The Literary Review
Nib and Ink
I remember desks with inkwells
and dipping the nib of my pen
in the ink and struggling to write
an impromptu (when I’d rather
be looking out the autumn window
at gliding red and yellow leaves),
straining to write fluidly in the mandatory
connected manuscript we’d been taught
dipping the nib repeatedly to keep
up with thoughts now lagging
my fingers as they race across
the laptop’s QWERTY keyboard,
and I remember the blotter on my desktop
and the blotter in my three-ring notebook,
and I remember when the ballpoint
replaced the nib and ink.
- George Held
A Copy Book
You gave me once a copy book,
pages blank as a tabula rasa,
cover painted with a still life
of lush yellow peaches
and purple grapes
in a wicker basket,
and you urged me to fill it
cover to cover with love
poems.
Only, since you left
for other orchards, I have
no more fruitful verse to pick.
- George Held
Ocean Front
The ocean is a bully,
pounding the shore
like a Russian warlord
bombarding a doomed
populace next door.
The ocean pours it on
the defenseless shoreline
opening ravines for rafts
in its waters, blasting houses,
killing willy-nilly.
The ocean thunders on
with relentless concentration
as the climate warms and adds
depth to water’s eternal force.
- George Held
After “Haiku on Shit” By Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902), tr. Ikuho Amano & James Shea, Poetry (May 2022)
Squish!
The sound of my cleated sole
stepping into dog shit
Mixed big and small turds
on my stove top – Mama Mouse
orienting her babes
Human shit
on the sidewalk – homeless
or caught short?
Following the wolf
by tracing her warm scat –
reading sign
Reading and writing
haiku on shit grows respect
for shit
- George Held
Life Is Cruel
The adage fits everyone differently.
“Cruel” must first be defined: “brutish, harsh
infliction of pain” on the defenseless,
Like a woman or child of Mariupol
Or Bucha, or an animal, like a pet,
like kicking a dog down the stairs.
But don’t be too enamored of sympathy,
lest you become its object. Better
to give than to receive a jackboot
in the face when your life is on the line.
Unless your life is on the line, Thou shalt not
act cruel remains the operative rule.
- George Held