Word Riot

By Gerard Sarnat


Alone but not lonely        
                                        yet plainly the only      
attendee older than
                                        forty, fifty ... or sixty,
and aside from the
                                        three pimply groupies
with rainbow rubber
                                        banded braces
in front row middle seats -
                                        likely the sole being
with no lip, nose,
                                        or eyebrow piercings;

or total body tattoos
                                        showing everywhere
there'd been bare skin;
                                        or big bad clodhoppers;

or high-healed black boots -
                                         I tried not to stand out
too much by standing to
                                         clap in the hip Hollywood

SRO bookstore, when the
                                         crowd rose in unison
as if we were in a
                                         stadium or concert hall

to cheer the speakers
                                         who in reality were
rock 'n roll stars from
                                         the '80's band Primus and

Guided by Voices, here
                                         gone literary to pitch
their debut novels, which
                                         judging by what was

read outloud batted five
                                         hundred, the first excellent
- funny, interesting,
                                         universally appealing -

except for too many
                                         fart, piss, shit and zit
jokes and references
                                         to all manner of drugs

entering the body by
                                         every conceivable route
and cavity - while the
                                         second struck out, no

doubt, no way Artificial
                                         Light would've ever
landed a publisher
                                         if Z were not a

CD-selling celeb
                                         though in all honesty
I'd never heard of either
                                         pop group before.


Both men (actually
                                         one was just a boy)
dwelt obsessively
                                         on death, which each

obviously felt was
                                         both very cool
to write about and
                                         very cool of Kurt

                                         to have done, but
something that was
                                         not on the horizon
for themselves.

It was an extremely
                                         hot night in Los Angeles
with the electric grid
                                         gone out earlier that

afternoon (Greek lunch
                                         in the chic Larchmont
District), so no one was
                                         all that surprised

when halfway through
                                         the questions and answers
session (by far the cutest
                                         girl in the middle front row

breathlessly asked X
                                         where he'd found such
a beautiful shirt and
                                         what his necklace meant?)

the A/C went down and
                                         it got awfully warm as
a Skylight clerk tried
                                         to made light of it until

presto, the owner emerged
                                         with candles that he
lit to make it less dark
                                         and even a bit romantic,

imploring the audience
                                          to take care since his
precious hardbacks were
                                          extremely flammable.

Some of the less happy
                                          campers decided to
pass on the rest of the
                                          evening -- it's still not

certain exactly what
                                         happened to the three
teeny boppers that
                                         made them scream -

and rushed the exit,
                                         which they soon
found was locked,
                                         requiring the power

to go on before the door'd
                                        open --or at least that's
what the management
                                        claimed, although a

woman who said she
                                        was a safety technician
shouted out that was
                                        a pure ruse (b*** s***)

used to assure that
                                        nobody sneaked out
without paying for
                                        merchandise, since

the normal security
                                         system's invisible
eye device obviously
                                         was on the fritz.

To make a long story
                                         short, after the riot (really
no big deal, just a few
                                         muscle-shirted goateed

guys in fedoras throwing
                                         chairs 'til the storefront
window broke), the folks
                                         who stayed had the time

of our lives, all for
                                         one and one for all,
swaying alongside
                                         the sexy rockers who

by now'd pulled their
                                         acoustic guitars from
the cases, preparing
                                         to strum old favorites,

and we whooped out
                                         almost a play list from
Bill Graham's Winterland
                                         days, and I sang right along...
" Rat in a drain ditch,
caught on a limb, you
know better but I know
him. Like I told you,
what I said, steal your
face right off your head..." 
                                           til the juice came
back on, and all the gang

                                           remaining there hugged,
leaving at least one geezer
                                           Deadhead and another
Jerry may he RIP, ecstatic.

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 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 EZAAPP, The Hiss Quarterly, Pens on Fire, Poets Against War, Thieves Jargon, Underground Voices, Flutter, Jack, Atavar, Wilderness House Review, Aha!Poetry, Spindle, Black Zinnias,The Furnace Review, and Stonetable Review 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.