IN JEOPARDY

by Gary Glauber

 

My potent potable’s amber glow

reflects the lights and I reflect

that we are in jeopardy.

Everything has become a contest.

Surviving a Global Pandemic for 1000, Alex.

Science becomes a new focal point.

The game is charged with toxic partisanship

and many ignore even the obvious clues.

It’s a contest rife with unfathomed wonder,

close and chaotic and requiring an overall knowledge

that frightens the general populace,

yet the game continues to another round.

Heading to commercial, the camera

pans over a studio audience—too old, too white.

Suddenly, a few minutes of pharmaceutical ads

tells me of exotic brand names that can cure my ills

so long as I’m fine with a litany of side effects 

that seem worse than the targeted ailment.

And soon we are back. Alex battling

against his own threatened mortality;

contestants making small talk 

while trying not to self-embarrass

through slow or ignorant response.

Alex may chide them for being too young

to know a particular answer, and this

is the microcosm of how culture shifts,

the ways generational views differ on 

what defines patriotism, which lives matter.

Rule of Law for 600, Alex. 

Conspiracy Theories for 800.

The numbers indicate much is at stake

as we collectively head into the final round.

The category is irrelevant:

life revealed as a ruthless game.  

What are the parameters of true compassion?

When is a life worth less than economic progress?

Do the necessary math, then

wager it all when you realize this:

all the answers have been phrased as questions 

for far too long.   

Gary Glauber is a widely published poet, fiction writer, teacher, and former music journalist. He champions the underdog, and strives to survive modern life’s absurdities. He has three collections, Small Consolations (Aldrich Press), Worth the Candle (Five Oaks Press), and Rocky Landscape with Vagrants (Cyberwit) as well as two chapbooks, Memory Marries Desire (Finishing Line Press) and The Covalence of Equanimity (SurVision Books), a winner of the 2019 James Tate International Poetry Prize. Another collection, A Careful Contrition (Shanti Arts Publishing), is forthcoming soon. 

METASTASIS

by Tracey Gratch

As oncology has become the hottest space within pharmaceuticals and biotech, the annual American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) is pretty much now the Super Bowl for companies in this space. Meetings like ASCO [May 30 - June 3, 2014] certainly do lead to companies releasing important data on pipeline candidates, as well as often hosting meetings/presentation to explain their pipelines and development strategies in more details. It's worth remembering, though, that a lot of what is presented is early stage, includes limited number of patients, and often focuses on metrics like response rate that are ultimately less significant than metrics like overall survival. -- Stephen D., Simpson, The Motley Fool, May 16, 2014. Image source: ASCO.

I attend the morning session
hopeful, there might be
a trial, maybe something;
she'll fit the thing they need.

Poker-faced, the lead guy says
the endpoints went unmet in this phase three,
but in some subset, it looks promising.

Back home, things would deteriorate;
she'll go back in this week,

as I'll wander the exhibit hall, endless
and commercialized, in ways nearly obscene.
The start-ups and the biotechs, lure attendees
in with chocolate crepes and fresh coffee.

At 2 PM, another friend will text:
she's made it through,
and on her brain, some pressure's been relieved.

There, staring dazed and vacantly, (after all,
it is day three) through the haze of late-stage entities,
through the fleeting, spit-shined pipeline dreams --

the posters offer palpably: the best
the best can offer here can offer only
two to three, and maybe improve quality;
and none of it comes free.


Tracey Gratch lives in Quincy, MA with her husband and their four children. Her poems have appeared in journals and  publications including Mezzo Cammin, The Literary Bohemian, The Flea, Annals of Internal Medicine, Boston Literary Magazine,  The New Verse News and The Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine. Her poem, "Strong Woman" is included in the American College of Physicians, On Being A Doctor, Volume 4, published in April, 2014.