Marxist Grouch’s Santa Cruz/Monterey/ San Benito American Medical Disassociation Dissed
“You never want to be caught, you never want to be kissed,
you're just an old antidisestablishmentarianist in our midst”
— Duke Ellington, You're Just An Old Antidisestablishmentarianism
Never did pre-med, never yearned to be an MD, though eventually
went into that line of work in order to serve poor folk
who otherwise wouldn’t get any health care at all.
During school I spent those pony-tailed days horsing around
plus organizing against the bloody Vietnam War: did not
attend graduation or take no Hippocratic oath -- instead
instead had ‘em mail my diploma. Then after post-doc
training instead of taking a chief residency, becoming
a professor, took un$ought jobs nada else applied for.
Learned Spanish in order to communicate.
1st board-certified internist ever accepted
a job at our community health center.
Later on ran a pilot Medicaid program
which pissed off rich Monterey white
shoe MDs required to participate.
Their anemic society invited me --
tieless -- to a fancy dinner with
the AMA’s (never joined) Prez.
Thought maybe they’d offer
some toast but instead I was
roasted as a Communist.
Proceeded to set up/ staff
homeless clinics nobody
would give funds to.
Put bunch of time in on
jail wards ministering
dying AIDs patients.
Today got a flyer
in the mail from
an old nemesis.
Dr. Sarnet [sic]
if you join we
will send free
bow-tie with
After Selling Out My Patients But Not HOMELESS CHRONICLES
Mixin’ up the medicine, I’ve had my Bay Area ups and downs...
Many years finagling Black Panthers and City Council kickbacks,
Oakland’s Fruitvale District’s rezoned to allow us to build a clinic
‘round the corner from Montgomery Wards
so pregnant single mothers wouldn’t need three or four bus transfers.
Took about a month before bottom floor’s taken back as a crack house...
Leaving the Negev and Black Rock Deserts
in the dust for now but reconsidering Palo Alto’s unhoused
citizens whose clinic we kickstarted and staffed a decade ago;
when in town, more often than not, I must pass on revisiting.
Just too painful to encounter amigos’ habits unchanged,
new clients I’ve never met acting as if they know me.
Some have crystal clear meth mouth and jonesing Rx scams.
I’ve a hunch others hazily confuse my physiognomy
with an interchangeable bunch of Jewish docs
come across over years of charity care. Reluctantly
I admit ditto about my own racially-tinged perceived insults
-- obscure experiences not recalling the names of opaque
mainly blacks and browns. Down in LA shelters,
at least the voicemail programs are primarily in Spanish.
Today may be different.
Having raised the funds to move indoors from a field of dreams,
cinderblock tucked between railroad tracks and car wash,
I’m not proud that the windowless’s Plexiglas wind tunnel
behind the jail and dump allows pedestrians and pimpmobiles
to peek through into the exercise yard peep show/ zoo/ prison.
I stand outside deciding whether to go through my ex-board chair
“used to be a physician here” spiel. Why? So the guard hardened
to such BS from guttery dime chippers, tweakers, smurfers,
slammers who’d put out whatever men want for a bump,
pushers breaking the rules by getting high on their own supply,
assorted ne'er-do-wells who use the free laptops for porn
cravings unavailable in box stores or the library -- will buzz
me though the turnstile, or at least roust whomever’s in charge.
Before I make up my mind, a well-put-together man
grins, comes over, Dr. Sarnat, so nice to have you here
-- it’s been a long time since your ministrations.
At first I don’t recall him. Ah, Richard, one of the few
I genuinely believed didn’t have major substance
or mental ills (+/- AIDs from shooting or barebacking)
that hid under the do-gooder granola non-diagnosis
of Quirky before often as not exploding.
Rich invites me to inspect his room above the walk-in center
which I decline but accept a cup of coffee and day-old Danish
donated by a local café. Before I can work up the nerve to ask,
he answers. Yes it was rough losing my job when Cisco
laid me off when the dotcom bubble burst. Put up
for a while in their Santa Cruz retreat, but then Chapter 7
and my unemployment ran out along with my wife
and son. I lived in my car for years till my number popped
for public housing. This welfare life appeals to me more
than the wars as a mid-level manager. Never dusted off
my loafers and Oxford shirts when Silicon Valley recovered.
What’s your story? Someone said you’re a poet.
Have a Happy Thanksgiving next week – the Urban Ministry
churches are putting together the usual shindig!
After we shake hands, not pressing my luck,
I turn, wade away from all the squalor, all the glory.
Gerard Sarnat MD’s won San Francisco Poetry’s 2020 Contest, Poetry in Arts First Place Award/Dorfman Prizes; nominated for handfuls of recent Pushcarts/Best of Net Awards; authored HOMELESS CHRONICLES (2010), Disputes, 17s, Melting Ice King (2016). He’s widely published including by academic-related journals Stanford, Oberlin, Wesleyan, Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Pomona, Brown, Penn, Dartmouth, Columbia, University Chicago; Ulster, Gargoyle, Main Street Rag, Northampton Review, New Haven Poetry Institute, American Journal Poetry, Vonnegut Journal, 2020 International-Human-Rights-Art-Festival, Poetry Quarterly, New Delta Review, Buddhist Review, Brooklyn Review, LA Review, San Francisco Magazine, New York Times. Mount Analogue selected KADDISH for distribution nationwide Inauguration Day.
gerardsarnat.com
“You never want to be caught, you never want to be kissed,
you're just an old antidisestablishmentarianist in our midst”
— Duke Ellington, You're Just An Old Antidisestablishmentarianism
Never did pre-med, never yearned to be an MD, though eventually
went into that line of work in order to serve poor folk
who otherwise wouldn’t get any health care at all.
During school I spent those pony-tailed days horsing around
plus organizing against the bloody Vietnam War: did not
attend graduation or take no Hippocratic oath -- instead
instead had ‘em mail my diploma. Then after post-doc
training instead of taking a chief residency, becoming
a professor, took un$ought jobs nada else applied for.
Learned Spanish in order to communicate.
1st board-certified internist ever accepted
a job at our community health center.
Later on ran a pilot Medicaid program
which pissed off rich Monterey white
shoe MDs required to participate.
Their anemic society invited me --
tieless -- to a fancy dinner with
the AMA’s (never joined) Prez.
Thought maybe they’d offer
some toast but instead I was
roasted as a Communist.
Proceeded to set up/ staff
homeless clinics nobody
would give funds to.
Put bunch of time in on
jail wards ministering
dying AIDs patients.
Today got a flyer
in the mail from
an old nemesis.
Dr. Sarnet [sic]
if you join we
will send free
bow-tie with
After Selling Out My Patients But Not HOMELESS CHRONICLES
Mixin’ up the medicine, I’ve had my Bay Area ups and downs...
Many years finagling Black Panthers and City Council kickbacks,
Oakland’s Fruitvale District’s rezoned to allow us to build a clinic
‘round the corner from Montgomery Wards
so pregnant single mothers wouldn’t need three or four bus transfers.
Took about a month before bottom floor’s taken back as a crack house...
Leaving the Negev and Black Rock Deserts
in the dust for now but reconsidering Palo Alto’s unhoused
citizens whose clinic we kickstarted and staffed a decade ago;
when in town, more often than not, I must pass on revisiting.
Just too painful to encounter amigos’ habits unchanged,
new clients I’ve never met acting as if they know me.
Some have crystal clear meth mouth and jonesing Rx scams.
I’ve a hunch others hazily confuse my physiognomy
with an interchangeable bunch of Jewish docs
come across over years of charity care. Reluctantly
I admit ditto about my own racially-tinged perceived insults
-- obscure experiences not recalling the names of opaque
mainly blacks and browns. Down in LA shelters,
at least the voicemail programs are primarily in Spanish.
Today may be different.
Having raised the funds to move indoors from a field of dreams,
cinderblock tucked between railroad tracks and car wash,
I’m not proud that the windowless’s Plexiglas wind tunnel
behind the jail and dump allows pedestrians and pimpmobiles
to peek through into the exercise yard peep show/ zoo/ prison.
I stand outside deciding whether to go through my ex-board chair
“used to be a physician here” spiel. Why? So the guard hardened
to such BS from guttery dime chippers, tweakers, smurfers,
slammers who’d put out whatever men want for a bump,
pushers breaking the rules by getting high on their own supply,
assorted ne'er-do-wells who use the free laptops for porn
cravings unavailable in box stores or the library -- will buzz
me though the turnstile, or at least roust whomever’s in charge.
Before I make up my mind, a well-put-together man
grins, comes over, Dr. Sarnat, so nice to have you here
-- it’s been a long time since your ministrations.
At first I don’t recall him. Ah, Richard, one of the few
I genuinely believed didn’t have major substance
or mental ills (+/- AIDs from shooting or barebacking)
that hid under the do-gooder granola non-diagnosis
of Quirky before often as not exploding.
Rich invites me to inspect his room above the walk-in center
which I decline but accept a cup of coffee and day-old Danish
donated by a local café. Before I can work up the nerve to ask,
he answers. Yes it was rough losing my job when Cisco
laid me off when the dotcom bubble burst. Put up
for a while in their Santa Cruz retreat, but then Chapter 7
and my unemployment ran out along with my wife
and son. I lived in my car for years till my number popped
for public housing. This welfare life appeals to me more
than the wars as a mid-level manager. Never dusted off
my loafers and Oxford shirts when Silicon Valley recovered.
What’s your story? Someone said you’re a poet.
Have a Happy Thanksgiving next week – the Urban Ministry
churches are putting together the usual shindig!
After we shake hands, not pressing my luck,
I turn, wade away from all the squalor, all the glory.
Gerard Sarnat MD’s won San Francisco Poetry’s 2020 Contest, Poetry in Arts First Place Award/Dorfman Prizes; nominated for handfuls of recent Pushcarts/Best of Net Awards; authored HOMELESS CHRONICLES (2010), Disputes, 17s, Melting Ice King (2016). He’s widely published including by academic-related journals Stanford, Oberlin, Wesleyan, Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Pomona, Brown, Penn, Dartmouth, Columbia, University Chicago; Ulster, Gargoyle, Main Street Rag, Northampton Review, New Haven Poetry Institute, American Journal Poetry, Vonnegut Journal, 2020 International-Human-Rights-Art-Festival, Poetry Quarterly, New Delta Review, Buddhist Review, Brooklyn Review, LA Review, San Francisco Magazine, New York Times. Mount Analogue selected KADDISH for distribution nationwide Inauguration Day.
gerardsarnat.com