Gerard Sarnat

PALISADES’ PRIMO POWER

runs once-upon-a-time
pre-fire
I’d cruise ‘n booze
groovin’
Public Enemy
hip-hop
“Fight The Power”
Flav-fave
down Sunset Blvd
today
construction vehicles
crowd
as your mansions rebuilt
stupidly
(climate change’ll revisit)
“PCH
open to residents only” sign on
405
so now tourist voyeurs entrance
discouraged.

EASTER SUNDAY ON

Twenty-two years ago
after a daughter’s wedding
down in near meadow
where groom’s best friend
whom we just shared
Pesach Seder with played
Dylan If Not For You
hacksaw instrumental as

bop in teak hot tub
next to just-passed buddy
as Chuck D, Flavor
Flav plus Terminator X
from Public Enemy
serenaded Ger ‘n cuz…
it vanished during
interval outa music libe

so oy vey joined
daughter’s fam Spotify
premium plan
but am unable to load
into my iPhone
Apple playlists since
the corp rivals
work to prevent merge

thus’ll have to
make due, listen duo
separate apps
rather than integrated
uno shuffle
our drive five+ hours
home while
allow Buz to linger.

Late-phase often graphic poet arrived in seventh decade, aphorist, humorist or sometimes meanderist; Gerard Sarnat’s a multiple Pushcart/Best of Net Award nominee. Activism Through Poetry: How Gerard Sarnat Uses Verse as a Form of Protest is a 2025 retrospective: https://culterateblog.wordpress.com/2025/02/20/activism-through-poetry-how-gerard-sarnat-uses-verse-as-a-form-of-protest/. His work’s been widely published; including four collections; by Rattle, London Arts-Based Research Centre, Israel Association of Writers in English, The Nature of Our Times/Poets For Science, Gravity of the Thing, Brooklyn Review, Tokyo Poetry Journal, Gargoyle, New Delta Review, Buddhist Review, New York Times, Mount Saint Mary’s University/LA, Oberlin, St. John’s University, Northwestern, Yale, Pomona, Harvard, Missouri Baptist, Stanford, Dartmouth, Penn, Columbia, Grinnell, Johns Hopkins, NYU, Brown, North Dakota, McMaster, Maine, British Columbia/Toronto/Chicago, Virginia and Alabama university presses. He’s a Harvard Medical School-trained physician, Stanford professor, healthcare CEO. Currently, he’s devoting energy and resources to dealing with climate justice, serving on Climate Action Now’s board. Sarnat’s belonged to the longest-running U.S. Jewish-Palestinian Dialogue Group. Gerry’s been married since 1969 and has three kids, six grandsons — and looks forward to future granddaughters. gerardsarnat.com