George Held
George Held, an eleven-time Pushcart nominee, has written or edited 22 poetry books on subjects as varied as war, love, art, and nature in forms such as the haiku, cinquain, triolet, sonnet, villanelle, and sestina. His most recently published poems appear in Blue Unicorn, Better than Starbucks, First Literary Review—East, and Neuro Logical (Ireland).
Americans live on a hair-trigger,
ready any moment
to depart life when
they and a bullet might collide,
and so they die,
either the one shot or the shooter.
Getting & spending are lesser evils now
we have pandemic & pandemonium
caused by war and no real peace, even on Bali,
known for pacific waters and gorgeous daughters
in rebellion against the rule of tides,
you’d lived life beyond most norms
of social convention,
meeting the challenge of restrictive forms
though hinting at mortal rendition,
