George Wallace has published five chapbooks, including "poems of augie prime," a 1999 Puschart Prize nomination. His poems have been selected for Rattle, Perihelion, Xanadu, Rocket, Pacific Coast Journal, and Poetry Motel.
Mr. Wallace has lived in California. He has worked in various California locations over the years, including San Francisco, Pacifica, Calistoga, Sacramento and Corte Madera. He appeared recently in San Diego (Lestat's), North Hollywood (Contemporary Valley Poets), and St. Helena (Napa Valley Writers Conference). He currently resides in New York, where he edits "poetrybay" (www.poetrybay.com) and teaches creative writing. His exhibition "jack croak in northport, li" is currently on view at the Northport Historical Society, and was reviewed in New York Newsday, New York Daily News, Metro Channel and Suffolk Life
what stealthy forest this
a hill cat in august
prey across not only
sliding facia rock precipitous
rib her exposed sky
skin too a shadow
of my mountain, paws
language hunts through
sun hawking the morning's
this cliffside the sheer
torn open the cracked
this predation in my
wheels across the spine
this dry scrambling madrone
this sense of anticipation.
hers was a valley without recourse.
no one she has ever known
ever seen. they have begun
all that is not terrible returns.
owned by mountains her eyes
turn necessarily to the soil.
she worked in its prune fields
as a child. the sky still asks her
to suspend all ideas of flight.
has moved up to the canyon.
is that his truck? two of the
bluest scrub jays she has
chittering in the manzanilla.
it was a quiet night in calistoga. a man stood
she was with a woman named amy & they were
splendid to be the wife of a famous vintner
at dusk. his wife said the summer stars must
smiled. the man on the bridge did not like
for that matter. on the other hand he was fond
slowed to a trickle, making pools among
as the lights of calistoga started going on.
the pretty shops & restaurants. like his wife
critical of amy. it was something worth
bridge. when he looked up he was alone.
on the river bridge, his wife windowshopping.
discussing the mondavis. amy said it would be
& sit on a mountaintop drinking chardonnay
absolutely shimmer from the hills. they both
the word splendid. he did not like amy much
of chardonnay. beneath his feet the river
the rocks. the pools grew dark & darker
how could anyone resist a little stroll past
kept saying he was wrong to be always so
thinking about, thought the man on the
all around him main street was shimmering.
six bankrupt
sowing its
most visitors to
never even
ranches one crow
calling the
eucalyptus wind
pungent seed among
the ashes
of pioneer children
the ranch
jack carved from
the sonoma
hills a blaze of raw
american man-
liness amid oaks
madrones &
california buckeyes
knew the high gate
he would
leave them through
dead that
morphine seafog
morning & clothed
in his own bark
there was rust on the ten guns of the presidio
& everyone knew that pio pico, the governor
in los angeles, had as low an opinion of california
as anyone in mexico. at least that's what
uncle abe - that illinois lawyer who married my father's
sister mary - said after. anyone who thought the californios
might give us a time of it didn't know them from beans -
just a year or so back in one of the little dustups
they were always having amongst themselves,
the only casualty was a dead horse on the one side
and a wounded mule on the other. so with fremont
riding in from oregon, some of the local boys
got it into their heads to steal a few horses,
and we all stormed vallejo's fort. it was a lark -
everyone knew mariano was a yanqui sympathizer
anyhow and a considerable gentleman, just looking
to roll over without getting himself in a pickle
with the mexicans. there was no soldiers inside
besides, just him, leese and a frenchman.
so vallejo up and invites us all in for a drink
and a nice easy surrender, while one of the boys
hoists my flag in the courtyard. it wasn't any
big project really, just a yard and a half of brown cotton
i found and dressed up with some old red paint. i put
a star and a stripe on, and what to me looked to be
a reasonaby good grizzly. i know some of the californios
complained, one of them even went so far as to suggest
it had more the look of a pig about it, not a proper bear
at all, but the noise stopped when one of the chiefest
of the horse thieves - merritt, knight or semple, i forget
which - comes out of the fort. he's pretty drunk and swaggering
and free with his words, and pointing at my flag
and saying look at that, if that isn't a great looking bear,
don't worry about what the californios have got
to say about it, from now on we can call ourselves
a nation, can't we boys, and that's exactly what we did.
All text and images in The Central California Poetry Journal are copyrighted. Copyright by © by Scott Galloway 2000. All rights are reserved. See main Journal page for
copyright information.
Authors and poets submitting original materials to this journal retain all rights to their original work, except those rights specifically assigned in writing to Solo Publications including the right to publish the submitted work in The Central California Poetry Journal. The poems on this page are copyrighted by the author. Copyright © George Wallace 2000.
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