.

Puddleplat Place

The pill-popping people of Puddleplat Place,
__Were a very unhealthy lot.
You could tell by the pained look on everyone’s face
__That ‘blooming with health’ they were not.
For every discomfort and every complaint,
__They crawled to their local GP,
Who would give them prescriptions with little restraint,
__Enough for the whole family.

Oh pills, pills, just give us more pills,
__We’re needing much more medication.
For pink eye or pimples, chilblains or chills,
__Scabies, sore throat or sedation.

To their local physician, Doc. Percival Peel,
__The people would rush with their ills.
For a boil on their bottom or wart on their heel,
__He would recommend numerous pills.
Before they had sat and in ten minutes flat,
__He’d decided which pills they were needing.
With little delay they were sent on their way,
__With pockets of pills for their feeding.

Oh pills, pills, just give us more pills,
__We’re needing much more medication.
For pink eye or pimples, chilblains or chills,
__Scabies, sore throat or sedation.

But after a while, all the people got wise
__To the side-effects and the expenses.
They decided on truth, every adult and youth,
__And they slowly all came to their senses.
They took all the goop… all the chemical soup,
__And returned it from whence it had come.
They slowly got healthy, a little more wealthy,
__And also a little less dumb!

Oh pills, pills, we don’t need more pills,
__We’re going to take a vacation,
From pink eye and pimples, chilblains and chills,
__Scabies, sore throat and sedation.

.

.

Conflicting Messaging

Don’t eat too much tuna—
__Mercury affects the brain;
But the mercury in the flu shot…
__Does it wax or wane!

Don’t cook food in aluminum pots,
__It might cause Alzheimer’s;
But put it into babies’ shots—
__The best autism primers.

.

.

Norma Pain was born in Liverpool, England and now lives in Parksville, British Columbia, Canada. Thirty of Norma’s poems were published by Dana Literary Society, between 2004 and 2007 and she was twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize by that same on-line poetry site. She self-published a book of rhyme in 2000 called Bulging Assets.

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31 Responses

  1. Warren Bonham

    You nailed it in a very entertaining way! Quick pharmaceutical fixes always come with side effects (which we’re typically not allowed to talk about).

    Thanks for the entertainment and enlightenment.

    Reply
  2. Roy Eugene Peterson

    Both poems are sincerity masked by rollicking humor! My kind of poems! I especially loved the names of Puddleplat Place and Doc. Percival Peel. As always, Norma, you are immensely entertaining and simultaneously evocative while employing excellent classical rhyme and rhythm. You are a creative treat!

    Reply
    • Norma Pain

      Thank you Joseph. I like “a great slap in the face” comment. Kind of what I was going for.

      Reply
  5. C.B. Anderson

    Fortunately, my pillpopping is pretty much limited to dietary supplements. I’m sure you have noticed that at the end of most Big Pharma ads a long litany of side-effects is read by someone who is able to talk extremely fast. Any person who dares ingest these products must be very desperate indeed — or just interested in sending money to China, where most phamaceuticals are manufactured today.

    Reply
    • Cynthia Erlandson

      Right, C.B. And it’s infuriating when those ads say, “Ask your doctor if the bla bla pill is right for you.”

      Reply
      • C.B. Anderson

        I copy that, Cynthia, and, believe it or not, there are many physicians who would agree.

    • Norma Pain

      Thanks C.B. The side-effects listing, if we can get over the absurdity of it, is really quite amusing. Take this to feel better but it may just kill you!

      Reply
      • C.B. Anderson

        Sometimes death seems like the better alternative. As they say in New Hampshire, “Live free or die.”

  6. Mary Gardner

    The rhythmic fun, internal rhyme, and alliteration make the first poem pop. Also, I like the rhyme in the more serious second poem. Both send an important message.

    Reply
  7. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    Norma, whenever I see your poetry on the front page of the SCP, I know I’m going to be thoroughly entertained. “Puddleplat Place” is an absolute alliterative hoot… but, more than that, it holds the money-making skullduggery of Big Pharma up to the light for all to see the pitfalls of pill-popping. I decided never to take Big Pharma’s cures seriously when the side effects of anti-depressants are suicide, and the side-effects of hive medicine is hives, among other conditions… including death. I’d rather scratch my itchy skin while wallowing in my misery… or, better still, seek an alternative route to health that doesn’t involve money-spinning witch doctors in bed with the Government.

    “Conflicting Messaging” should be read by all those whose eyes haven’t been opened by the Covid crimes. Every fork-tongued word uttered by Government agencies, Big Pharma, NGOs, and the MSM should be listened to with a cautious ear. Norma, thank you!

    Reply
    • Norma Pain

      Thank you for your wonderful comments Susan. I hope that my poem encourages people (if they haven’t already) to do their own research into drug and vaccine side-effects, before deciding to ingest or roll up their sleeves.

      Reply
  8. Adam Wasem

    Neat and precise and beautifully well-balanced. Maybe someday we can wake the masses up from the Big Pharma stupor the elites want them in. And the bonus is we can entertain ourselves trying, as well.

    Reply
    • Norma Pain

      “Big Pharma stupor” is hopefully getting less and less as people are waking up to the dangers of perpetual pill-popping. Thank you Adam.

      Reply
  9. Cynthia Erlandson

    I think Dr. Seuss would heartily approve of “Puddleplat Place” and “Doc Percival Peel”! (as humorous names, that is!) This poem reminded me of his “You’re Only Old Once” — both the narrative and the pictures, which portray pill-popping and other crazy medical torments, are quite hilarious!

    Reply
  10. Norma Pain

    I haven’t read Dr. Seuss’ book “You’re Only Old Once” but I have ordered it from my local library and look forward to reading it. Thank you for the compliment Cynthia.

    Reply
  11. Yael

    Puddleplat Place is great fun and I enjoy your poem very much, thank you Norma. My grandmothers both died from their pill popping and doctor habits, while my brother and I learned to avoid those completely. Starting at a very young age we saw what not to do and learned by negative example. We are definitely more healthy for it and perhaps a little more wealthy in life enjoyment too.

    Reply
  12. Norma Pain

    I also avoid all pharmaceutical offerings and try to stay as healthy as possible in our rather poisoned world. I’m sorry that both your grandmothers died from doctor prescribed pills. I think it happens more often than we realize. Thank you for commenting Yael.

    Reply
  13. Paul A. Freeman

    I loved Puddleplat Place, Norma. You should be performing – the SCP’s Pam Ayres. You’d have them singing along with the chorus.

    Reply
    • Norma Pain

      Paul, thank you for your lovely compliment. Pam Ayres is an amazing poet and performer. To be compared to her is very rewarding.

      Reply
  14. Jeff Eardley

    Norma, I love Puddlepat Place and Percival Peel.
    It’s as if an early Lennon had come back to blow a few words in your ear. These are great to read. As someone who takes no pills at all, I would sooner cope with the pain, which in most cases disappears on its own. I echo Paul’s comment re. Pam Ayres. You are an SCP diamond. Thank you.

    Reply
    • Norma Pain

      Jeff, your comments are music to my ears. Thank you very much. John Lennon was my favorite Beatle, so I like the thought!

      I find a large glass of water and an hour or two in the garden, makes a lot of little aches and pains go away. Hopefully that will continue to work for me.

      Reply
  15. Margaret Coats

    Norma, “Puddleplat Place” is an amusing warning. Some seniors I know take 10 or 12 medications and do not even know what most of them are for. My own pill-popping is strictly confined to supplements I have chosen after careful research. Some have had obvious benefits, and the others probably help maintain overall health. I am glad you took a swipe at vaccines, where the poisonous additives are there only to benefit manufacturers. It is sad not to be able to trust doctors, who fear being sued if they do not prescribe according to an unhealthy “standard of care.” That “standard” takes away their ability to make a professional judgment for each individual patient, and ordinarily leaves patients with no professional to trust. Let food be your medicine!

    Reply
    • Norma Pain

      Thank you for your comments Margaret. Our medical systems have been slowly deteriorating over the years to the point that I try to figure out my own problems as best I can and, like you, I research the best supplements that might help. On the other hand, I was extremely grateful for the excellent surgeon who reset the three broken bones in my wrist last May. I received very good care in this regard but the painkillers I initially needed to take, had very scary side-effects so I stopped taking them ASAP!

      Reply
  16. Lannie David Brockstein

    Norma, in order to more fully expand upon the underlying message of the speaker in your wittily and whimsically written “Puddleplat Place”, the following ought to be said: How backwards Big Pharma’s business model is!

    That self-serving industry has inverted the classical teaching of Hippocrates, who taught how to “Let food be thy medicine” (thank you, Margaret Coats for having mentioned his wisdom in your comment that you posted on February 23rd, 2023).

    As every truly health-conscious person can say from experience, “letting food by thy medicine” includes acknowledging that foods are at their most medicinal when fermented, and thus when having become living probiotic foods.

    But all Big Pharma food products are intentionally made to be poisonous to our invisible friends the probiotic microorganisms, whose symbiotic partnership with us humans is required for the human immune system to function normally. Anybody whose microbiome is properly populated with probiotic microorganisms, is primarily protected from developing an autoimmune disease or cancer, as well as from being infected by covid or anything of the sort. But how many human microbiomes in North America are like that when the unfiltered water supply of every town and city is laced with Big Pharma’s probiotics-killing flouride, chlorine, and chloramine chemicals? Most food products are made using water that has been laced with those probiotic-killing Big Pharma chemicals.

    For thousands of years before the Spanish flu pandemic, which is to say before governments and pharmakeia during the next decade colluded to pasteurize/kill all fermented food products, milk was always raw and thus a living probiotic food, as well as its being rich with cancer killing cannabinoids. Tzatziki, yoghurt, and cheese products were raw and thus probiotic.

    Other condiments that are traditionally added to meals, and that are supposed to be probiotic, include ketchup, mustard, relish, BBQ sauce, and the vinegar in cucumber salad and coleslaw, as well as olives, pickles, and sauerkraut. When chocolate, coffee and tea are fermented and thus probiotic, they are mysteriously flavourful and thus naturally low in bitterness, which is how those foods and drinks were for thousands of years before the 20th century.

    Likewise, for thousands of years before the coinciding Prohibition era, all beers, wines, and spirits sold in pubs were probiotic, and thus the wine that Jews and Christians did ceremoniously drink on the Sabbath and for Communion was always a living probiotic wine. Nowadays though, it is typically a pasteurized/dead wine that is consumed. Where is the magic in that?

    Furthermore, all challah, matzah, and wafers in having been made from organic sprouted flour were prebiotic and thus food for probiotics, rather than nowadays where they are mostly made from refined flour that is devoid of nutrition for humans but that is nourishing for pathogenic microorganisms. Again I ask, where is the magic in that?

    To make things worse, which is typically what Big Pharma does best, most food products are nowadays laced with its probiotics-killing drugs and chemicals, including its antibiotic, artificial preservative, vaccine, and pesticide products.

    Additionally, many restaurant and supermarket meat products are nowadays being marketed as “antibiotic-free”, which seems to mean they are not laced with Big Pharma’s probiotics-killing antibiotic drug products.

    However, that perception is based on a deceptive marketing ploy, because those industrial meat products in not being organic are therefore laced with Big Pharma’s genetic modifications. That has caused the cells of those chickens and cows to have artificially produced the exact same or very similar probiotics-killing Big Pharma antibiotic drug products that otherwise would have been added to their feed!

    It is legal for the restaurants and supermarkets to advertise those meat product as “antibiotic-free”, because no antibiotic drug products were added to the feed of the genetically modified chickens and cows. However, there is no truth in their advertising: It fails to mention that the cells of those animals were genetically modified to artificially and perpetually produce Big Pharma’s antibiotic drugs.

    As a result of Big Pharma’s genetic meddling, their so-called “antibiotic-free” chickenburger and hamburger products probably contain more antibiotics than burgers that for decades were previously made from the non-genetically modified chickens and cows that had Big Pharma’s antibiotic drug products added to their feed! In the food industry, which is largely a part of the backwards Bizarro Superman pharmaceutical industry, “antibiotic-free” most likely means “extra-antibiotics”!

    One way or another, all of the non-organic food products at most restaurants and supermarkets are laced with the health-demoting probiotics-killing pills of pharmakeia, in stark contrast to the ancient wisdom of Hippocrates who taught how to “Let food be thy medicine”. Thankfully, nowadays there are many thoughtful online articles and videos by licenced naturopathic doctors, that teach in detail how to “Let food be thy medicine”, by means of using “prebiotics, probiotics, and postbiotics”.

    Thank you Norma, for having presented us with your humorous and thought provoking “Puddleplat Place” poem. I enjoyed reading it, and delving into the depths of its speaker’s message.

    From Lannie.

    Reply
  17. Norma Pain

    Hi Lannie, I apologize for my late response to your much appreciated comments on my poem, and the extra information supplied regarding our adulterated food products/protein sources, especially that which is in many restaurant offerings. Much in your words to encourage a return to home cooking and purchasing from our local farms. Thank you.

    Reply

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