GEORGE HELD

EDITOR'S DELIGHT

O to be a poetry editor,

To change from supplicant

To predator,

To diss submitters in a rant

Or tease, "I'd love to print your work,

But can't."

PRIMAL SCENE

I am not to be touched,
For I was touched too much
As Mother's pet at four.
She'd lock her bedroom door

And naked kneel upon the floor
Like the Danish girl on the rock
And back me up against the bed
And lick erect my little cock.

I was a fly upon the wall,
A minuscule watcher of all
She did to me. I felt like Roo
Buried in mud, with no Kanga to

Come to my rescue. I shuddered
With terror, and with pleasure,
Caught in Eros' web at four,
Too stunned to cry or fly.

George Held has been teaching English at Queens College since 1967. He was Fulbright lecturer in American literature in Bratislava for one year and in Prague for two. In 1990 he began to publish his poems, more than 300 of which have appeared in such journals as Commonweal, Connecticut Review, 5 AM, and The Wallace Stevens Journal. A former Pushcart Prize nominee, he is the author of three poetry chapbooks, the most recent of which, Open and Shut, was a winner of the 1999 Talent House Press Chapbook Contest. His poems accompanying paintings by Roz Dimon appeared as Absolut® Death and Others in 2000. George's latest book of poems is Beyond Renewal (Cedar Hill, 2001). He also reviews poetry books for such publications as The American Book Review, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Notre Dame Review. Since 1991 he has co-edited The Ledge, a nationally distributed poetry journal, and he is the editor of an anthology of erotic verse entitled Touched by Eros (The Live Poets Society, 2002).