1. WINTER HAIKU
i. Glow Of Chicago Winters Past
Parka-gloved bad boys
subnivean positioned,
conspire, throw ice balls.
ii. Mid-Septuagenarian
Gradually aging
as my snow white hair descends,
winter says sadness.
iii. Broken Winter Pastoral
Trump shook up snow globes
which to opponents looked like
they were full of shit.
iv. no longer pure as driven snow haiku [2]
sleep paralysis
stage – take snapshot poem, return
to your fitful dreams.
sadly, most nights Ger’s
septuagenarian slumber’s
multi-act battles.
2. Present Moment Snowflake tanka [2]
Buddha had lots goin’.
Family, health, wealth, athletics,
fame. Shiny objects,
poems passed. Meditate. Relax
into luminosity.
So let you be free.
Just naturally. Aware
of all postures. No
censoring. Without some dark
our true light does not exist.
3. Snowflake
Despite what’s known today about permanent atrophy
of the amygdala’s discipline center
accompanied by irreversible hypertrophy
of the brain’s pleasure center in young teens who smoked weed;
probably if a high schooler now,
yes, with a little help from my friends
I’d get educated how to remain high most the time.
Instead I loved Mr. Painter’s geometry class,
the satisfaction of proof = proof, but didn’t Mr. Crean’s physics
where it wasn’t clear the bald human light bulb
understood a fig newton up from down.
Underlying these judgments, and only in retrospect,
there was something about the former’s translucent kind eyes
and the latter’s yuck-yuck somersault appeals to the peanut gallery
which made one adult male authentic and to be taken seriously,
the other not — of course that’s totally subjective,
probably based on father figure projections blah blah.
Different eras, I’ve gazed through different prisms.
Mama’s womb to curdled boobs, toys revolved around circles,
orbs of hormonal manna, playing alpha ball of all sorts
sucking apricots through zucchini, a Casanova couch-surfing cherries,
valvular foreplay, lubricated sphincters, curlicue semen
DNA petting spills, rolling in the hay.
X ray vision undressed, penetrated women.
As a work-hard-play-hard flowerchild I did it up swell.
Eventually a more complex shape blossomed downside up in both retinae.
During my seventieth birthday party on Tel Aviv’s sunkissed beach,
though no diehard fan of America’s Pentagon,
a three-dimensional dodecahedron flashed over the Mediterranean.
The five members of our nuclear family appeared symmetrical without hierarchy.
Equal gravitational forces of love flowed in each direction from every angle.
Then heaven melted.
4. Dance To COVID’s Music
An ode to nice, neurotic
Jewish boychick’s own
Odin/Valhalla battle
mode muse:
Omm….odious Goyem
happier holler (but not
on our Shabbes as we
chant, chew challah)
oy, some of that more
nostalgic pre-war’s
past fave pleasures,
one warm image
Gerry picking out your
perfectest ever
local grocery
store produce
— particularly if such
could then eventuate
in much sweeter
melodious melon
syncopation, become
available nowadays
even right through
my snowy winter
given the Southern
Hemisphere’s
summer ships
‘em up north
although what with
Corona, I am so
very absolutely
grateful to
have opportunities
to gobble orange
cantaloupes which
may get delivered
no matter should
they rot too fast
— or honeydews’
green cardboard
drossy tastelessness
since most often do
never ripen — plus
oval watermelons
frequently freezing
in frig, red centers
completely gone to
an unkosher mush.
5. My Own Private Berlin Post First Magical Snowfall
We don’t talk about it much – and maybe it’s only Dick and me old enough so far –
but ya know the way
insidiously
you’re more and more “out of it”
when trying to function in society?
Perhaps felt disproportionately among those of us who spend some time
in fast-paced urban settings.
In the US that’d more likely be coastal elites –
driving in San Francisco and Los Angeles is increasingly difficult –
though Chicago ain’t no picnic.
But even night-driving into the forest where I live is a hassle.
Clerks and those behind me in checkout
(as it were)
lines are conditioned to be increasingly restless
expecting this generic old person to slow things down.
And everything costs so much you’ve quit even trying to make sense of it
except for big price-tag items?
So what the hell is it with Netflix where for like $8 a month I can find genug
good new interesting stuff to keep me happily busy?
Tonight I stumbled on this series called Abstract: The Art of Design.
The first show from Berlin, to Lou Reed’s eponymous mini-sound tract,
is on Chistoph Neimann and his illustrative art.
Berlin reified the experience since I was recently there, it’s a hotspot
for young Israelis (a happening place, free education, good jobs, lower cost of living) AND it got warmed up and personalized walking-talking-eating-smoking with Barry.
Jusssst too great, Neimann’s such an inspiring but accessible creative genius!
Physiognomywise he reminds me a bit of John Oliver.
He’s done maybe 23 New Yorker covers.
The second episode is on Tinker Hatfield, the U of Oregon pole-vaulter
who has worked intimately with Michael Jordan to design their epic Nikes.
And lots more in the series left!
Comforting and comfortable family — my uncle was born in Belarus
which used to part of Poland or neighboring more powerful countries —
and exciting media (books included, say re-reading Alice Munro’s short stories)
have become more important since I’ve put myself on a diet
to avoid Cable news and to balance demanding time resisting Trump
who’s threatening to downgrade America’s relationship with Germany in favor of Russia.
Bonus: snow cone chicanery
remember grand
son’s salmon-sepia sugar-smudged summer soda
fountain cutoffs?
Gerard Sarnat 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 in Buddhist Poetry Review, Gargoyle, Main Street Rag, New Delta Review, Northampton Review, New Haven Poetry Institute, Texas Review, Vonnegut Journal, Brooklyn Review, San Francisco Magazine, Monterey Poetry Review, The Los Angeles Review, and The New York Times as well as by Harvard, Stanford, Dartmouth, Penn, Chicago and Columbia presses. He’s authored the collections Homeless Chronicles (2010), Disputes (2012), 17s (2014), Melting the Ice King (2016). Gerry is a physician who’s built and staffed clinics for the marginalized as well as a Stanford professor and healthcare CEO. Currently he is devoting energy/ resources to deal with climate justice, and serves on Climate Action Now’s board. Gerry’s been married since 1969 with three kids plus six grandsons, and is looking forward to future granddaughters.
Aloka 