only answer is to not stand out before it, the surface of the great angry lake was magnificent of course, the only living creature for miles and doing crazy battle against itself and the artic blast, a wind so cold it clawed at the surface of the lake and the lake clawed back, water and wind and the entire horizon raked up into swirls of ice, someone said ‘flight of spontaneous bop blizzard’ but it was not that, too big for jazz poetry phrases, completely indifferent, north to canada, eastward beyond the squat cleveland cityscape, west into an impossible gone haze, indifferent! we walked out over the lakeshore all icy tundra of sand and bleached wood, hammered into the frozen ground like any other lost band of westward pioneers might do, men who’ve found themselves face to face with something bigger than anything they had ever imagined to experience or tame, at the edge of the cold angry water — and us?’ nothing! our bones ached and moaned, sad irrelevant pioneer poet bones at the edge of oblivion, ie a thrashing surface of wind and lake and the lake thrashing back, so wild how the lake thrashes back, a lake will never give in, glowering defiant teenager subdued for a moment but it’ll just bide its time and strike back hard in its own lake-y way when the time is right for it, the assertive depthless dimensions of water, here it was a symphonic battle between two forces so great there was no way to humanly witness it, an angry lake that wanted to live, an angry wind that wanted to kill a lake, water gone ice, ice gone water, a surface so flat and deadly deciding for itself what it wanted to be, no room for human interference — how many thousand square miles of ice cloud and lake shore death can gods or men endure, how many miles of this dance, mist and crystal and crystal and mist in a living death grip, and none but us to witness it, three lonely poets with our backs to the world

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George Wallace is Writer in Residence at the Walt Whitman Birthplace, first poet laureate of Suffolk County NY, and author of 26 chapbooks of poetry, including Poppin Johnny (Three Rooms Press, NYC ‘10), Burn My Heart in Wet Sand (Troubador Press, Leicester UK, ‘05) and Swimming Through Water (La-Finestra Editrice, Trento, It, ‘05). An adjunct professor with the English Department at Pace University in Manhattan, he is editor of Poetrybay, Poetryvlog, Long Island Quarterly, and co-editor of Great Weather For Media. George is a frequent visitor to the poetry scene in Cleveland, and has several acclaimed chapbooks published through Green Panda and NightBallet Presses.

I Have Discovered a Country (by George Wallace) – video

Video permalink: http://youtu.be/fJ3jSMqV9YI
Spoken word poetry by George Wallace, recorded in Cornwall, England, with The Moontones. From the CD Sky Is, available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/wallacemoontones.


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George Wallace is Writer in Residence at the Walt Whitman Birthplace, first poet laureate of Suffolk County NY, and author of 26 chapbooks of poetry, including Poppin Johnny (Three Rooms Press, NYC ‘10), Burn My Heart in Wet Sand (Troubador Press, Leicester UK, ‘05) and Swimming Through Water (La-Finestra Editrice, Trento, It, ‘05). An adjunct professor with the English Department at Pace University in Manhattan, he is editor of Poetrybay, Poetryvlog, Long Island Quarterly, and co-editor of Great Weather For Media. George is a frequent visitor to the poetry scene in Cleveland, and has several chapbooks published through Green Panda and NightBallet Presses.

Riding with Boom Boom (by George Wallace)

George Wallace at The Lit in Cleveland – photo by JC 

RIDING WITH BOOM BOOM

The facts are simple
They speak for themselves
But facts don’t always tell
The whole story —
He was a bluesman
He played the blues
He was sixty years old
He lived alone in a
Split level shack in
Kings Park, Long Island
New York, with a ramp
In the front on account of
His bad back, and a maple tree
In the yard which his kids
Used to swing on when
They were little.
He liked choppers
He liked his Jack
He liked his bass guitar
And he liked his kids
And his friends and
A woman or two
And he liked putting on
His riding gear & going out into
The Long Island Expressway night
To Ride Baby Ride!
And the cops say
They didn’t target him
And the cops say
They didn’t track him down
The cops say they were just
Protecting the public
They came to his house
To haul him in, after
Someone phoned
and said he was
Behaving
Irrational.
Irrational.
Irrational to be
The person they don’t
Want you to be. Irrational
To refuse to swallow the
9-5 routine. Irrational to fight
The leather belt they strap you
Down with when the psych doctors
Come around to pick you apart.
Irrational to cut loose, to escape,
To be passionate, to ride out free
When the blues and the booze
And the passing lane just
Aren’t enough &
You have got to get
Away from the pain
Of living in the fucked
Up rational world.
Facts are simple.
They speak for themselves.
But facts are never enough
They just do their job
Like the cops do their job
Like doctors do their job
And liquor and motorcycles
And the blues do their job.
He was 60 years old.
He played the bass guitar.
Everybody says he was
Tons of fun onstage.
But sometimes the bass guitar
Isn’t enough to make the blues go away.
They took him in, there was a struggle.
So they say. He hit his head on
Something. So they say.
But what he hit his head on
The cops aren’t saying —
Or how a 60 year old
With a bad back
Can even put up
That kind of a fight,
or even try to run away
From the cops like that.
His name was Ports, Larry Ports.
That’s a good name.
It’s a simple name.
It speaks for itself.
But names are just facts.
All they do is do their job.
Names aren’t enough
To cure what ails you
In a fucked up rational
World. That‘s why his
friends called him
Boom Boom. That’s
How he rode. That’s
Who he really was.
Last week the cops said
Someone named Lawrence
Ports died. That ain‘t Boom Boom.
Boom Boom ain‘t dead.
The cops can‘t kill him.
All over America tonight,
All over the world,
Men will be riding
Motorcycles. Women
Will be getting tattoos.
Kids will be drinking Jack.
& bluesmen will be
Playing the blues.
I don’t know what you’re
Doing tonight. But me? I’ll be
Riding with Boom Boom.
Getting irrational.

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George Wallace is Writer in Residence at the Walt Whitman Birthplace, first poet laureate of Suffolk County NY, and author of 26 chapbooks of poetry, including Poppin Johnny (Three Rooms Press, NYC ‘10), Burn My Heart in Wet Sand (Troubador Press, Leicester UK, ‘05) and Swimming Through Water (La-Finestra Editrice, Trento, It, ‘05). An adjunct professor with the English Department at Pace University in Manhattan, he is editor of Poetrybay, Poetryvlog, Long Island Quarterly, and co-editor of Great Weather For Media. George is a frequent visitor to the poetry scene in Cleveland, and has several chapbooks published through Green Panda and NightBallet Presses.

George Wallace at The Barking Spider in Cleveland – 8 May 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JN8p8aJ_Od4

George Wallace reads on 8 May 2009 at the Barking Spider in Cleveland, Ohio,
during Tres Versing the Panda: Three Days of Poetry Soiree.  Filmed by Jesus Crisis.
 Event sponsored by Green Panda Press (Cleveland Heights) and The Temple, Inc.

We recommend George Wallace’s Poppin’ Johnny (Three Rooms Press, 2009)
Who’s Handling Your Aubergines (Green Panda Press, 2009) and
Burn My Heart in Wet Sand (Troubador Publishing, 2004)

Find more George Wallace at www.poetrybay.com

  

George Wallace reads “Books Like Handcuffs” and more in Cleveland

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

Video features poet George Wallace reading on 9 May 2009 at The Lit in Cleveland, Ohio,
during Tres Versing the Panda: Three Days of Poetry Soiree.  Filmed by Jesus Crisis.
 Event sponsored by Green Panda Press (Cleveland Heights) and The Temple, Inc.

We heartily recommend George Wallace’s Poppin’ Johnny (Three Rooms Press, 2009)
Who’s Handling Your Aubergines (Green Panda Press, 2009) and
Burn My Heart in Wet Sand (Troubador Publishing, 2004)

Find more George Wallace at www.poetrybay.com