George Wallace is a NYC based poet and spoken word artist with 42 chapbooks to his name, four albums of spoken word poetry streamed worldwide, and an active schedule of appearances in NYC, nationally and internationally. Recent national appearances include the St. Augustine Poetry Festival, National Beat Poetry Festival, Lowell Celebrates Kerouac, and a poetry soiree in San Luis Obispo Ca; international appearances at the Turrialba Poetry Festival (Turrialba Costa Rica), Boao Poetry Festival (Hainan China), Silk Road International Poetry Festival (Xi'an China), Piacenza Biennale (Piacenza It), La Cave Cafe (Paris Fr), Aldeburgh/Suffolk Poets gathering (UK) and Human Underground (Athens Greece). As writer in residence at the Walt Whitman Birthplace since 2011, he is creator of POETS BUILDING BRIDGES, now in its third season, triangulating groups of poets from different regions of the world.
YOU MUST LOVE ME
you must love me, like this, unreasonably, hopelessly, wide awake, as i love you, voluptuous and honest and prayerful and true, for i am relentless, and i am true, i live among the pillows, i am indebted to your grace, my face tilts in your direction like the morning sun; you must love me like this, like the sun loves window curtains that hold momentarily in the breeze, like the breeze itself, which blows thru bushes
and stops awhile, like i wake to your sleeping like a morning thrush, like clouds wake to the multiple song of birds; you must love me like this, like a small child who has burst into the bedroom and is surprised and a little confused by what he sees; like a penitent who kneels in prayer before a god that he is not even sure exists but prays to anyway, like a finback whale loves the sea, like a single-celled creature knows no limits,
like an honest man praying for justice, or a liar for forbearance;
you must love me, just in case there is a god listening, like this, like i love you, a marble goddess with clipped wings deep in reverence of flight, like the bearded one with eyes like a burning bush making up the rules as he goes along; like a petty little god who exists in the minds of those who serve him, or a redistributive god who exists in the hearts of peasants and prisoners and forgotten people, the mad and childlike, the one who go on serving their life sentences
without complaint while the courts mete out their punishments and rewards;
you must love me like this, like an outlaw who feeds the poor; like a lost city in the everglades, harboring criminals; like a novitiate who knows the kind of mercy that lives fleetingly in the shadows;
like a river that loves the land, mad to be one with the soil, to be lord and servant to earth's contours, to be jealous of and guardian to its freedom, a river that bursts its banks whenever it can, and escapes onto the broad plain, flooding tractors farms and women and men;
you must always, always, love me, you must love me like this
as i love you
even when you stay true
to your banks
COLTRANE ON THE TURNTABLE, DEVIL IN MY HEART
coltrane on the turntable
devil in my heart
a love supreme
is playing hypnotic
& slow, and i still love
you just like i used to
in the blue notes
in the grace notes
in the silent notes
o heaven that moves me
as if one vibration!
the wind picks up
pigeons take flight
the stars come out
and we make love
and the furnaces
and the factories
blow and blow
and the east river flows
like any river flows;
sing me a song
that will take this
needle from my brain
sing me a song
that will pour me
back into you
little sister,
slow and pretty
as a morphine metaphor
midnight rolls in
and i still love you
slow, little sister, slow
we all roll in, we all run in
(slow as hell, this is how we do)
& hell's got nothing
on me & you tonight
listen little sister
i'm eight feet tall
and live on the roof tops
i write these lines for you
because i can do anything
you need me to (yes
i can do anything)
surprise me like you used to
surprise me like you used to
surprise me like you used to
paradise lost, but the night still shines
AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT AND BREAK OF DAWN
Some say the Devil does things
by the numbers, he drives a flatbed Ford
and steers clear of places and situations
but some folks down in McAllen Texas say
when things get hot the Devil starts dancing
and the devil was a looker all right in a three-
piece suit, one half chicken leg the other half shine
and like I say the devil does things by the numbers
and knows how to a burn a little girl or two
on the dance floor, when his eyes rotating
this way and that -- like a disco ball
like a nine-tailed armadillo –
and frying hell with his infamous eyes
and one night in McAllen Texas
in a joint called Boccacios
the Devil walked into the room
and took control of a girl named Navé
and started her dancing
the DJ was spinning and spinning
that vinyl out of control
he was a genius with the music
and the 7&7s and Bavarian beer
were flying my friend
and the underage boys
beat a hasty retreat
from the land of the wallflowers
and the Devil and Nave
danced and danced and danced,
until a couple of bouncers
bounced him out
three times for show
three times for show
three times for show
bounced them out, through a
double bolt steel lock
emergency door
and some folks say it never happened
and some folks say it did
and some say they saw
the Devil himself
crossing the borderline
in a flat bed Ford
crossing the borderline
at the speed of light and break of dawn
and that’s good enough for me
FOR ALL WE KNOW THIS IS PARADISE
(from the 2023 Roadside Press collection RESURRECTION SONG)
What if apples were still apples,
snakes still snakes, and we are
all still living in paradise; what if
Eve is in the summer of her years,
running with the antelope, thighs
supple and alert, her face tan;
what if nobody has had to
crawl on their belly on account
of some fairy tale crime; Adam
lies blameless in a grove of
ripe pears, admiring Eve's gait,
admiring how evening light arrives
in Eden on hushed wings to remind
him of love's caresses; no temptation
no shame, just a curious bird, singing in
sweet ellipses, singing with the trees,
a song with no words, about God and
summer and sunlight in waterfalls;
a simple song, about how perfectly
a pear fits in Adam's hand, equally
perfect in Eve's hand too; and how
generously its juices spill onto
his chin and hands and chest,
(almost as if it was by design),
singing how we are all of us
two halves of a single fruit
hanging from a paradise tree.
EVERYBODY IS A FLOWER
(from the 2023 Roadside Press collection RESURRECTION SONG)
In the beginning everyone was a flower
and had their moment in the sun
and thought things would stay that way forever
But they don't.... do they
Seasons change. Winter comes.
To survive is to go hard in the heart.
To survive is to go mean and blind, too.
To cover up in ashes and overcoats
and play dead to the body.
To endure... rock hard to the elements,
while the gods quarrel with each other
and make plans. and we hunker down
in our homes and hovels...
we hunker down, in our factories,
our offices our laboratories
our grease traps our garbage cans,
all the hellholes of material regret
and we wait...
But then out comes spring!
out comes spring!
we made it!
office workers are glad
salesgirls are glad
everything shines like a plate glass window
schoolchildren laugh and misbehave
everything is liquid and cool again
the entire world belongs to us!
we throw open our hearts
we take a deep breath
Hey everybody! shrug off your stale meager existences
give your bodies back to the sun
the gods haven't forgotten us after all.
Everyone’s a flower.
Everybody's a flower.
Everyone is a flower.
