Big Pharma Magic (Come Find Me)
I’m getting better just taking precautions.
Yes chickenpox covered my elementary body
raised spots inflammations I scratched
like hell & freed me from a classroom
for almost two weeks but now threaten
to reemerge since my years pass seventy;
hit me up with the shingles vaccine as I
diagnose health equipping myself with antidotes. .
Like today’s youth, I fell victim to an ADHD misdiagnosis
believed pharmaceutical product oracles that encouraged
overweight people to eat, dance and sing Jardiance jingles
pay a big pharma pipers to manage our personal A1C
sidestepping a professional cardiometabolic disease prognosis.
My breathing difficulty had nothing to do
with decades inhaling pot & tobacco smoke
no, no…, faceless voices convinced me
my malady’s simple: I’ve got COPD now I
respire steroids nursing seizures and sore throats
focusing attention on my impending Crohn’s disease
treating it and moderate ulcerative colitis with Entyvio
TNF-a inhibitors damaging my liver leaving plenty to rot.
An armchair pharmacologist I am one, tis true, tis true!
I write lists of disorders related to suggestive syndromes
while family and friends do crossword puzzles, turn off
television ads, and engage in gracious conversation
oblivious to my world of perceived ailments’ simple cures.
Apart from uncontrollable nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting,
Otezla surely medicates my dormant plaque psoriasis
Rexulti wards off all undetected hypertension
keeps my lurking dementia at arm’s length
as Austedo XR tempers quiescent body spasms
stabilizes my moodiness mutes self-expression
mitigates behavioral outbursts though it promotes
suicidal thoughts, suicidal attempts, and depression.
I’m a wanna be apothecary. A chemical herbalist. Solemn,
Learned. Impressionable. Stern. Yet if I glimpse beyond
prescriptive magic, daylight’s dismal night time’s bleak
so I refill miracle Dosette boxes swallow pills like sacred hosts
still, I’m in pain. I’m so far gone. I’m living dose to dose.
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Among Clouds
Savants claim everything begins with a dream
whether riding on horseback or dancing
en pointe, wearing holes in living room rugs
as you practice arabesques and pirouettes;
I envisaged your face grinning as I approached
your house for a visit, an expression
that broke into a genuine smile as you
opened the door and invited me in; as long as I
stayed, your eyes, cheeks, and mouth moved
in unison like the sweeping arm of a clock.
Nighttime and waking hour fantasies remained
hidden too often; I hungered for authentic emotions
to shift from my mind’s eye, evade sky castle
realty, make way for enduring meaning concealed
behind your mischievous yet incomparable glow
as inviting and reassuring as a flirtatious wink
when you grasped my hand and pulled me inside,
knowing our romantic growth’s a pipedream stifled;
once effortlessly conjured, I’ve forgotten your face
a dreamscape terminated among clouds with a whimper.
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Midwestern Strip
Pick-up trucks line city streets
like zebra striped parking lot aisles
polished chrome bumpers
refract antediluvian light rays
dirt-covered windows absorb
silvery beams down main streets
where saloons outnumber markets, schools,
theatres, restaurants, and medical centers;
taverns attract residents like watering holes…
there they’d congregate to drink, dance, and argue
blaming climate change on mother nature, poverty
on laziness, mass shootings on unarmed liberals.
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Kaijū Redux
Remembering Elji Tsuburaya and Ishirō Honda
Heatwave & harvests, August’s end
weary straining leaves, neglecting chlorine
maintenance, bacteria bred in a plastic vessel
we once scrubbed to eliminate slimy walls
yet allowed toes to dig into a peatmoss padded
visqueen bottom rather than slip on a scummy bottom
above its softened footing. (Thanks Uncle Conrad);
we emptied our round swim center down the driveway
left a half inch stagnating in the pool expecting swift
evaporation during sizzling sunny days & muggy Leo nights;
Debbie noticed movement beneath the moisture first;
as mosquito larvae wiggled & squirmed below
we scooped fetid water in dixie cups that cradled
maggot-like creatures for captive study;
examining malaria carrier progeny under my microscope,
we recognized how yōkai and nature’s grotesques inspired
Japanese sci-fi sensei as they created irradiated monsters:
Godzilla to Rodan, King Ghidorah to Gigan,
Hedorah to Megalon, their eyes evil, jaws spiked;
twisted frames and geometric writhing brought
backyard Kaiju to life—a feat we proudly cultivated.
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Panoramic Platform
New York City’s MTA thrives
cold rolled iron tracks
wake as the
Hudson
Rail
Yards
absorb
crimson light
amber hues fill skies
as Dawn’s rays glance off glass towers
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Sterling Warner’s Brief BiographyAn award-winning author, poet, and former Evergreen Valley College English Professor, Sterling Warner’s works have appeared many literary magazines, journals, and anthologies including Lothlórien Poetry Journal, Ekphrastic Review, and Sparks of Calliope. Warner’s collections of poetry/fiction include Rags and Feathers, Without Wheels, ShadowCat, Edges, Memento Mori: A Chapbook Redux, Serpent’s Tooth, Flytraps, Cracks of Light: Pandemic Poetry & Fiction 2019-2022, Halcyon Days: Collected Fibonacci, Abraxas: Poems (2024), and Masques: Flash Fiction & Short Stories. Presently, Warner writes, hosts/participates in “virtual” poetry readings, turns wood, and enjoys retirement in Washington.
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