They'd badgered him, the family,
to go and have the tests, since, after all,
one needed to take all that modern medicine
and science had to offer to prevent,
prolong, improve and otherwise enhance
the human misery into something much more serene.

The'd taken at the firehouse his pulse,
and measured how much pressure it did make,
'this little heart of his, at rest and on the mill.
Sinister faces then prescribed the wonder pill,
it's what he needed to survive, thanks to his God.
It was, needless to say, the God of Modern Medicine,
which had its sticky fingers in a thousand pies,
'you'll take this pill, but twice a day for life,
it is called Lipitor and it will save your hide.'

Now this small pill will change the rules, at that,
of your physiology, it will prevent the synthesis
of much cholesterol through clever trickery,
while curing nothing and suppressing what
is sorely needed for the heart and every cell.

Let's kill you softly, says the ghost from Pharmaland,
it's of extreme importance that you put your trust
into the ways of modern man, and when it dawns
upon your mind that there is love, you will, of course,
take in the meaning of the Guv's most famous words:
It is the elderly who have a need to die.

Herbert Nehrlich

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-duty-now-to-die/