On Clinical Trial Poem by Frank Bana

Prednisone, Deltazone
Coumadine, Compazine
Bactrim, Cytoxin
VP 16

costly cocktail of chemical war
remedial armies
seeking to engineer
the nauseous statistics

the kindness of treatment
the allure of cure
the punctures in the catheter
switches just beneath the skin
short scars spreading
where tissue is taken out and entered in

the routine challenge for significance
in an open and diverted time
of search for long remission -
a term of judgement and science

a treatment I consent to choose
and tactically look to use
but did not allow to become mine
do not agree by this to be defined

the claims of remission:
disappearance of symptoms
forgiveness of debt
a last release from sins -
and further kind regimes

so caught the while
in a crude philosophy of treatment
that is placed
with me
on clinical trial.