2 Poems by Gerard Sarnat

Our Local Star

I wake up each dawn to coyotes yapping at the Hollywood Hills.
Don my coolest Tom Cruise Scientology store kimono once more.
Vow again to set aside millennia of Hebefrantic rituals.
Bowed on one knee, I pray to the orbit that governs our existence.

Instead of recycling Abraham’s many tribes menacing worship,
let’s get back to the Pharaohs’ heliotropic faith, gaze toward RaRa.
When the wife and grandkids are up and fed and dressed and ready to go,
we head to the beach alongside the rest of Greater Los Angeles.


GIFTS FROM A DAUGHTER

i. Friends

Elliot’s almost four. Debra’s nearly three.
Helping Deb get dressed, Ell

said he would protect her from hitting
in pre-school.  Swinging together,

so astute, so grounded,
will it only get less as they grow older?

ii. Shoe Leather

Unheralded but feeling pretty good,
I flew out of the strip mall's

Adidas store puffed up in new ones
then crumpled when my hungry wife

shushed me to get off my high horse,
put on an apron, fry some onions

for our lunch. After which I cantered
over to the local grade school

to pick up a bushed grandson. Schlepped back
past storefront windows chocked full of

sneakers, through the strip mall’s dry
cleaning whiffs, into the funk donut shop

for a flurry of turkey and cheese sandwiches
then usual treats,

sugar-crystaled lashes, powdered cheeks,
Adidas sprinkles – Simon’s glazed

so I slipped on his chocked backpack
before we climbed the hill to go home.

Nothing’s so grand for grandparents
and grandkids as grandparents, grandkids.

iii. Fasting
(thanks to LV)

Enlightened as grasshoppers or tadpoles
that sense how much bulk’s just right,

my oldest taught me to hoard
the rest of my energy for myself.

Bionote

Gerard Sarnat has authored three critically acclaimed poetry collections, 2010’s HOMELESS CHRONICLES from Abraham to Burning Man. 2012’s Disputes and 2014’s 17s. Gerry’s published or is forthcoming in over 80 journals and anthologies.  Harvard and Stanford educated, Gerard’s a physician who has set up and staffed Palo Alto and San Jose clinics for the disenfranchised, a CEO of health care organizations, and a Stanford professor. For "The Huffington Post" review of his work and more; visit GerardSarnat.com.