Saturday, March 15, 2014

George Held -- Four Poems



Four Poems                                                                               George Held



Corrections

Nature gave us names for our flaws,
Like a harelip or buckteeth,
both of which can be corrected,

that is, made correct in the view
of the community at large.
But before surgical or dental

technique made such corrections
commonplace, the hare-lipped
and bucktoothed suffered.

My dad once dismissed my sister’s date
As “pigeon-breasted,” but we knew
Dad’s mulish behavior was a reflex.

He disparaged our mom as birdbrained
But he enjoyed the humor of Judy Canova
Despite her buckteeth and faux birdbrain

And he laughed at Lily Tomlin’s horse laugh.
He’d made a silent self-correction.


Speeding toward Oblivion

Another birthday
And the days speed us
Toward Oblivion.

The older we get,
The faster our expiration
Date zings toward us.

Hang on to the arm rest—
This bus is out of control
On the highway to Oblivion,

Pop. 20,000,000,000
And counting. Can’t keep
That dang sign up to date.

Wave goodbye to the gang
Who saw us off—off
The cliff to Oblivion.



Come Back, Shame

What’s the color of shame?
Envy is green, fear is white,
embarrassment red,
but shame?

Is shame colorless as spit,
translucent as quartz,
invisible as a glass pane?

Can the Too-Big-to-Fail feel
shame for any act
they initiate? Can they feel
shame more than a beet?

Still, when someone
shames himself,
we can smell it.



Inventory 

I watch my step on every step
as I descend the subway stairs

like old Hephaestus on his way
to the hearth, gone in the legs,

scull more scalp than hair,
once-cancerous ear sporting new lobe,

yet I still hear well enough
to tell bad poetry at readings;

my one sighted eye has a plastic lens,
corrected to 20-20,

my yellowed teeth still bite and chew,
though most are capped or filled;

my crooner’s voice is now a croak,
and my beard grizzled;

my lungs and heart still sound
and my weight steady, though

my lower back often aches,
though I stretch daily and hope it cooperates;

my cock still stirs, sex still thrills,
but once a week gives me my fill;

my hands unsteadied by an “essential”
tremor, my skin wears a hundred tags;

my legs, uh, the stiff legs that started me
on this journey: won’t they ever be

limber again? How they would drive
me to the hoop and propel me

down the court and let me leap
for a rebound, but “rebound”

is now a word from the past,
on which I will not dwell,

since each day brings promise
of some new nourishment

or ailment—which brings me to my feet:
may they bear me long as my legs can creep.





5 comments:

  1. Thank you for sharing your work with the world, George! Good stuff, as usual. Always a pleasure to read your work.

    Sincerely,
    Leah Angstman

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you for your comment, Leah. We at 5 Willows are pleased that George's poems are well-liked and travel the distance.

    Koon Woon

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  3. The ease with which this poet, George Held, moves from sympathetic observation, “the hare-lipped and bucktoothed suffered” to ironic insight, “He’d made a silent self-correction,” from the diction of slang, “Can’t keep/That dang sign up to date,” to the double meaning of a repeated word, ‘Who saw us off—off/The cliff to Oblivion,” from a “shameless” pun on an iconic quote from a classic 1953 movie, “Come Back, Shame,” to a seemingly nonsensical line, “ Can they feel/shame more than a beet?” that, on reflection, makes all the sense in the world, the ease with which he does this is a virtuoso performance that we seldom see in poetry published today. Hats off to the poet and to the editors for bringing this gifted poet to us.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mr. Livingston,
      We hope George Held will continue to send poems to us and you will continue to read Five Willows Literary Review. Thank you for your generous comment and this is the only reason we are "working."

      Koon Woon

      Delete
  4. Speeding toward Oblivion- not a concept of thought well accepted, since it speaks of our mortality.

    Ahh= to have more than one lifetime to pursue that which evades me this time around!

    ReplyDelete