poetry

17s by Gerard Sarnat


Ignoble Truths 
 

    Lovers’ lane, water 
                          falls, unique pure drop- 
                                                         lets
     merge in brackish pond scum.

    Bugs seem to scoot calmly: 
            free destinarians
                    eat or be eaten.

Buddy Holly on some car radio, Lothario reigns in my heart

       so I head to Bolinas to get mended
  by a country doctor

whose alpha wave machine 
    culls out good vibes from bad 
  for five bucks. When mine 

         turn weird, Irv says, “No problemo
    Ten dollars, we'll flip-flop electrodes.”

 

 

 

 

Stanford Pantheon
 

From her mythic Peet’s perch, the Nordstrom bag lady maddening jester 

coyly panhandles luscious Palo Alto,
Ma’am, please, no coins just bucks.

Among some crafty well-regulated hypomanic professors

and the legions of less-compensated 
hypersexuality, 

The Farm’s Elysian Field of OCD Ph.Ds who can’t find jobs

escape officemate islets of dysfunction,
boil as baristas.

 

 

 

 

On the Hundredth Anniversary of the Boxer Rebellion 
 

“White Demons.” The minder’s reluctant translation still right hooked my head. 
 

Bullet train from Canton’s Zoo to Hong Kong, my sparring daughter tussled 

“Why wouldn’t those moms let me roughhouse with their kids?” Boxed in, no answer,

I counterpunched, “How’s your box lunch?” while uneasy passengers gestured 

at our devil forks, scanned us for hoofs. We zoomed toward the once colony 

the Marquess of Queensberry or Prince Charles conceded in the last round 

since KO’ing China during largely unprovoked Opium Wars. 
 

Nodding off, I wondered, Why do boxer shorts hang from every window 

we pass? A man in the aisle shrugged, Sir, hard-working peasants leave the land 

to fight for their families, send renminbi home doing twelve-hour shifts 

daily, sharing beds with folk they don’t know since they work opposite times. 

The only thing that overlaps is half-price factory merchandise --

I bet Chairman Bill and Madame Hillary run the US worse than that!
 

Feeling jabbed then low-blowed, getting mad but no referee to protect 

me from me, humor proved to be the great eraser: as we giggled 

about each other’s foibles, even those around us relaxed their clench.

 

 

 

Editor's Note: Some of these poems may appear in Gerard Sarnat's third collection, 17s, in which each poem, stanza, or line has seventeen syllables.

 

 

Gerard Sarnat is the author of two critically acclaimed poetry collections, 2010’s HOMELESS CHRONICLES from Abraham to Burning Man and 2012’s Disputes. He has been published or is forthcoming in over 80 journals and anthologies. Harvard and Stanford educated, Gerry’s been a physician who’s set up and staffed clinics for the disenfranchised, a CEO of health care organizations, and a Stanford professor.