Stop
In an ad agency, Traffic is like
Department of the Shepherds,
or an escort service, housemother, Charon,
ferrying files from account exec. to writer
to art director to the shop to editorial
back to writer, exec., client, hell.
When the agency is pharm, the ad
could be direct-to-physician, direct-to-
patient, include an ISI (Important Safety Information).
Pharm. pays better than general advertising but each
ad has me fighting early training:
this is a load of crap.
Remember, I wasn’t allowed medicine as a kid.
When I was headed to Camp Yallani we needed
a doc to sign off.
He spotted weeping sores on my hand.
What’s that? he asked Mom.
It’s nothing she said.
Don’t blame advertisers for the public’s foolishness.
David Ogilvy’s Little Red Book
of selling-relevant aphorisms
had typos.
Mao’s Little Red Book fell to
reform and reeducation through labor.
There’s no poetry in consumerism or
totalitarianism.
Oh save us from our leaders.
All of us.
–Sarah Sarai
Poetry