Are You Well? comical poem number 718 by Angela Lansbury

Seven day pill box. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

'Dear, are you well?' It's hard to tell

Because I'm now old as the hills.

I must be ill. I take six pills.

I'm glad that I don't foot the bill

These pills are designed to protect

They do the job, yet one suspects -

More rashes, lumps and swollen necks

Alas, pills all have side effects

Each day pills taken heads the page

Each decade I reach a new stage

Chair yoga now is all the rage

I'm well, for someone of my age

When young, I would read long novels

Learning from others' active lives 

Now instead I read long leaflets

Which help me, I hope, to survive

I read and write a lot of wills

I read and pay a lot of bills

I climb chairs, not stairs and hills

Still read a lot - about my pills.

For my age I'm very healthy

From hypochondria not free

Teens take vitamins A to E

They multi-worry, just like me.

-ends-

Depicting others' lively lives 

was changed to learning from others' active lives.

Where is the humour here? I have tried to analyse the implications. For example, a lot of wills, could be others dying all around me, or indecisiveness meaning I keep re writing my will, which also implies I don't think I am well but I or others think I am dying and should make or revise a will.

It's a light hearted look at taking pills. 

The young also take a lot more pills than I did when I was younger.

We now take pills for everything, to stay healthy as well as vitamin pills.

I brought in an extra verse at the end about teens, and vitamin pills, to expand poem's audience.

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