Hippocrite's Oath
Hypocrites’ oath
Dirt-cheep government clinics treat death
And disease just like they are dirt and refuse
Which in a way is just about fine.
Today’s multi specialities, housing as they are ,
A subtle tree branching off into labs,
A stethoscope hanging from every crotch of its,
Pre-set to prescribe a slew of tests whether it’s
Common cold or cancer,
Ninety-year-old or tiny tot,
Sugar coating their contempt for the medically illiterate
By glorifying life and ridiculing death and selling it to us
For a vulgar price, often a fortune for a sniffles.
How would they not? When folks are willing
To sell off homesteads to treat a harmless swelling.
Here, in one such, folks sit cursing their ‘fate’ology
Before a board which says Neurology
Like the rare cucumber slice floating about
In its chic eatery’s sambhar* hot. Thinking of how, once out,
They could wear the physician’s famous name around
Like a red and yellow flower garland
Bought at the wayside stall at a price, a hundred
Times over what the farmer who grew them got .
The good old physician seems gone, genial , suave,
Sitting in his modest office, respecting your illness,
Your money and the Hippocrates’ oath more than you
Which the new crowd misspell as Hypocrites’ oath too
Not because they did not pass the spelling bee
But acquired the all important degree
And an incurable greed for money.
11th Sept 14
Form: free verse
Copyright © S.Jagathsimhan Nair | Year Posted 2014
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