On Health Care<\/p>\n
I arose one morning
\nnaked to potential harms –
\nexposed in a nation of lobbies.<\/p>\n
And my duty was plain:
\nto recover myself from future misfortunes
\ndistasteful to casual ears.<\/p>\n
The family barber, the third
\ndown neighbor, the cragged
\nlibrarian, the cordial face.<\/p>\n
Who receive your ruin with genuine something,
\nreflect on relief for the us vs. them,
\nthen repack your sadness as cautionary scare tales,
\nreinforcing a truth that is tired and hopeless.<\/p>\n
So I went down to the cinema
\nwhere the action movies played,
\nhopin’ to figure their talent
\nfor makin’ sick things okay with music.
\nI asked the teller, a flannel feller, what he
\nreckoned would be a good score for malaria.<\/p>\n
His glaze cried manager
\nand I complied, buying a billet
\nin the name of wellness.
\nI found the boss
\nstacking wood and pounding flapjacks,
\nasked him the best montage
\nfor Hepatitis C.<\/p>\n
His beard quilled anger
\nbut I stood on regardless,
\nnot wanting to ruin my mother.
\nI gambled he’d know
\nwhat sound effects go
\nwith cancer or terminal others.<\/p>\n
“Listen here, son,
\nthese cords don’t sort themselves
\nand I’m powerful tired.
\nTake this reel to Viewing Room B
\nand leave us your license
\nfor measure.”<\/p>\n
The reel was government dogma
\nstashed safe in a shortbread tin.
\nViewing Room B,
\na one seat affair,
\nBiology style projector.
\nI slipped the copay into the slot
\nand watched the master plan.<\/p>\n
It started red, red, clay red,
\nfallout red, fear for the innocent red,
\nand the music began: Old World choir
\nflanked by screeching wheels
\nand dire percussion, flashing images,
\nlogic vouching for madness,
\nchildren weakened to wilting, laying on tile floors,
\nautomated TouchTone condolences,
\nstar for settlement,
\npound for denial,
\nthree to repeat all your options,
\nelderly neighbors lost
\nto the maw of vernacular,
\nforced purchase on Institution’s shores,
\namber prescription world views
\nhalting further history, clothing the masses
\nin company tee shirts,
\nwaiting room magazines stopping the bleeding,
\ndoctors prescriptions incentives for getaways,
\na trip to the Caymans,
\na Percocet paradise,
\nA legal fist clenching convictions,
\nsapping Hippocrates’ boast,
\na black rotting hand on a slow dying beggar,
\nwrapped in a world of denial.<\/p>\n
And then the dollar, the dollar,
\nthe saving green dollar,
\ntopped with a ten gallon halo,
\nriding to town on a horse named
\nSally, white as in right as in old,
\na trick shooter collar with burnt mustard tubing,
\noffering Pied Piper solutions,
\nblind insurrections against values
\nour fathers held dear.
\nA money transaction to chase away
\nfears the ancestors cured with compassion.<\/p>\n
When it was over, I signed what they gave me
\nand tried to forget.<\/p>\n
[audio:http:\/\/www.mikevarley.com\/old\/words\/MikeVarley.com On Health Care.mp3]<\/p>\n
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