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GEORGE WALLACE |
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the madness of my uncle releases itself hot as sirens and sonnets of perfume leaking out of the last salon in nubia a turkish snail rolls past his door, he picks it up dips it in butter he rolls it over his tongue the pasha is in a state of absolute drunken terror or joy the pasha is in a state of bliss! who is this strange young boy who feeds him jellies? my mad uncle and his lover have lost themselves in a french chanson this morning they are freedom fighters and young men overleaping the horns of bulls! the world is eighteen! there are enough pillows on his recliner to muffle the voice of a vengeful parisian god! my mad uncle in mothballs and sweaters on the upper east side he never walked out in winter but in a fit of nostalgia once he pushed a stainless steel cart through a restaurant window
majestic and overlooked
as a troika right through the mirror in the hotel lobby of course the life of my mad uncle is an urn on a mantelpiece he has been reduced to butter his life was hell as a child! insufferable! children everywhere! and nothing to eat but boiled chicken! searchlights pummeled the neighborhood amber open waves swept the ghetto the skyscape of manhattan like a great ape waved to him with open welcoming arms even the president of the united states knew him by his first name the government finally admitted it was a mistake to put my mad uncle to work in a munitions factory he could not say the word security without laughing like an orphanboy or an opera tenor on a rocking subway train my mad uncle could not identify the enemy in the dark if they were smoking continuous cigarettes like so many cargoplanes filled with crates of bananas or cocaine my uncle in his spanish warehouse like a marseille dockman flexing incredible hairy knuckles his physical power whenever he hugged me in the eyes of the impassive dead i see my mad uncle waiting at the edge of the runway for my return what has become of that operahouse in vienna, he will ask me? did you visit that delicious bathhouse in istanbul? in the madness of my uncle i can smell the apartments of brooklyn a woman he knew is perpetually weeping great preludes and tombeaux and a certain chopin etude in the madness of my uncle peasants are escaping the war like water over under and across the bridges to long island it is august the world is on fire he is sitting under a cool white willow
this world is made of
wine and pasta and clams George Wallace is editor of Poetrybay and co-host of PoetryBrook at WUSB. He has published eight chapbooks and recorded several CDs. His latest books are Swimming Through Water (La Finestre Editrice 02, distributed by Writers Unlimited USA 03) and Greatest Hits (Pudding House Press, 03). Creator of the four-city Big Sur marathon, he appears frequently in performance with David Amram, and recently opened for Levon Helm, former drummer and lead singer of The Band. |
Copyright © 2003 by George Wallace.
Material may not be reprinted without prior written permission.