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Brisket A Tasket Blue & White Nursery Basket To Horde Her Semites’ Snipped Foreskins
by Gerard Sarnat
My words are venom.
I spit from my mouth a terrible poison.
Sorrow and pain linger on my breath.
I want my tongue to be sweet like honey
Elderberry syrup dripping down my throat,
But my tongue is forked.
I hiss and send curses up into the heavens.
Ever warring, my words are bitter cold, a frost that burns.
Darkness settles over the land—a murkiness unending—
And I am afraid.
I am scared I may never find which tree to hang myself from
To rest under its branches
To pause and find that eternal bliss
To unlock the mystery of how to speak life, tenderly
and have it burst forth off the tip of my...
‘Let there be light,’ I whisper timidly.
‘Let there be light,’ I beg.
Gerard Sarnat is a physician who’s built and staffed homeless clinics as well as a Stanford professor and healthcare CEO. He 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 Stanford, Oberlin, Brown, Columbia, Virginia Commonwealth, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Wesleyan and the University of Edinburgh. Gerry’s writing has also appeared widely including recently in such U.S. outlets as Gargoyle, Main Street Rag, New Delta Review, MiPOesias, Margie, Blue Mountain Review, Danse Macabre, Canary Eco, Military Experience and the Arts, Cliterature, 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, Irish, Scotch, Australian, New Zealander, French, German, Indian, Israeli, Swedish and Fijian among other international publications. KADDISH FOR THE COUNTRY was selected for pamphlet distribution nationwide on Inauguration Day 2016. 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 plus five grandkids.
gerardsarnat.com
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