“If you keep only healthy food in your cupboard and fridge, you will eat good food.” – Errick McAdams
“You need a steroid to fix your ills.
Now vaccination to ward off winter chills.
Take an antidepressant, to calm your woes.
Let’s try antibiotics and see how it goes.
A short run of oxycodone to ease any pain.
Eating salt and acidy food you must refrain.
We will give you antacids just in case,
And a full range of vitamins, food to replace.
Eat nothing with Gluten or carbohydrate.
We’ll give you a pill to lower your heart rate.
A bevy of sprays to help you breathe.
A mood stabilizer if you begin to seethe.
There’s nothing else before you run out of money.
Make sure you call if you begin to feel funny.
Your health will soon be at its highest peak.
Make an appointment to see me in a week.”
"How uplifting it feels to be given such care.
Knowing my specialist has it all right there.
And silly me was considering healthy living.
Fresh air, good food and exercise, such a misgiving !!"
Categories:
antacids, health,
Form: Rhyme
Evening is settling in.
I empty my basket at the counter.
A pint of vodka
(the kind that comes in plastic bottles),
a bottle of ’Tums’ antacids.
A box of frozen French Bread Pizza.
A jar of jalapeno peppers.
A world-weary Latino lady
checks the items,
then checks me over coolly.
Her look suggests that she knows,
has seen it all before,
probably guessing my wife is away.
“Did you find everything you need?"
“Yes Rosina.” I say reading her name tag.
Now she smiles!
I pick up my plastic bag,
as I leave I hear her call-out sardonically:
"Have a good one."
Categories:
antacids, poetry,
Form: Free verse
Floating on top of a rushing rapids
Not falling in, been taking antacids
Brain full of fog with my eyes underground
Surfing on static while laying around
A TV screen hisses with black and white streaks
Most int'resting thing that I've seen in weeks
Can't even put headphones into my ears
Sound has gummed up all the cogs and the gears
Ceiling fan slowly rotates about
Blades moving 'round as if they're in doubt
Tell me. what is this blankness I feel
Sometimes I don't think that I am quite real
Categories:
antacids, depression,
Form: Couplet
The growl in my stomach is depressing
It can’t come from hunger, I eat plenty,
Fear of passing gas in public is stressing
I haven’t felt this way since I was twenty.
Gulping prescribed antacids by handfuls
An upper GI revealed an angry stomach.
I’m downing the pink stuff by spoonfuls,
Hoping my inner gas level will plummet.
So far, I’m not seeing any good results
Bloating continues to expand my belly,
While I’m tired of receiving crass insults
From disgusting relief ads on the telly.
If you have a suggestion, let me hear it
How did you stop your gas production?
Perhaps I need to develop a new spirit
I'm thinking about a stomach reduction.
Written October 15, 2022
Categories:
antacids, how i feel, sick,
Form: Light Verse
A dark road creaks, a crackling carapace of ice
under bruising rubber.
Driving to the all-nite store --- need antacids.
It's pre-dawn, an hour behind the light;
potholes dream in their black bunkers.
No one rides this deadened road,
no car beams, or open-eyes gleam
until the car drifts into
the low magnetic hum
of a forecourt.
The neon Mini Mart has sunk
inside an insane façade of purpose,
lost as it is, in an electric trance.
Nobody dwells here at this hour
only the heavy-eyed-blue-heron man.
After the purchase, he disappears
into a cubbyhole of shadows.
Back home, the grinding jaw
of a garage door
seems to awaken a lick of daylight,
not here, but in the back of my mind.
~~~
edit
Categories:
antacids, poetry,
Form: Free verse
I empty my basket at the counter.
Six individual cans of strong imported beer.
A plastic bottle of ’Tums’ antacids.
A box of frozen French Bread Pizza.
A jar of jalapeno peppers.
The wiry cute middle-aged blond
checks the items, then checks me out.
I flash my eyebrows, sometimes it works.
Her smile suggests that she knows.
Has seen it all before.
I smile back,
signaling I know that she knows.
“Did you find everything you needed’?
“Yes Debora”. I see her name tag.
I pick up my plastic bag,
turn to leave
expecting to hear parting words.
Silence,
But in my head
I hear:
‘have a good one’.
Categories:
antacids, poetry,
Form: Free verse
Death by Insurance
She sits in her car,
in the parking lot
of the emergency room,
with the worst stomach ache of her life.
Watching the fluorescent lights rhythmically blink,
she blinks back her tears.
Caught in a web of indecision,
she doesn’t know what to do.
She thinks about her health insurance,
and her $8,000 deductible,
and she wishes she lived in Canada or England or France,
because she needs that money for food, and rent,
and life.
Her brain exploding with uncertainty,
her stomach erupting in pain,
she stays in her car and drives home.
And she eats some antacids and goes to bed,
promising herself that if she doesn’t feel better in the morning,
she will return to the emergency room.
Her mother, devastated and ruined,
identifies her body at the morgue.
What a waste of a life, they say.
Such a shame.
If only she had gone to the hospital sooner.
February 11, 2020
Categories:
antacids, bereavement, confusion, introspection, meaningful,
Form: Dramatic Verse
A dark road creaks, a crackling of ice-skulls
under bruising rubber.
Driving to the all-nite store --- need antacids.
It's pre-dawn, an hour behind the light,
those black hollows of the night
where time goes blind.
No one rides this deadened road,
no car beams, or open-eyes gleam
until the car drifts into the low hum
of a forecourt.
The neon Mini Mart has sunk
inside an insane façade of purpose,
lost as it is, in an electric trance.
Nobody dwells here at this hour
only the heavy-eyed-blue-heron man.
After the purchase, he disappears
into a cubbyhole of shadows.
Back home, the grinding jaw
of a garage door
seems to awaken a lick of daylight,
not here, but
in the back of my mind.
Categories:
antacids, poetry,
Form: Free verse
So many a lizard layest
We are null of that which stomach turbulence afflicts
Discriminating between the real and unreal
Gifted with Insight into the immanent and impending
Spiritual and physical forces
We are Spiritual Sapiens
Our laser eyes pierce through the skeleton of challenges;
Revealing the bowel of the lizard,as our entitlement gives solution.
We have spiritual antacids
Magnesium Trisilicate cannot do the job;
We pick at random,giving solutions
It's our spiritual Measures,it's diagnostically approved as son.
We are Spiritual Sapiens
Spiritual Nurses
Abiodun Caleb Damcal(ABCD)
Categories:
antacids, miracle,
Form: I do not know?
People all over the world search for truths;
They try to make sense of old mythology roots.
Some say elves and fairies are of the sun and the lesser light;
While others say they are day-trippers and bumps in the night.
Fairies are said to give fortune and fame;
mischievous angel-Like creatures that play games.
Rub a lamp and a genie will appear;
Granting one wishes to cure their fears.
Buddha gives prosperity if its belly is rubbed;
Like the geyser old faithful when it erupts.
If things like these are not so true;
Then antacids from The great Physician are for you;
The great physician, the one and only Lord who heals you!
Categories:
antacids, fairy, fantasy, funny, hilarious,
Form: Rhyme
Heard through the office grapevine
the boss will now resign.
Have to beat the deadline
or that position won't be mine.
I need to work and sacrifice
no sleep tonight, a wink's just nice.
Your Red Bull in my coffee
I drank, now look at me!
Thank you Lyric Man and FJ Thomas for the inspiration.
Reminds me of those days of endless coffee and antacids. :-)
Acknowledgment to flckr for the image of a Philippine tarsier
Kim Patrice Nunez
26 June 2015
Categories:
antacids, humor, satire, stress,
Form: Light Verse
So many Cantankerous, old argumentative men
Live all their days in misery,
Rehashing and recouping from an old war injury.
As Buster the dog slept soundly.
An rusty fishing rod, stood in the corner,
Buster the dog flaps his ear and wiggles his tail
His friend sat in the same spot all day
He just wants to go outside to play
Arthritis in his knees
Aches and pain
And varicose veins
Acupuncture, homeopathy, and osteopathy,
His day are numbered to twenty antacids pills,
Who is the consultant of his will?
What would grandma think of old Henry Vega?
As he become the Messiah of misery
Categories:
antacids, uplifting, old, dog, day,
Form: Light Verse