Issue
#3

May
2009 

2 poems by George Wallace

IT JUST CHILLS A MAN'S HEART TO KNOW

there's nothing i like better than a working man's bar
at four thirty in the afternoon when there's no one
supposed to be there but there you are anyway and
fuck the boss with his big fat hemorrhoid of a mouth
and his paycheck eyes if he says anything tomorrow after
a day like the one you just had today, such as where
the hell were you yesterday at four thirty in the afternoon,
there'll be hell to pay, hell to pay! i tell you however there's no
hell to pay in this joint and if you want to know the truth
it just chills a man's heart to know that even in the worst
of circumstances, there's always a working man's bar with
no one in it and you can sit there with a beer in your left
hand and your money in your right and no one not a single
solitary soul in the universe is going to say a word about it

© George Wallace

I GET WRITTEN UP IN THE TIMES

i open up the new york times and there i am. picture of me at age 42, wearing
boxing trunks, sweating like a roast pig, my fist raised up in the air and wearing
a blood soaked grin. "CONTENDER GOES DISTANCE BUT FALLS TO CHAMP."
not bad, it says the champ hit the canvas hard in the tenth round, not me. i lost
a heartbreaker on points.

well i'm not surprised, never fought a day in my life. i'm a poet i pound the
shit out of words not other men's faces. however i do like the photo, my right
eye blind and my mouthpiece half hanging out. but what was he thinking, that
sushi eating bastard who took me out and wrote me up? he must've been more
interested in the molluscs in my pants than he was in my poetry. well, at least
he picked up the tab and he didn't come on to me. not that night. anyhow, i'm
not the kind of guy who complains. hey, why should i? me, i'm in the new york
fucking times. i'm brando now. you're not.

© George Wallace

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