potentially poetically licensed Halloween ‘n growing-old dramas aren’t for sissies [part 2739]
although I am still young
in mind well as body
or at the very least
deluded enough
can imagine
that to seem
true regards
Gerardo
if leave fantasies about
you aside this aging
process becomes
an increasingly
quick pain in
our assets as
watch buds
deteriorate:
no way around fraying
telomeres despite all
manner exer/orcise
and socialization
plus healthful
habits range
from food
to sleep.
yesterday gave us novel
wrinkle in time warp
when hosted friends
who’d recently lost
partners but were
ready to restart
motors of teen
awkwardness:
afterwards they each
sheepishly texted
apology for blab
too much since
really nervous
tho agreed on
a first date to
see Barbie.
Then there’s my lifelong
dear friend-cuz artfully
dodged so many dire
brushes with cancers
now confronts nother
looming endgame…
must choose among
mainly bum options
which include give up
any ghost of survival
oy go home to enjoy
remaining days with
family or take yet
one more trip vs
stay his course
fightfightfight
employ latest greatest
chemo ranges from
onomatopoeia Rx
Bleomycin bitch
sounds straight
outa Dickens
or ride to
rescue
again magically melt
each ‘n every tumor
immunotherapies
never surrender
task academic
medical center
devise newest
miracle amen.
However Saturday
fall morning let’s
suspend future
mourning for
present opp
to be with
grandkids
virtually
Poet and aphorist Gerard Sarnat is widely published internationally in print and online. He has been nominated for the pending Science Fiction Poetry Association Dwarf Star Award, won San Francisco Poetry’s 2020 Contest, the Poetry in the Arts First Place Award plus the Dorfman Prize, and has been nominated for handfuls of Pushcarts plus Best of the Net Awards. Gerry’s publications include 2023 San Diego Poetry Annual, 2022 Awakenings Review, 2022 Arts & Cultural Council of Bucks County Celebration, 2022 Rio Grande Valley International Poetry Festival Anthology, MIPOesias, Ocotillo Review, Gravity of the Thing, American Writers Review/ San Fedele Press, San Francisco Creative Writing Institute, Israel Association of Writers in English, In Parentheses, Sacramento Review, Pocket Samovar, Black Sunflower, Free State, The Broken City, Sandy River Review, Three Rooms Press/Maintenant, New World Writing, Songs of Eretz, New Verse News,The Font, BigCityLit, HitchLit Review, Lowestoft, Washington Square Review, The Deronda Review, Jewish Writing Project, Hong Kong Review, Tokyo Poetry Journal, Buddhist Poetry Review, Gargoyle, Main Street Rag, New Delta Review, Arkansas Review, Hamilton-Stone Review, Northampton Review, New Haven Poetry Institute, Texas Review, Vonnegut Journal, Brooklyn Review, San Francisco Magazine, Monterey Poetry Review, The Los Angeles Review, and The New York Times as well as by Oberlin, Yale, NYU, Slippery Rock, Northwestern, Pomona, Brown, Harvard, Stanford, Dartmouth, Penn, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, Grinnell, North Dakota, McMaster, Maine, Universities of British Columbia and Toronto and Chicago and Virginia presses. He is a Harvard College and Medical School-trained physician who’s built and staffed clinics for the disenfranchised as well as a Stanford professor and healthcare CEO. Currently he is devoting energy/ resources to deal with climate justice, and serves on Climate Action Now’s board. Gerry’s been married since 1969 with progeny consisting of four collections (Homeless Chronicles: From Abraham To Burning Man, Disputes, 17s, Melting the Ice King) plus three kids/ six grandsons — and is looking forward to potential future granddaughters.