Gerard sarnat
MENAGERIE [8] 1.taste of chocolate ekphrasis
riffing on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaGuSZz-Fzw
EO Wilson’s ants
carried on cardboard
have now begun to
contemplate settling
on Fifth Avenue’s
Gatsby third eye
erevolutionary killer
fsociety systematic
complementarity’s
non-dual paramecia
quench some calcium
channel disorders
Brownian motion
thermodynamics
anneal sentient
being flocks of
solid state Staten
Island starlings
a cool few steeped
deep inside JFK jet
Feel free to omit visuals, select subsections.
Planck time Pepsi
anti-matter pairs
self-annihilation
with quantum foam
quark quirkiness
random vacuoles
Buddhist emptiness
inherent existence
Heisenberg Effect
Hawthorne’s scarlet
awareness’s all there
is logical positivism
machine inkdrops
on paper relativity’s
bleeding heart knows
nada color of space
time black hole Cabalist
jack shit alignment
engines assassinate
small/er/est Werner
Ehrart string theory
dandelion suffering
2. once king cotton good golly echt
Arkansas meth delta west of the Mississippi,
poverty down here thick as spring mosquitoes
which only got worse when Wal-Mart came to town.
tote that barge, wanna lift bails ditch weed marijuana,
temptation of bosses’ tote boards off the charts if us
grunting animals smuggle tote bags of Mexican ice.
DEA round up’s like shooting catfish in a barrel,
drug poetry writes itself with chemical kits turning
three kilos of powder blue, It’s an eight pound boy!
Preachers make killings in churches for the afflicted,
jail house conversions work till back on the street -- and
just a methyl group or so off from my rich man’s molly.
PHYSICIANESE
3. Trumpazuma Revenge
Daughter with newborn
down for the count twice
fainted after puking E.Coli
tainted Starbuck’s salad
can barely get to her phone
to call my wife who’s taking
care of me still just a few days
after second hip replacement
I am able to make do alone
which frees Bubbe to watch
Baby allowing son-in-law to
drive Mommy to Urgent Care
that is closing in ten minutes with
nearby hospital ERs having six hour
winter waits and IV fluid shortages
(caused by Puerto Rican production
never resumed after the hurricanes)
only dispensed to the sickest of sick
-- luckily this doc’s able to sweet talk/
shame MDs not to turn our girl away
but to liberate their last lactated Ringers
solution, plus stay open until it’s all in.
4. Unintended Consequence #001 For Faux Alpha Dog
First decree
When wet behind the ears Gerry
Got
El Camino Hospital’s corner office
Was to stop
All inside smoking
Which in theory is okay
But in practice
Because this ass
Didn’t bring staff
Some of which was both addicted and strong
Along
His decision smoldered
As unhappy lung cancer patients with their IV poles were triaged
Somehow
To puff just beyond
that dumbfounded
CEO’s wraparound windows.
5. Fang haiku
Q: Which will you be?
That old black or new white wolf?
A: The one you feed.
6. Dogging It Haiku
“Academic politics are so vicious because the stakes are so small.”
-- common wisdom
primadonnas in
tutus make fools of us who
grant lifetime tenure
7. The Red Wheelbarrow
ORIGINALLY XXII from Spring and All (1923)
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
A century later, these words of William Carlos Williams, New Jersey family doctor
& poet, nurture fsociety’s Mr. Robot with Coney Island anarchic hackers’ barbeque.
Scrapping high schoolers say, What fur? Let’s meet at the bike racks at 3.
8. lonelyhearted misanthrope
neon planet DNA howl, lab
sow or cease cow passages
north, hungry chimera still
point streetcake patchwork,
paperlined mothy penniless
press wolfs words w/out jam
Gerard Sarnat has won the Poetry in the Arts First Place Award plus the Dorfman Prize and been nominated for Pushcarts.
Gerry’s authored four collections: HOMELESS CHRONICLES (2010), Disputes (2012), 17s (2014) and Melting The Ice King (2016)
which included work published in magazines and anthologies including Gargoyle, American Journal of Poetry (Margie), Main Street Rag,
New Delta Review, OCHO, Brooklyn Review, Lowestoft, Tishman Review plus was featured in New Verse News, Edify, Poetica, Songs of Eretz,
Avocet, LEVELER, tNY, StepAway, Bywords and Floor Plan. Deronda Review, San Francisco Magazine, Radius, Foliate Oak, Dark Run, Scarlet Leaf,
Good Men Project, Anti-Heroin Chic, Winamop, Aois, Poetry Circle, Tipton Review, Creative Truth, Harbor Village, KYSO, Flagler Review, Rumblefish,
Poets and War, and Ordinary Madness’ debut feature sets of new poems. Mount Analogue selected Sarnat’s sequence, KADDISH FOR THE COUNTRY,
for distribution as a pamphlet in Seattle on Inauguration Day 2017 as well as the next morning as part of the Washington DC and nationwide
Women’s Marches. In May “Amber Of Memory” was the single poem chosen for Gerry s 50th college reunion symposium on Bob Dylan;
the Harvard Advocate accepted a second plus Oberlin, Brown, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, etc. in and outside the US accepted concurrent pieces.
In August Failed Haiku presented his work first among over a hundred contributors. Later in 2017 Beautiful Loser’s main spread will be Sarnat’s
poetry accompanied by an interview. For Huffington Post/other reviews, readings, publications, interviews; visit GerardSarnat.com.
Harvard/Stanford educated, Gerry’s worked in jails, built/staffed clinics for the marginalized, been a CEO of healthcare organizations and Stanford
Medical School professor. Married since 1969, he has three children, four grandkids.