by Gerard Sarnat

Talking story’s rainbow thread
pursued through Red Square serendipity,

this banned samizdat explains
how I became Pussy Riot famous:

“Informers contact KGB Art Crime Teams
about my missing poems,

Our client’s manuscript got censored in Moscow
then just disappeared

about seven minutes after landing
at the Sochi Olympics.

Pretending that I was victimized
by some unknown hacker network,

agents warned: Don’t consider taking pen to paper
’til you’ve luged home.

Words set to music as a way to remember,
poof now a rock star.”


Gerard Sarnat is the author of two critically acclaimed poetry collections, 2010’s HOMELESS CHRONICLES from Abraham to Burning Man and 2012’s Disputes. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in eighty or so journals and anthologies. Harvard and Stanford educated, Gerry’s a physician who’s set up and staffed clinics for the disenfranchised, a CEO of health care organizations, and Stanford professor. For “The Huffington Post” review and more; visit GerardSarnat.com. The pieces published in Empty Sink Publishing may appear in his third collection, 17s, in which every poem, stanza or line has 17 syllables.