Voir by Gerard Sarnat

Admit it, Tom; you're really turned on
peeping at a plump hairy black pear
waddling across Park Avenue at 55th
wearing skullcap, side curls, fringes.

If only details had played out
differently -- my family into
the Baal Shem Tov thing in Poland
or later here -- I'd be him.

His left hand holds a Bible while
his right thumb scrolls a Blackberry;
he's a bear of a man shuffling through
mid-town Manhattan's diamond district.

Face down, my Hassid doesn't waste time
worrying about traffic ... even though
both arms are looped through those
of his no-skin-showing young daughters.

As he rolls onto the opposite curb
(heading toward Brooklyn's Green Line,
home to Williamsburg?) I wonder, am I
witnessing a righteous man, a tzaddick?

Or (one Jew to another),
is that clinking in my brother's
pocket contraband shuttling
to Columbian drug lords?

"In God We Trust" dollars traded for cocaine,
laundered through the graces of my religion's
most orthodox -- curiously regarded as
ultimate guarantors of street honesty?

Rushing to keep up, I get excited
imagining being in the middle of
the money and scandal surrounding
Russian Mafioso blood commerce.

Beyond easy petty swindles (maybe larceny),
I fantasize heroin ODs, prostitution, murder
of little girls lurking under the radar screen
of faux pious yarmulkes, payes, tsitsit, siddurs.


		Gerard Sarnat
		Voir
		Admit it, Tom; you're really turned on peeping at a plump hairy black pear waddling across Park Avenue at 55th wearing skullcap, side curls, fringes. If only details had played out differently -- my family into the Baal Shem Tov thing in Poland or later here -- I'd be him. His left hand holds a Bible while his right thumb scrolls a Blackberry; he's a bear of a man shuffling through mid-town Manhattan's diamond district. Face down, my Hassid doesn't waste time worrying about traffic ... even though both arms are looped through those of his no-skin-showing young daughters. As he rolls onto the opposite curb (heading toward Brooklyn's Green Line, home to Williamsburg?) I wonder, am I witnessing a righteous man, a tzaddick? Or (one Jew to another), is that clinking in my brother's pocket contraband shuttling to Columbian drug lords? "In God We Trust" dollars traded for cocaine, laundered through the graces of my religion's most orthodox -- curiously regarded as ultimate guarantors of street honesty? Rushing to keep up, I get excited imagining being in the middle of the money and scandal surrounding Russian Mafioso blood commerce. Beyond easy petty swindles (maybe larceny), I fantasize heroin ODs, prostitution, murder of little girls lurking under the radar screen of faux pious yarmulkes, payes, tsitsit, siddurs.
		Gerard Sarnat splits time between his San Francisco Bay Area forest home and Southern California's beaches, where he and his wife care for their first grandson. Gerry is a Jewbu and seeker, father of three, physician to the disenfranchised, past CEO and Stanford professor, and virginal writer 'til the recent tender age of sixty-two. He has been published or is forthcoming in print and electronic literary journals including EZAAPP, The Hiss Quarterly, Pens on Fire, Poets Against War, Thieves Jargon, Underground Voices, Flutter, Jack, Atavar, Wilderness House Review, Aha!Poetry, Spindle, Defenestration, Black Zinnias,The Furnace Review, Stonetable Review , Bird and Moon, LoudPoet, SoMa, SNReview, Subtle Tea, Language and Culture, River Walk Journal, Etude, and Juked among others. "Just Like the Jones'," about his experience caring for Jonestown survivors, was solicited by The Jonestown Annual Report and will appear later this year. Gerry is currently working on an epic prose poem, "The Homeless Chronicles." He has been accepted into a four person writers' cooperative by The California Institute of Arts and Letters; Pessoa Press plans to publish his first book.
		© Gerard Sarnat All Rights Reserved