Only Reality

     Be it life or death, we crave only reality

                                     H.D. Thoreau 

     Humankind cannot bear very much reality… 

                                     T.S. Eliot 

 

You’d long filled a file tabbed “Reality” 
with reports of any you’d found, 
only events deemed earthbound, 
with no attribution to deity; 
 
you’d lived life beyond most norms 
of social convention, 
meeting the challenge of restrictive forms 
though hinting at mortal rendition, 
 
like a scorpion challenged  
by a ring of fire, jabbing himself 
with his own stinger, taking 
his own life, his only reality. 

 

 

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).

 

Edited for Unlikely by Jonathan Penton, Editor-in-Chief
Last revised on Monday, October 25, 2021 - 22:08