Gerard Sarnat ~ Over My Stoned Cold

1. 77‑Y.O’s New [Perhaps Clichéd] Organizing Principle

Understanding
Life’s entropy
State
     After
Making trek
Higher up into
Age’s
      Himalayas
Where near air gets
Thinner every year
Friends
        Dying
Almost like flies
Too fast for me to
Keep
      Track
One who gen­er­al­ly
Doesn’t plan, does
Setting
       Aside
Down time to recall those
Passed with all due respect.
Today’s
        Special
Now but more accu­rate­ly trag­ic
Since Your lat­est victim’s a child.

2. MOTHER MARY ELEMENTARY BUFF & TURFED ST. LOUIS BLUE LAWS [ii]

i.Geri Lee Vis-À-Vis Saint Louie

.…Chantilly lace (chan­til­ly)
Pretty face (chan­til­ly)
A pony tail — hangin’ down (chan­til­ly lace)
A wig­gle and a walk (chan­til­ly)
A lit­tle gig­gle and a talk; (chan­til­ly)
It gonna make the world go ’round (chan­til­ly lace)
–Jerry Lee “The Killer” Lewis, 1972

Brain tar­nished
Grade school’s
Heavy met­al mem
Stained forever

In my cere­brum
Star of our class
Would shoplift
From Walgreens

With her jack­ass
Egregious trick­ster
5‑finger dis­count­ed
Mao red alarm clock

Hid under jack­et
And then she great
Ballsily on fire
Turned around

To re-enter store
Demand full refund
Or replace with all
Chantilly lace

ii. Tues Mo[u]rns Not Tasty Bits: Acquired Tastes

Before T‑Day repast, here
Is one wacky pro­ject­ed ver­sion
Thorn——>rose ~awk­ward “real­i­ty”?

You was some naïve thin-skinned pur­ple
Prose wall­flower crew­cut Midwest church
Mousy poor boy shrimp too recent­ly off da
Landlocked Lake Mich tug­boat, arriv­iste cuz
Kiddo kick-scream dealio gig dragged to keep
Rich squab­bling Scar$dale par­ents’ arro­gant
Ur-unhap­py boy chick­adee stuck-up sky high
Wire surly cir­cus act well-appoint­ed oy hoity
Toity ball­sy pompous pom­padour com­pa­ny
All aboard lux cruise to Eisenhower era’s
Most posh deca­dent Royal Hawaiian Hotel
Mosh pit where veh iz mir for very first time
Outa-their-league Sarnatzky scion tried in jest
To ingest odd nov­el ick­ish loopy papaya fruits
Which spoon­ful zap­pari­no gagged Gerardo
Til inter­minable no-fun puke­fest: bor­der­ing
Quasimodo-hatred New Guy On Right Block
Gone Wrong Knight Errant Syndrome lysed
Gradually, we/ me err learn how to turn such
Ruthless infan­tile Mariah grudge match wars
Toward now much more reward­ing love-feast.
Ever since dou­ble-down-duh-dunce-pon-a-time
Humbled St. Louie-born Southside Chitown-raised
Ritz Cracker’s jeal­ous piqué — once-removed
Second cousin already-entrenched Beverly Hills
Exclusionary din­ner par­ty com­ic book soirées –
Fuzzy arch-rival crazed pari­ah smarmy hor­ri­bilis
Honorific joust evolves from Honolulu 5–0 nada
Enduring chin-music after dude rips my home­work
To now mutu­al JewBu bosom buds’ fam­i­ly fifth gen
Tight as ticks antic­i­pate pause or near-post Covid fork
Ain’t always ice cream sun­dae rocky road resump­tion
Long-stand­ing Mendocino cher­ry on top back­woodsy
Traditional cheer that con­sists dozens upon dozens of us
Include one dear Fine Man friend also from fifth grade
.…..Sooo grate­ful core would again have grand pleash
Forage yet anoth­er Thanksgiving cel­e­bra­tion together!

Above is imag­ined free­as­soc­strea­ma­con sure to boomerang
Sucking sound’s last fleshy papain enzyme rem­nants com­fort­ed
Skip To My Lou late sep­tu­a­ge­nar­i­an stomach’s queasy-peasy reflux.

3. Color Within The Lines Of JewBu’s Inner Galaxy

…Now, the fifth daugh­ter on the twelfth night
Told the first father that things weren’t right
“My com­plex­ion,” she says “is much too white”
He said, “Come here and step into the light”
He says, “Hmm you’re right
Let me tell the sec­ond moth­er this has been done”
But the sec­ond moth­er was with the sev­enth son
And they were both out on Highway 61
–Bob Dylan, Highway 61 revisited

Now moon­ing third daugh­ter leaned on her green room’s blue ‘n white Shabbos table­cloth
Told a sec­ond-time tat­ted Goth father ought quit stok­ing fire­place that things just weren’t right,
“Little Yanai’s oy so but­toned down com­pared to our over­flow­ing first­born.”
Then Israeli dude retorts, “But if we ask while unstuff boychick’s mouth­ful of chal­lah
Underneath, my dyna­mite moth­er-in-law s’ dynamo grandkid’s got such strong well-for­mu­lat­ed
Opinions regards to what is gen­er­al­ly out there in cur­rent day mul­ti­verse
Plus much more than big bro Liavy or those from your old­er sibs’ four sons.”
Thus sam­sara sun sets on Margaret’s wise brown swarthy patri­arch who whis­pers, “Good night, hush.

Century-Old Tin Foil Hat Genius Proto Types [iii]

i.Tesla
at six
invent­ed
a motor
pow­ered by
June bugs.

ii.Thinking
is elec­tri­cal ener­gy
and we record
elec­tric­i­ty all the time
so why can’t I pho­to­graph
thoughts?

iii. If you want
to have a chance
to under­stand
Elon Musk
study up on
Nikola Tesla.

~

DIFFIDENT SHORT-SHORTS BY SHORT-HAIRS, OR NOT TOO MUCH [v]

i. Dissing Diff Strokes

You kin­da wig­gy per­son
wants­ta solve cross­word puz­zles
or ride a roller coaster?

ii. Arrived at Annus Horribilis 77

Oh so will I look back
toward this next peri­od
as your lost fal­low years
bear fur begun hiber­na­tion
wait­ing until turns new leaf
when final­ly has reached eighty
then may emerge from our dark woods
to become one of their lion manes of winter?

iii.Snippet From His Own Private (Skinhead Militia) Idaho

Tyger Tyger, burn­ing bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immor­tal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fear­ful sym­me­try?…
–William Blake, Songs of Innocence

Decades-long detailed recent­ly now dai­ly or more unheat­ed email
con­vo with med­ical school room­mate well’s con­tin­ued close friend
whose polit­i­cal views are anath­e­ma to me (and no doubt vice ver­sa)
though threat­en­ing get caught in cage match kill shot with no winners

some­how through mutu­al respect and love plus sheer deter­mi­na­tion
we ab/react with­out los­ing our cool sor­ta like wary lion <-> tiger
cir­cling each oth­er to con­stant­ly assess an endgame check­mate
smelling red meat then pounc­ing on each other’s jugulars:

“…Ger, kind of reverse bomb throw­er Robin Hood:
utopi­an slim white sta­tist elites hopped-up on dopamine or stim­u­lants,
steal­ing from anoth­er neighborhood’s fat stu­pid col­ored peas­ants
–then giv­ing GOMER*s lucre to not such very enlight­ened woke creeps…”

*Get Out Of My Emergency Room argot from The House of God
by Samuel Shem (pseu­do­nym for sub­se­quent shrink Stephen Bergman)
whom I worked along­side at Brookline’s Beth Israel Hospital
where we were “house offi­cers” in Internal Medicine train­ing program

iv. Quality of life maybe [mar­gin­al­ly] get­ting much better.

I recall when we were all kids
with boys oy boast­ing crew cuts
dur­ing the smog­gy Eisenhower era
tiny pas­sen­gers in those humon­gous
gas-guz­zling cars with­out any seat belts
are rou­tine­ly toss­ing trash onto our boule­vards
as Mom smoked Marlboros, Dad unfil­tered Camels.

v.…Duh Dunno Why Such Hazy Elixir Blizzard Excellent Adventure…

Still long-hair beard hip­py-dip­py mien
‘Steada we con­stant­ly attempt to iden­ti­fy
Our spe­cif­ic sin­gle species star all-ter­rain vehi­cle
Is hands-down supe­ri­or among home-grown mar­i­jua­na
Or brand prod­ucts where­by I can vary % T.H.C./ C.B.D.
As well as pure or hybrid Indica (“peace”) —–> Sativa (soar)
Plus infi­nite dif­fer­ent deliv­ery sys­tems such as gummy/edibles vs vape
Pax vs pre/ roll-ur-own vs blunt vs tobac spliff vs pipe vs bong vs Volcano.
Then if one remains ado­les­cent to over­lay “fla­vors” fun­ny mar­ket­ing names
(Sorry for this snide unnec­es­sary dig but could not resist): Ger’d nev­er grokked
About it that way before hope­ful­ly won’t ever again—now becomes pure plea­sure
To choose imme­di­ate­ly at will what cur­rent mood desires—much like for more refined
Folks than me right wine from cel­lar while I imag­ine col­or­ful gar­den and kitchen delights
Bounty to stuff my insa­tiable stoned face per­haps voila oy even order-in oys­ters Rockefeller?

Volcano Wizard

~

Gerard Sarnat has been nom­i­nat­ed for the pend­ing 2022 Science Fiction Poetry Association Dwarf Star Award, won San Francisco Poetry’s 2020 Contest, the Poetry in the Arts First Place Award plus the Dorfman Prize, and has been nom­i­nat­ed for hand­fuls of 2021 and pre­vi­ous Pushcarts plus Best of the Net Awards. Gerry is wide­ly pub­lished includ­ing Washington Square Review, The Deronda Review, Jewish Writing Project, Hong Kong Review, Tokyo Poetry Journal, Buddhist Poetry Review, Gargoyle, Main Street Rag, New Delta Review, Arkansas Review, Hamilton-Stone Review, Northampton Review, New Haven Poetry Institute, Texas Review, Vonnegut Journal, Brooklyn Review, San Francisco Magazine, and more. He is a Harvard College and Medical School-trained physi­cian who’s built and staffed clin­ics for the mar­gin­al­ized as well as a Stanford pro­fes­sor and health­care CEO cur­rent­ly devot­ing energy/resources to deal with cli­mate jus­tice, and serves on Climate Action Now’s board.