• Facebook
• Instagram

The Circle Game

Gerard Sarnat

__________

I recall all my being as an isolated youngster,  

can’t go outside cause of bad ragweed allergies,  

wrapped by Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives’ mournful  

sweet  croons+twangy twinkly banjo tunes—

stuck watching 10” vinyl discs go round and round  

78 times per minute while I tried to figure out what  

this bearded sage on the album cover was up to in  

rest of his existence I no doubt wouldn’t experience. 

A little bit older, I recall relishing Daddy horse  

around with much gusto at Uncle Miltie Berle’s 

antics on our family’s 1^st TV which was high 

maintenance since we had to adjust rabbit ears.     

Who does not recall longing for late Saturday  

night’s Lucky Lager Beer Dancetime countdown  

of the week’s top 45 singles, hiding transistor   

radio under bed covers—yippee, Duke of Earl’s #1!  

Recall Ivy Leaguer swinging around virginal  

virtual fig leaf grokking Joni Mitchell’s Circle  

Game in the sack climbing intensest sex ‘til 1969  

when I met next half century’s love of my life.  

And now here slumps a mid-septuagenarian 

on one backyard burl’s 29 rings: after pulling 

Silicon Valley neighbor (and despite recent 

Techlash, Macintosh’s Johnny Appleseed)  

designer Jony Ive’s slickest iPhone from my back  

pocket, iPhotos recall each of three kids planting  

those tiny redwood seedlings—giant sequoias  

chopped down exactly to the day Mom passed.  

“And the seasons they go round and round  

And the painted ponies go up and down  

We’re captive on the carousel of time” but 

can’t return to Big Rock Candy Mountain.

___________

Playlist song: Joni Mitchell, “The Circle Game”

__________

Poet, aphorist or sometimes meanderist; 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 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 2024 University of Idaho/Confluence Lab, 2024 Laughing Ronin Press, Hong Kong Review, Tokyo Poetry Journal, Buddhist Poetry Review, Gargoyle, Main Street Rag, New Delta Review, San Diego Poetry Annual, Potomac 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’s College as well as its Alpert Medical School, Colorado-Boulder, Harvard, Missouri Baptist, Stanford, Dartmouth, Penn, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, Grinnell, North Dakota, Nebraska, McMaster, Maine, Universities of British Columbia and Toronto and Chicago and Virginia presses; Awakenings Review, Arts & Cultural Council of Bucks County Celebration, Rio Grande Valley International Poetry Festival Anthology, the erozine, Antithesis, Magma, Ginosko, Chiron Review, WORDPEACE, Midwest Zen, Cordite Poetry Review, Young Ravens, Fjords, Turtle Island, 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, Arkansas Review. Gerry 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.

__________

🢠 Back Next 🢡

To learn more about submitting your work to Boudin or applying to McNeese State University’s Creative Writing MFA program, please visit Submissions for details.