I’m Mr. Blue: When I see my baby/What do I see/Poetry/Poetry in motion (Johnny Tillotson, 1960)
…You'll never know how great a kiss can feel
When you stop at the top of a Ferris wheel
When I fell in love
Down at Palisades Park…
—Palisades Park sung by Freddy Cannon in 1962, and written by Chuck Barris
who later created The Dating Game, produced The Newlywed Game, hosted The Gong Show
No control, we each get expelled
outa mothers’ sometimes tunnel of love
then at that even much rougher other end of life
if lucky Gerardo’ll have not too bad passage surrounded
by dear family and friends perhaps aided by a hemlock cocktail
thusly you can decide on exact time plus place of an inevitable sadness.
…about 6 months older than me
he got driver’s license 1st, cruise ‘n booze
carnival down in LA; now on our last Subaru
hurrah in Northern California, both approaching
80, cuz riding shotgun recapitulates with carefully curated
playlist as from backseat I watch his befuddled grandson take the wheel.
…Next day down in SF Bay Area
picking up youngest daughter’s 2 kids after
grade school on what feels as if Spring has begun
with my boychicks energized like cold-blooded reptilians
just awoke; almost reached DST, sun results in instinctual push-ups
on hot rocks; at elder sib’s request, Coach spins sentimental soundtrack
Meet the Author:
Late-phase 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. 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, 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