! Being Human Has Its Side Effects (Read The Small Print) Poem by Michael Shepherd

Where are the great myths of our age –
hiding truth within their all too human stories?
In their absence, scientific research
has wondrous tales yet to tell…

Jon, the renowned professor of psychology
and not averse to self-examination and experiment,
took Paxil – Prozac’s cousin – for eight
adventurous weeks.

In week five – ‘the world changed’…
his heavy work load, his insecurities
as an untenured professor,
vanished like magic; changes which he’d wished
to make for himself for years,
happened overnight – he loosened up,
he lightened up, he accepted his mistakes
and did not dwell on them –
who would not want to be a Prof like he?

But… a side effect: names began to elude him –
‘Hi! ’ and ‘Hi there! ’ were all his students got
out on campus, in the morning classroom …
and along with that, the subterfuges –
how can you ask a student whom you’ve known for years
to give their opinion… er, point, smile,
hope they’re watching.. yes, you…

and facts too started to recede –
just out of reach on the top shelf of
the mind’s rich library, memory’s repository…

Greek tragedy would have a word,
a scene, a moral, for it:
the Fates had claimed their own…
Nemesis had struck; Icarus’ wings had melted,
Prometheus’ insult to the gods avenged…

or in our scientific terms, a brain on Paxil, Prozac,
has more serotonin in certain synapses,
so the neurons fire more often…

The celebrated young Professor
stopped taking the pills; five weeks later,
the memory returned; as did the worries
(security of tenure threatened even more
by Professors who can’t even remember
what they profess to profess…) .

Mnemosyne, goddess of memory,
bestowed one gift alone on Prof:
he remembered just how he had been those weeks;
as certain Greeks, it’s said,
remembered like a dream
the Golden Age which they never
might recapture, but only tell of
in myths and suchlike tales
of truth and goodness; beauty too..