Swimming Through Water
by George Wallace

Sample Poems

god makes a note to himself   things to permit to occur without interruption: a bird in flight a child in prayer oceanspray windsong the progress of the sun through day a cat who sleeps in a widow's lap kindness forgiveness mercy gratitude a man offering honest explanations the birth of angels the mending of bones any parent in the act of unseen sacrifice a cloud washing itself of the earth the docking of a ship by a wooden pier white snow falling from a silver cloud rain that blows across an unsown field a cat who sleeps in a widow's lap old men shaking hands with each other death cheated vengeance denied hope luck second chances good advice freely offered headlights on an empty road the reappearance of fireflies in july campsmoke rising in the direction of heaven the blue sound of church bells at dusk a cat who sleeps in a widow's lap the mere mention of a flower any soldier who desires to lay down his weapon and turn his face in the direction of home the missionary who could save anything after six days under a nicaragua lake she thought she was capable of saving anything so while the rest of us sat there she got on the truck and off it the coordinator of women and community who sat with her face in her hands the boy from managua who was battered and his teeth chattering the judge who was wearing his black cap and thick sunglasses even angel, who had been hired last year to guard the food warehouse it was night, hundreds were drowning at the site of the new town but the missionary who could save anything asked us all to hold hands and be thankful for the force of providence in our future lives a telephone was going ring ring ring in the mud she thought she could save that too   swimming through water some folks get the message late but they get the message some folks never get the message at all but they carry the message on them some folks are the message carried by a gulfstream of fresh water some folks are water passing through water passing through oceans some folks dance through water like diamonds some folks dance through walls like stars some folks wonder what all the twinkling is about up there in heaven some folks keep their eyes to the ground some folks keep on digging water with shovels some folks never ask the obvious questions some folks answer questions nobody has even asked them some folks don't ask anything at all but they make a living somehow some folks are having a nice old time of it doing a backstroke into the wind some folks have the taste of velvet in their mouths, or maybe it is only the desire for violets some folks live without eyes in the languid underground pools of planet earth some folks say hey man it's warm down here can you feel this, can you feel that some folks decide to look for rocks in the desert, or acorns, or life on mars some folks ask them what is your problem anyway things are pretty good right here right now some folks stand on top of a mountain and they do not hear the volcano coming some folks say look i mean there's no ice anywhere and the sweet motion of the clouds some folks are swimming through water when the mountain explodes   a blue eyed man with a box of paint a blue eyed man with a top hat and a box of paint and a good silver cane and one glass eye paints a sky where sky has never been because it is possible that angels are also blue and sunlight, he paints that in the faces of children because they wander in a terrible forest of wooden spoons and where ever a house or maybe a river should be but is not the man with the top hat and one glass eye paints a cloud in the manner and precision of the artists in the land of his birth the one he was exiled from at the age of twenty-three because he was taught at the institute for arts and letters to believe that it is possible for even a small cloud to lead a nation which has gone off its course in a new unexpected and decidedly better direction   inside the cascade cafe a man walked into the cascade cafe and went up to the bar. give me a beer with plenty of eternity in it said the man. the bartender stared past him and continued polishing glasses. is this eternal enough for you? said the bartender. just then the executioner's beautiful daughter walked in. a swift wind began to blow. a handful of napkins danced out the front door. the bartender and the man could not help but stare. there's no electricity in this place, said the man to the bartender. how can it be that the overhead fan is turning? the bartender waved his hand with a manifold flickering motion. when a man attempts to stop the sun, he said, big trouble is certain. after awhile the lights came back on. there was a festival all over town. inside the cascade cafe, death stood closer to every man. the bartender handed the man his beer.   the girl who looked so long at the moon she became a moon the girl who looked so long at the moon she became a moon circles a boy at a bar who is drinking local beer a lot of it actually, out of green glass bottles they bottle it in he is leaning forward listening to the band and drumming his hands the girl who became a moon is not leaning forward or watching the band she is circling the boy, the boy at the bar, the boy, the boy his hair is black, his eyes are black too, and the fingers he is running in his hair they are very white, and the girl who looked so long at the moon that she became a moon imagines running her fingers through his hair like that and her eyes are green   the boulder on the shelf the boulder on the shelf sings apple songs clearing his nose he makes dust out of children there is no malice in his bones lips and toes and seed and lonely fingertips that cold morphine stare is just for the hell of it the boulder on the shelf makes sugar bleed from unsweet rivers from the flesh of women he has made a love rise supreme there is a silk monkey on the shelf he listens to everything and is erect as a fir tree three dead philosophers keep to themselves an author from missouri explains the dead geography of white crewel jazz memories of the whitney sisters retold rich men sail their boats in many oceans how to make a contour map of the gone planet how to disarm a mugger, as seen through a photographer's eye the pupils of the boulder on the shelf glow black, but not with anger he speaks with the imprisoned grace of princes my world is song the fragrance of heaven says the boulder on the shelf apple blossoms, the freshness of flowers watch me fall a poem about policemen and ice cream and bees we have a few concerns, the detective said, regarding this recent poem of yours. which poem i asked. you know the one he growled. it is about a suburban woman who locks herself in a potting shed. and she plants herself feet first into a couple of large clay pots. and she begins raking the soil "vigorously" around her ankles. the idea was a pretty good one, but i had heard it before. anyhow, i had not written that particular poem. what's the problem officer, i asked. well we want to know what happened to the rake. i handed him a rake, the first one i could find. handle end first, you learn that kind of thing in boy scouts. thanks, said the detective. now where's the woman. i led him through the kitchen and pointed out back. suburban women were planted everywhere. in between them there were weeds, and plenty of them. she's probably back there, i said, one of them. the one with the blonde wig? he sent some men in back to investigate. but the woman they were looking for wasn't in my back yard. sorry to bother you, said the detective. no problem i said. did you have a close look at that redhead, i asked. over by the pear tree, i'm thinking she's infested with hornets. that one? he said. she looks all right to me. no, i'm sure it's bees i said. then i handed all his men rakes and a little shovel each. they agreed to stay awhile and clean up, suburban living needs so much assistance. while the policemen were out back working i got myself some ice cream and sat on the deck. and i wrote a poem about policemen and ice cream and bees.   perhaps a man is not alone if perhaps a man is not alone if he is walking through the night empty as a glass of air, and he is turning his thoughts on and off like a radio in a farmhouse so far from the world at this hour that the only sound is static, and he hears something behind him, over one of his shoulders, there, but when he turns to look it is only the country lane he walks on and it is quiet as a movie theater long after all the patrons have gone and perhaps the man stops by a group of trees at the crossroads, where he think maybe a long time ago there was an encampment of hobos or homeless men, and he walks into a small clearing in those trees where there is enough moonlight for him to peer eyes down in the darkness to the ground and perhaps he finds the remains of the hobo camp, a few rusted out tin cans, skeletal, ashes, ashes, a few blackened stickends, the crossed remains of an old campfire and perhaps the man pushes the toe of his left foot gently into the remains, and he hears in the darkness two of the tin can skeletons rattle together, and he looks up at the moon, and the sound it makes is no sound at all; what i mean is, perhaps a man is not alone in a grove of trees at the crossroads where the hobos used to camp if he kicks a can and there is an owl to hear it, and the owl makes a fluttering noise, which is no sound at all if only there is an owl, flying away   the difference between a rose and the light which falls on a rose you know that sad odd angle of the day when the world goes rusty and surreptitious as an old garden saw and some people who steal from their neighbors all day are told not to think about the errors they have made but they do anyway and they are wistful about it for awhile but keep it to themselves and they go on stealing and some people who work with their bodies for a living and are okay about that and don't think about it much and their arms are tired their backs and leg muscles too and unless you cross them all they really want is a beer and they get a beer and stand to one side and don't say nothing, maybe just a short barking laugh at something let me explain this thing: you have your average bum or hobo who has sleepwalked through the heat of the day and now he is drinking from a bottle in the park, the bottle was only filled yesterday at the end of the road and the wine in that bottle is good country wine it is so rich and true he can still taste the footprints in it you have your lovers who are sitting in the courtyard at a table for two in the middle of town over white linen they are lining up their eyes to the fallen deeply angular horizon of sun and the sun passes between them, back and forth between them, like it never passed through the bodies of any two things on this earth before you have your woman alone in her room who keeps reaching into her heart like a purse to throw things out every day about now she reaches the bottom and realizes that her heart is full for the first time in her life, she realizes her heart is never empty, every day she wonders why she isn't more glad to have discovered that i'm talking about that sad odd moment when the sun is about to go down on you and you know it but it hasn't yet the exact sun which has been staring at the rose hill so long that it has nearly become the color of roses itself and in order to see this world with both passion and clarity you have to look at it with a different set of eyes not necessarily the eyes of a person who has pumped his veins with visions in order to have vision either but someone who can see the world on his own terms and the sun's, on the rose's terms and on no terms at all someone who can honestly see the difference between a rose and the light which falls on a rose   the spider who lives on the face of a martyr the martyr in the blackberry bushes trailing half a skein of yellow thread pulled from his wool cardigan & of course there is a scratch of dark blood which wells artistically across one cheek, nice touch & a spider blazing a bright trail straight to nowhere over his right eyebrow (this says the martyr with a sigh would be my temple, he is forever correcting everything i say about him) he emerges victorious and with a handful of bruised berries for his children to enjoy - he seems in a big hurry, the spider i mean, having discovered that he lives on the face of a martyr i mean it is as if he needs very badly to get to somewhere else, and quickly, back to something he can't remember what it was, only that there is somewhere he needs to be which is not exactly this place, the spider is confused, what has become of his world, once he lived among the blackberry thorns but as it stands right now the martyr's face is his only planet & it is a frightening world especially for a spider this is a world with terrible storms unexpected volcanic eruptions & miraculous reconciliations i am an adaptable creature, says the spider, i can deal with a lot of things but this place is rough! perhaps, says the spider, there is somewhere on this planet a spider can go to relax in the mountains or maybe at the seaside, some place where i can enjoy the gone yellow sand maybe there is some friendly spider around here who can clue me & therefore the spider who lives on the face of a martyr has set out in search of a friend   numbers no one has ever seen before one day in a steaming jungle three archaeologists looking for pre-columbian pottery discovered a burial mound full of numbers no one had ever seen before. they became very excited, but at the same time a little nervous. like priests who had discovered that maybe their all-knowing god had been holding out on them. as if their god knew some truth about the world which they had never heard and always desired. as if their god had some admonition for mankind which priests should long ago have known about and told men to heed. in short, the three archaeologists felt like priests whose god was about to make a fool out of them. "don't touch those numbers," shouted the first archaeologist nervously. "i think they're dangerous." "we have come here for pre-columbian pottery," said the second archaeologist, "not numbers. i think we should bury them." the third archaeologist coughed uncomfortably, and began to scratch his neck. "i'm not so sure," he said. "after all we are not priests. and besides, i'm curious. let's just try something." he tried to dial the numbers no one had ever seen before into his cell phone. "don't be ridiculous," said the first archaeologist to the third. "you can't put numbers no one has ever seen before into a cell phone!" he snatched the phone from his colleague's hand and threw it into the jungle. just then the cellphone began to ring. the three archaeologists leapt into the bushes looking for the phone. unfortunately, by the time the third archaeologist found his cellphone, whoever it was that he was trying to reach had hung up. "see what you've done!" he shouted, there were tears in his eyes. the first archaeologist snatched the cellphone from his colleague's hand again, and threw it down into the pile of numbers. there was a sick crunch, quite a few of the numbers no one had ever seen before broke into little shards. "idiots," shouted the second archaeologist to the first and the third. "look what you've done. now we'll never know what those numbers mean." that was that, no archaeologist likes being called idiot. the three archaeologists began quarreling. they quarreled so loud the entire jungle woke up and began to talk in a language that no one had never heard before. but the three archaeologists were too busy quarreling, they didn't hear the language of the jungle. in fact they quarreled so loud they didn't hear the cell phone, which had begun ringing again.   he was sent to the country to watch the wheatfields ripen you dream too much, his grandfather said so he sent his young grandson to the country to watch the wheatfields ripen. but the boy dozed off, and he dreamed and he dreamed. he dreamed he had a race with a tortoise but the tortoise was persistent, the tortoise won. so he learned persistence. he dreamed he had a race with a hare, but the hare knew fear, the hare won. so he learned fear. he dreamed he had a race with four doves but the doves knew peace, the doves won. so he learned peace. he dreamed he had a race with an eagle, but the eagle knew hunger, the eagle won. so he learned hunger. he dreamed he woke up, the wheatfield had grown a long white beard. all around him the stalks of wheat hung their heads like his grandfather does when he knows something about the world and also knows that a boy is not ready to understand it. he dreamed the wind was moving through the wheatfield like the sea and the grain wanted to move like the sea the grain wanted to escape the bondage of the earth the wheatfield wanted to fly like the wind until it reached the place where the sky meets the sea. and he thought he finally understood. ''i will have a race with the wind' said the boy. but the wind knew heaven, the wind won. after the adults ate everything we loaded our boat with sky we crossed the minimal ocean we set sail to the precise location which all earth drifts toward anyway the most beautiful coordinates you can imagine that all land all earth wishes it might escape to this place only the clouds know it look! someone said, the adults have eaten up everything whatever shall we do? this one existed to exist this one existed to design this one existed to protest this one existed to inflict pain this one to treat the pain which had been inflicted we have set sail and we have flown faster than continents slower than the wind this wind which has come from an enormous heaven bigger even than adults a heaven that never changes its mind even if everything below it reverses direction or else pretends it is full of innocence or else that it is only standing still

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