CHOOSING YOUR MEDICINE

At Grahame’s once-was pharmacy

coffee customers now sit at small tables,

discussing in the half dark

perennial problems of time and space,

boat people and global warming.

This place, empty for several years,

was once full of upright Grahame.

He dispensed medicines

with happy chat

for old and scared.

Now an enterprising barista

serving with no fuss

doses of organic juice

has wooed commuters inside

who were waiting for the bus.

Now, coffee is dispensed –

no script is needed – that’n

the cost being three not thirty bucks

distinguishes the cappuccino

from a cholesterol-lowering statin.

MAGIC MATTERS

This big case

has lots of things

we’re taking

to Paris –

clothes for Mum and Noemie

and Sarah and me

and probably

for Daddy.

It’s almost as big

as me!  It weighs

the same.

Now it has to go on the plane

with us so they’ll put a ticket

on it, like the ones they’re

giving us, to make sure

it comes on board.

So now the bag

is being weighed at the place

where they stick the tickets.

It has to shift a bit

towards a moving mat

that will take it to the plane.

But now it’s stuck.

Never mind!  I have big lungs

and I can take deep breaths

and like blowing out the world’s biggest candle

on a huge cake I can blow the case!

Watch me!  Big breath in…

And I’m going to blow in a minute

so big you could not believe.

OUT! !  SEE!  The case is on its way!

FISHSCAL’ POLICY

Depression was rife on the tropic reef.

The Coral Bank threatened to collapse

because of the inflationary pressure

of water heated and acidified

by climate change, eroding soil

and overpopulation with small fish

demanding constantly to be fed .

Plankton prices were rising

and krill was in short supply.

Several fishenomic schools proposed solutions

ranging from restrictions

on the supply of marine nutrients

and dissolved oxygen so that

rates of unemployment among highly prevalent

parrot-fish and epidemic rays

would decrease to manageable levels.

The octopus was asked

to shut down three of his tentacles

and whales and dolphins to seek employment

in marine parks where alternate sources of currency

might be found,  taking pressure off

the monetary pumps.

Takeover bids for sectors of the sea bed

were made by predatory sharks

who considered individual survival to be all.

But rescue came in the form of

new taxes invented by rainbow fish

based on the count of scales upon a fish’s skin.

Scales served as proxy for piscine wealth.

and a policy of fishscal’ tax saved

the marine economy from collapse.    

      

EXECUTIVE ORDERS

I was surprised

how mundane the institution,

impervious to conversation,

inexorable, impersonal,

preparations and transport

were for my execution.

Led in cuffs  to a jetty,

then into a small boat

with four handlers

bound for an island,

my escorts studied

paper forms, not me,  

doing their job

in a bureaucracy.

The firing squad kneels in front,

stands behind.  “Take this target,

pin it to his chest,”

the corporal says.

Orders followed.

Over in a minute.