MEDS

I wake up every morning and go through my routine.
For me it’s not unusual but for others it’s obscene. 
That there’s vitamins and minerals, zinc, calcium b, c, d.
There’s anti-inflammatories and one filled with caffeine.
They come in different shapes and sizes and different package forms.
Normally their colour coded for the role that they perform.
Mostly white or slightly off, yellow, orange, rarely blue,
Red or brown even pink. Never half but sometimes two.

Round is still traditional, oval shaped are pleasing me.
Rarely are they squarely ‘cause they’re hard to swallow easily.
Voltaren, Disprin, Panadol, Zyrtec and Nurofen;
You got to pay ten times the normal price for branded packagin’.
Advil, Herron blue and if I’m desperate naprogesic.
But would rather chemist own generic for my analgesic.
There’s uncontrolled, over the counter, others more restricted,
Pharmacy only medication, but the best ones are prescripted.

Anti-histamine, pseudoephedrine, 100 pack paracetamol;
Non-drowsy, Ibuprofen, magnesium, sometimes mersyndol.
Foil wrapped blister packed, pop out weekly calendar. 
Echinacea and valerian, herbal remedies with lavender.
Pop-tops, flip-tops, just press both sides and twist.
Once daily, slow release if I may or must insist.
Refills and repeats, all compounded by the pharmacist.
Always read the label and call your doctor if the pain persists.

To the stomach and small intestine then processed by the liver.
It takes around 30 minutes from the time it’s first delivered.
Carried in the blood stream to the organs and effected tissues.
Looking for the nerve receptors that are having all the issues.
Binding to the protein molecule to take away the pain;
By reducing inflammation and the messages to the brain.
Metabolized, becomes inert sent to the kidneys, diuretic.
After which it’s passed its useful life as an anesthetic.

Take with food, doctor’s orders and call me in the morning,
Please keep out of reach of children is written on the warning
Back of the tongue, one by one, with half a glass of water
Swallow whole, down they go in no particular order
Opioids, Tylenols, N.S.A.I.Ds
Little tiny discs of science all assisting me
Supplementary, preventative, dying hard are my old habits
Pills and capsules, orally, I’m forever taking tablets.

Meds

To the Grave


Another day another dollar. Minus thirty-seven cents.
Stolen and pilfered by our greedy governments.
The G.S.T.'s ten and the excise we add twelve,
plus don’t forget there’s eight points for the bloody bank as well
and with the thirty-three left there is just enough to pay
your own way back to and from and back to work each day.

I've got neatly brushed hair and I've got bloodshot eyes
an apathetic smile is my only disguise
a white collared shirt, my suit's grey polyester,
I ignore the stars in the daily suggester.
I've got a blue stripped noose, the coloured mundane.
My own reflection makes me refrain.
My life's in a box, life confiscated.
Life in a box, my life's obfuscated.
My life's in a box, a three walled cubicle.
I've chewed my nails down to the cuticle,
from memo, update, withdrawal, correction.
Thousands of them partitioned and sectioned
on blue tinted perforated pages.
Ink jet prints graphics in stages.

Life has become yellow sticky squares,
D.V.T., legionnaires, 
workers comp. and orthopaedic chairs.
Lift’s out of order so take the stairs
Pencils Pens.. Paper. Time... Stationary.
Double entendre. Dictionary.
Call-waiting on water cooler conversations.
Chinese whispers, interrogations.
In and out trays. Lights fluorescent.
The constant sigh.... management incessant.
Dishevelled, depressed, due dates and deadlines.
Suicide notes and humorous headlines.
Day in, day out, the constant symmetrical.
Daily I return to my little vesicle
to sort and crunch and process and file
in cabinets where I keep my denial
with words the vernacular can never describe,
my attempts leave me with diatribe;
note to self. Self noted.
Only antidote is anecdoted.
Sit-comic-strip-lings are becoming crippling
and it starts again.

Deja-vu, caught in a loop
with nothing to wear but a grey suit
and a grey face for the next two score.
Destined for a life long deplore.
Born to work. Work to survive.
And this what we call civilised.
		
Dawn to dusk I have been sentenced.
Even the innocent must show repentance.
Cuff-linked to the desk till death.
Floating off the map, no isopleth,
lost out forever in my avocation.
Drowning, choking on my occupation.

To The Grave

CLOCKWORK

Buy yourself some, so you can spend it
Borrow it, save it, lose it or bend it
Doing it hard, or having it rough
Taking some down, before it’s all up
Taking one out, making some back
Standing the test of it, matter or fact?

Crunching it, marking it, some on my hands
Watching it pass as hourglass sands
first one is hardest, third one a charm
Ask if I’ve got it on the watch on my arm
Maybe some other, let’s call it a day
Pressed for, pushed for, some to back pay
Been running out, known to stand still
Flying on by but I’ve got some to fill
Taking up mine, when I turn around
One leg on my pants, got us all bound

Buy yourself some, so you can spend it
Borrow it, save it, lose it or bend it
Doing it hard, or having it rough
Taking some down, before it’s all up
Taking one out, making some back
Standing the test of it, matter or fact?

Right place, wrong place. None like the present
Here since the dawn, is of the essence
Sequence with music and keeping the beat
In next to none, taking mine sweet
Naming it first then naming the place
Getting in early or fashionably late
Making it big, in prime, its on show
Enough of it heals; I’m biding my own
Relative theory and how it dilates 
Locked in continuum with outer space

Buy yourself some, so you can spend it
Borrow it, save it, lose it or bend it
Doing it hard, or having it rough
Taking some down, before it’s all up
Taking one out, making some back
Standing the test of it, matter or fact?

Just about, just a matter, do it once more
Known as old father, greatest of all
Scratching my arse, a whale of one
It’s counting down on a clock on a bomb 
Multiplied tables, getting it right
Twelve hour shifts, by day and by night
Got its own magazine, maybe some other
Alfred Sutro and its in the gutter
Spelled with a “y” is a herb in the garden
Order Chronological, dating the carbon

Buy yourself some, so you can spend it
Borrow it, save it, lose it or bend it
Doing it hard, or having it rough
Taking some down, before it’s all up
Taking one out, making some back
Standing the test of it, matter or fact?

Its quiet, its spare, again for olds sake
Hardened by it so that I won’t break
Wasted on paces, better luck later
Patient with it than that makes you a waiter
‘Lessness, ‘liness, or just ‘un-ly 
Stepping it out but taking one only
stitch will save nine yet out it still runs
After a long life become an old one
Just in the nick of it, or had some to kill
There’s none like the present or soon it will tell

Buy yourself some, so you can spend it
Borrow it, save it, lose it or bend it
Doing it hard, or having it rough
Taking some down, before it’s all up
Taking one out, making some back
Standing the test of it, matter or fact?

Buy yourself some, so you can spend it
Borrow it, save it, lose it or bend it
Doing it hard, or having it rough
Taking some down, before it’s all up
Taking one out, making some back
Standing the test of it, matter or fact?

Clockwork

Double Crossed

I’m just a man, not a saint. I have found a reason.
Teaching love. Teaching life. Being tried for treason.
An illegitimate child born into anything but stable
Inanimate objects form into life amidst the fable
Scientific. Metaphysic. Punctuation. Exclamation.
Simplistic parables and comprehendible explanation.
Masked amidst manipulated metaphors. Normality.
Etched are words I never spoke. Alternative reality.

Drifting across the lands. Walking across the water.
Shifting the timeless sands. A lamb unto the slaughter.
Non-conformer. Just a drifter. Armed with only rhetoric.
Philosophies not proficies. The propagation of a heretic.
Forty loaves, forty fishes. Misconception of the womb.
Grave stories should have never told of rising from my tomb.
Tooled, un-ruled a simple tradesman. Just a humble carpenter.
Schooling freedom from oppression. Opposite of harbinger.

Discussing conventional concepts. Arguing the existential.
Proving the irrelevance of naming me either Jew or Gentile.
Speaking in turn, in order and in rightful jurisdiction
Persecuted by greed while fear instigated crucifixion
Cross with all who hung me there, double crossed
Messages of love and peace were in the rubble, lost
Drawn and quartered, abused and tortured the slander nailed in
The mourned betrayed, adulterated, mankind failing.

Double Crossed

2036

Six pack, block of flats, a red brick and tile building
Second floor, number four, screen door that had chipped gilding
Classic seventies, total masonry, true affordable living
Ugly, defined, test of time. Born from the housing commission.
Stairwell carpet, was well past it, threadbare from step one.
Incandescent, luminescent, porch light was always on.
Garage place, empty space, voided, dark and dusty
Frugal, tawdry communal laundry. Bare bulb, stark and musty.


Brightly painted, to let, vacant. Rent I could just afford.
On a shoelace, from a suitcase but chairman of the board.
Main street motion, glimpse the ocean, feel the summer breeze
The hand I dealt, with myself I could not have been more pleased
Was unfurnished, been refurbished, sleeping on the floor
Ruminating and accumulating quotes on post-its on the door
Time moved slowly with just me only. The difference between now and then.
Circumstances turned consequences to mistakes I’d make again.


Mix of neighbours, sinners, saviours, four, three, two, one, descending.
Five and six, pick up sticks and stones glasshouses needed mending.
Woulda, shoulda, cups of sugar. Malabar hot bread below.
Dawning waking, morning baking, fresh hot loaves to go.
Minimalistic, green, simplistic, bathroom pink disco tiles
Mother Hubbard kitchen cupboards keep with the retro style
Windows open, down low hoping, for nothing I didn’t own
Friendly grocer, two slice toaster, time to be alone.


The day I got the keys, we ate Chinese, sat down on the carpet.
Didn’t guess, we’d be next, when I moved out from that apartment
Golf ball seller, corkscrew cellars, newsagent across the street
Heavy rain, storm water drain, black singlets and bare feet.
Pastel skies, Norfolk pines silhouetted in the glowing sunrise
Orange, pink, the kitchen sink, I think about it sometimes
Moving on, out and gone, we were looking , squinting west
Time I spent, worth every cent, 1A, Prince Edward, Hillcrest

2036

Buyers Remorse

The roller door is almost up before the flood it rolls on in
There's no room amidst a pandemic for social distancing.
Pushing through the turnstiles and jumping across the counters.
Two trollies each they take, there's no time for the self doubters.
In mass they scuffle with each other and they scrum and scrimmage
The CCTV records the chaos, for each person shall cast their image. 
They push and shove and heave and ho, it almost becomes illegible.
Then the river bottle necks in between the fruit and vegetables.
Some spill round into the spreads, vege-might but baked bean can.
The sauce of our frustrations squeezed in between the tins of spam.

Is kind-o-clean the same as pine-o-clean? No time for indecision!
I've got to grab whatever I can reach because I saw it on television.
Dried goods next and the anxious crowd, it shuffles faster...
...then COVID did in Italy and the violent mob ransacks the pasta. 
Flours gone. But who bakes bread? Does it matter? I got the dough. 
Maybe I can sell it for a profit later to someone in the know. 
Eggs are broken, milk is spilt, they spit, punch, fight and defile
until the culmination of it all when they reach the paper products aisle.
Hoards of hoarders plow on forward and they continue to roll on through
The likes of which none have seen since the 2-ply famine in '92. 

Like scenes from Braveheart and World War Z set to the heaviest of metal.
Shopping carts are overflowing now as the dust begins to settle.
Meat shelves empty, frozen goods gone, they put peas upon their bruises,
or frozen chips or ready meals; in desperate times beggars can't be choosers.
In seemingly endless lines, stoic they stand. Its time to get the heck out.
Impatiently they guard their loot and search for an open checkout.
Proud in some ways, shamed in others but relief in just one more minute
But the tiny teenage checkout chick says... "Ummm.... this is all on two pack limit."

Buyers Remorse

INCLEMENCY

Tiny hours. Autumn, May.
Howling winds and pouring rain.
Self confessed I must obey.
Undressing daily, not risqué.
Rub my eyes and yawn and say,
Interpretation, old cliché.
Bodies of the water way,
Monotone and cold and grey. 

Backwards never. Forward only.
Sounds absorbed, communiqué
Pink the shepherds warning may.
Peering down into the grey
Shaping sands and moulding clay
Through the darkness morning ray.
Breaking blackness dawning day.
A swimmer does while others say

Starting out we’re underway,
Patron saint of caution, pray.
Steal and take my breath away.
Leaves me feeling born again.
Beating heart and coursing veins.
Fingers numb, thoughts are vague.
Feeling is now nought or neigh.
Nervous system warned, betrayed.

Backwards never. Forward only.
Sounds absorbed, communiqué
Pink the shepherds warning may.
Peering down into the grey
Shaping sands and moulding clay
Through the darkness morning ray.
Breaking blackness dawning day.
A swimmer does while others say

Uphill battle. Northern way.
Between the banks, towards the quay.
Yellow moorings, cross the bay.
Always harder past half way.
White caps of the daunting waves.
Crashing through and causing spray.
Silently the cold decays.
Latches on and gnaws away.

Backwards never. Forward only.
Sounds absorbed, communiqué
Pink the shepherds warning may.
Peering down into the grey
Shaping sands and moulding clay
Through the darkness morning ray.
Breaking blackness dawning day.
A swimmer does while others say

Spirits low and haunted they.
Dragged themselves, clawed the way.
Edges torn and fraught and fray.
Muscles aching taut the strain.
Admonishes, ignores the pain.
Sawing through against the grain.
Explaining reasons not conveyed.
Bold, courageous, unafraid.

Backwards never. Forward only.
Sounds absorbed, communiqué
Pink the shepherds warning may.
Peering down into the grey
Shaping sands and moulding clay
Through the darkness morning ray.
Breaking blackness dawning day.
A swimmer does while others say

Backwards never. Forward only.
Sounds absorbed, communiqué
Pink the shepherds warning may.
Peering down into the grey
Shaping sands and moulding clay
Through the darkness morning ray.
Breaking blackness dawning day.
A swimmer does while others say

Inclemency

Tough as old boots, hard as new nails
Enough attributes without the details
Giant in miniature, never the less 
Tyrant adventurer don’t second guess
Knows no limits and knows no bounds
Exhibit explicit then laughs out loud
Spur of the moment, deciding just when
Her and a quotient of giant bare men
Rottnest contest, deport us to pub
Hot mess, compress, rubber dub dub 
Yelling and screaming, pushing us on
Tell him his dreaming! Pussies respond!

caps on, pants off, head down, lets go,
dive in, breath out, look up, said so.

Whiteboard textas for writing up pain
Ignored the pressure, shifting the blame
Sunrise glow yellowish, fluorescent pink
Sometimes throw jellyfish, shiver and shrink
Frozen but bad arse, the matriarch, peers
Moments of madness and car parking beers
Drinking it in and getting into the drink 
Sinking in it, wetting, and making you think
Mark her strong words, they won’t ever be minced
Sharks and hundreds, somehow got me convinced
That you’ll never regret it, just go get on in
And I’ll never forget how you taught us to swim

caps on, pants off, head down, lets go,
dive in, breath out, look up, said so.

Forty, shorty sorta kinda naughty
Haughty taughty remind the sporty
hurly burly and always up early, 
Twirly whirly not what ya call girly
Mapping the gapping and snapping and clapping 
Happening, slappin’ em, and lapping the napping  
Pocket rocket, a six mil. socket
Chock a block it, off the dock it
Load and lock it, nine gear sprocket
Shock it, clock it, tick and tock it
Tiny blimey her backbones spiney 
Shiny and briny, we call her Ceiny

caps on, pants off, head down, lets go,
dive in, breath out, look up, said so.

Caps On Pants Off

https://soundcloud.com/sole_way               solewaymusic@gmail.com  

Casuistical 
Linguistical
Engineerical 
Vociferous
Emphatically
Rambunctious

Soleway