by Gerard Sarnat
You walk into the room
With your pencil in your hand
You see somebody naked
And you say, “Who is that man?”
You try so hard
But you don’t understand
Just what you’ll say
When you get home.
– Bob Dylan, Ballad Of A Thin Man
i. I don’t remember when The Pilgrim’s
pork pie hat & suit bobbed into consciousness
though knew immediately the blue sky
buttoned down faceless man was Dad.
It must have been during my ornery
rebellion-against-every-convention
delayed adolescence since Magritte
died the same year that he painted it
which was 1967 which was exactly
the time I fled Victorian Harvard for
San Francisco’s Summer of Love,
anti-Vietnam draft resistance, etc.
René got me thinking surreally not
seriously so I quit medical school
thereby violating an implicit contract
that till then I didn’t know existed
with Father who quickly proceeded
to withdraw $$ support so I crashed
w. Kenny Marcellus’ Mission Rebels
as a token white guy in the SF cult.
On the only visit home, Pops/Mom
conveniently had some renta-rabbi
there whose guilt trip pissed me off
so much that I simply walked out.
ii. Fast-forward about a half-century,
I ask the pediatrician my youngest
selected to care for her newborn
what current literature suggested
regarding the risks vs. benefits
of circumcision before the family
proceeded with plans for the boy’s
traditional bris on the eighth day
which in reality wasn’t an issue
but after which I snuck in the real
question, What precautions, if any,
should be enforced marijuanawise
around the baby? – I’d read PET
scan studies showing consequences
through teenhood. Without hesitating,
she opined, You must put on clothing
you’ll take off before having contact
with the infant. A light bulb went on:
after Poppa died at 99, I kept his fedora
with red feather plus outrageously cool
silk corduroy smoking jacket he wore
puffing the pipe he gave me when I
returned to training, as looking like
movie star James Mason, Daddy served
martinis to docs who referred him plastic
surgery cases at our annual Beverly Hills
Christmas open house I now recall very
fondly from a quite delightful childhood.
Gerard Sarnat is a poet, physician, executive, academic and social activist. Gerry’s built and staffed homeless and prison clinics as well as a Stanford professor and healthcare CEO. Currently he is devoting energy/resources to work with internationally known and recognized leaders addressing global warming. Sarnat won the Poetry in the Arts First Place Award plus the Dorfman Prize, and has been nominated for Pushcarts plus Best of the Net Awards. Gerry is published in academic-related journals including University of Chicago, Stanford, Oberlin, Pomona, Brown, Columbia, Virginia Commonwealth, Arkansas, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Wesleyan, Slippery Rock, Appalachian State, Grinnell, American Jewish University, Sichuan University, University of Edinburgh and University of Canberra. Gerry’s writing has also appeared widely including recently in such U.S. outlets as Gargoyle, Main Street Rag, New Delta Review, MiPOesias, poetica, American Journal Of Poetry, Poetry Quarterly, Poetry Circle, Every Day Poems, Clementine, Tiferet, Foliate Oak, Failed Haiku, New Verse News, Blue Mountain Review, Danse Macabre, Jonestown Report, Latino Caucus, Canary Eco, Fiction Southeast, Military Experience and the Arts, Poets And War, Cliterature, Qommunicate, Texas Review, Brooklyn Review, San Francisco Magazine, The Los Angeles Review and The New York Times. Pieces have also been accepted by Chinese, Bangladeshi, Hong Kongese, Singaporian, Canadian, English, Wales, Irish, Scotch, Australian, New Zealander, Australasian Writers Association, Zimbabwean, French, German, Indian, Israeli, Romanian, Swedish, Moscovian and Fijian among other international publications. Mount Analogue selected KADDISH FOR THE COUNTRY for pamphlet distribution nationwide on Inauguration Day 2017. Amber Of Memory was chosen for the 50th Harvard reunion Dylan symposium. He’s also authored the collections Homeless Chronicles (2010), Disputes (2012), 17s (2014), and Melting the Ice King (2016). Gerry’s been married since 1969 with three kids, five grandsons with a sixth on the way and looking forward to future granddaughters. Find him online at gerardsarnat.com.
Hat and suit in the top photo were taken from a screenshot of Charlie Chaplin in The Pilgrim, courtesy of Phyllis Loves Classic Movies.