“Low to Higher Tech” Poetry by G. Sarnat MD

Gerard Sarnat MD’s authored HOMELESS CHRONICLES, Disputes, 17s, Melting Ice King. Gerry’s published by Gargoyle, Newark Public Library, Blue Minaret, Columbia, Harvard, Stanford, Main Street Rag, New Delta Review, Northampton Review, New Haven Institute, Buddhist Review, American Journal Poetry, Poetry Quarterly, Brooklyn Review, LA Review, SF Magazine, NY Times. gerardsarnat.com

G. Sarnat’s work has been previously published by In Parentheses.

LOW TO HIGHER TECH [5+]

Schmutzig Handscript

I cannot confirm that
Apparent last name
“Ziffnat” signature

Merging of Sarnat
With her maiden
Ziff’s purposeful

Or not but it sure
Seems like good
Idea to GSarziff.

Luck Of Current Draws
— thanks to Emily Witt, Fertile Ground, New Yorker, 24April & 1May 2023

Across every human population:
Males produce hundred billions of
Sperm in course long reproductive lives

Whereas females are born with all the eggs
They’ll ever have, one maturing each menstrual
Cycle during relatively short natural fertility periods.

As Homo sapiens are currently designed
Those with ovaries, uteri and mammary glands
Bear full responsibility for what happens to embryos.

Although women then do survive much longer than men
Menopause doesn’t just signal (unless medical intervention)
Beginning of infertility — but also a range of negative impacts

On bone health well as cardiovascular
Cognitive, immune function; often plus
Weight gain, depression, insomnia, low libido

To boot early occurrence correlates with shorter life —
Not only for self but statistic significantly her genetic brothers too
–Which is leaving aside testosteroned dudes dying more fighting wars.

Saturday Morning Shows, Circa 1953-2023

When I’m grandkids age
My parents plopped Gerry
Front of their nifty new TV
To watch fave Howdy Doody
But nowadays ‘steada Buff Bob/
Princess Summerfallwinterspring
You get this front row seat to view
Staged queen-castle ersatz puppetry
From a long ways away on FaceTime.

30th Anniversary Enlightenment (But Only Regards Dummkopf’s Solitary Cell)

Teen grandchild
Mocks Gerardo
Bought cheapo

iPhone 12–mini
Fits neatly there
In back pocket

Insteada latest-greatest
Version with 3 not 2
& niftier cameras

Which somehow now reminds me
Of back on 19May1993 when you
Asked much smarter older man

What’s doing during endless dull meeting
Turns out 1st time I heard about + witness
That a handheld device can send email

But fear was more than year in dark digital prison
Before Sarnatzky flipped to get with upgraded
Modern–-evil?–telecommunication programs

Although all our subsequent committees’ half measures
To decrease local homelessness have resulted in
Utterly expansive/expensive medieval failure.

Whichever wordsmith
(Maybe Joe himself?)
Came up with defining

Ukraine War as a fight
For Democracy versus
Autocracy has blown it

Since so many of former
In Global South and else
Where are mix both with

Refined illiberal elements
Strongman rule on the rise
Erdoğan, Orbán, Trump etc

Borrowing from each other’s
Playbooks to assure at best
Free but also unfair elections

Their “popularity” waxing
As no G7 leader attending
Hiroshima summit able to

Muster majority domestic
Support*: perhaps shoulda
Phrased conflict referring

To UN Charter Article 2(4)’s
Members respect sovereignty/
Independence of other States

That is likely closer to tactic
Zelenskyy articulates trying
To sweettalk-shame Modi etc.

*Peter Baker, Biden Is Not
Alone in Lacking Support
At Home. So Are 6 Other
Leaders, NYT, 21May23

Well Geraldo™ None Too Bright

US society values self-actualized
smart creative rich thin (you can
never ever have too much of it!)

there is this buttoned-eyed poet
whose 24 wraparound speakers
are grooving to Bach’s Concerto

in D-Minor as drives 2024 BMW
i7 M70 —but otherwise beggars
even a vaguely licit description.

Now he’s asked, Please complete
attached CAPTCHA Turing test to
tell if’s Homo sapiens or computer.

From the Editor:

We hope that readers receive In Parentheses as a medium through which the evolution of human thought can be appreciated, nurtured and precipitated. It will present a dynamo of artistic expression, journalism, informal analysis of our daily world, entertainment of ideas considered lofty and criticism of today’s popular culture. The featured content does not follow any specific ideology except for that of intellectual expansion of the masses.

Founded in late 2011, In Parentheses prides itself upon analysis of the current condition of intelligence in the minds of these young people, and building a hypothesis for one looming question: what comes after Post-Modernism?

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