Tag Archives: bad habits

Trading Vices

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Trading Vices

An inherited tendency that rendered him pugnacious
was a quality that caused his friends to label him audacious,
but luckily this acting out, though maddening, was fugacious,
because they’d found his surly mood was frequently contagious.

In between his pouty moods, he had a great ambition
to write great works and stun the world with his erudition.
He’d be a star. The Pulitzer would be his life’s great crowning.
Sadly, his words rarely occasioned moods other than frowning.

In the end he turned to a lifestyle less vivacious
than the pen. Alas, he chose a comfort more herbaceous.
His solace was that healing weed that smoothed out disappointments
and made action barely possible—let alone appointments.

He stopped visiting taverns to hang out with his mates.
Did not return their phone calls and cancelled dinner dates.
His doors, once open, stayed sealed tight with vapors only seeping
under their cracks to hint at the company he was keeping.

He ceased to be pugnacious, erudite or anything.
Dust blanketed computer keys. He heard his cellphone ring
as friends all tried to reach him but I fear it was in vain.
They tried a dozen times before not calling him again.

Sometimes, cures are worse than the thing that they are curing.
To have their crusty friend back would make bad moods worth enduring,
but, alas, it was too late. In life it is allowed
to make our own decisions. Thus, he vanished in a cloud.

The prompt words today are fugacious (good grief!) open, star, ambition and write.

On the Subject of Cracking Knuckles

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On the Subject of Cracking Knuckles

Please don’t snap your bones at me. 
I cringe, I plug my ears, I plea.
If you must make noise with body parts,
please stick to  burping, coughs or farts.
Since popping sounds tend to astound me,
Do not crack knuckles when around me!

 

 

I do not like that brittle sound,
so please don’t crack your bones around!

For the dVerse Poets prompt “crack.” For Quadrille Monday.

Peculiar Little Habits

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Peek at the keys spread out on the floor.

Peculiar Little Habits

Peculiar little habits and peculiar little ways
help us pass away the hours and wile away the days.
When you enter in the door, close it exactly twice
to be sure the catch secures as solid as a vice.
Always check the doorknobs before you go to bed
to be sure the deadbolt  is completely dead.
Security is something that can’t be left to chance.
You must man the battlements and take a vigilant stance.
Do not invite strangers to wander through your home.
Give foreign folks and foreign thoughts no further place to roam. 

Seal your borders. Block people who
may be a different color from you.
Be sure that you have set a ban
on each thing unAmerican.
Burn our silks. Wipe out baklava.
While you’re at it, ban our Java.
Set up a refreshment jury
to vote on food like Indian curry.
Wienerschnitzel’s got to go.
Ban sushi. Nix gado gado.

Chocolate should be exorcised.
Ban music that’s unauthorized.
Raga, salsa and jungle beat
are rhythms we should not repeat.
America for Americans
is how we have arranged our plans.
Blood tests mandatory for sure
to make sure our blood is pure.
Send all the dark skins we have banned
to places not so tightly planned:

Prince Edward Island or Mexico
are places they’ll be forced to go—
places less pristine and picky
content to take folks slightly icky,
not perfect folks like you and me,
immaculate in our ancestry.
With endearing little habits, peculiar little ways,
we’ll wile away our hours and wile away our days
waiting for those foreign folks on whom we need to pounce,
doling out our safety by the pound, not by the ounce.

Picking fights with neighbors, casting insults at Korea,
twittering and ranting in a verbal diarrhea.
As it is above, so has it become below—
Trying to regress from what was once the status quo.
Truth becoming what we make it, in spite of evidence—
reinventing science by divine providence
Though we cannot lock out hurricanes or fires caused  by our blindness,
we have power to lock out sanity, ecology and kindness.
We’ll check our country’s doorknobs before we go to bed
and insure that all the deadbolts are completely dead.

 

The prompt word today is peculiar.

Stuffed

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Stuffed

I lose my glasses, cuss and mutter,
but my worst quality is clutter!
I have a drawer just filled with socks
I never wear.  And pans and woks,
old dishes, fondue pots  and skewers,
a fourteen-year-old bottle of Dewars
not one friend drinks, much less myself,
sitting there upon my shelf.
Everything I buy just clings.
I  can’t seem to part with things!

In boxes on my garage shelves
are all my former castoff selves.
The slides from art shows long ago?
I dread sorting them and so
they remain in plastic crates,
labeled with their types and dates.
Old letters, class notes, tax returns?
I’ve heard that paper easily burns
as well as shreds, yet still I wait.
Years pass as I equivocate.
They might be needed someday so,
get rid of them? I just say no!

My studio is filled with things.
My jewelry drawers with bracelets, rings.
My closets stuffed with different sizes,
shelves stacked with future gifts and prizes.
Snow boots although it never snows
anywhere this woman goes.
A safari hat with veil
hangs upon a closet nail
along with wet suit, snorkel, fins,
and other useless hoarding sins.

My kitchen is a spice museum.
So many spices, I can’t see um.
Fenugreek and capsicum
that I was given by my mum
so long ago they have no taste,
green olives and tomato paste
well past the date they should be used.
Yes, my house should be perused
and sorted out, I must admit,
instead, I sit and write of it!
I know some folks clear out their closets,
but me? I only make deposits!

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The Prompt:  Flawed––What is your worst quality? https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/flawed/

Lunch Date (Old-Fashioned Attention): JNW’s Prompt Generator

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Lunch Date

One thing I’d like that I will mention
is a bit of old-fashioned attention.
The kind with no device in hand
is the kind that I can stand

better than the sort with texting
minds caught in “before” and “next”ing
and not a thought for whom you’re with
until I’m sure that it’s a myth

that I’m the one you want to see,
even though you have invited me.
For though our table is for two,
you bring so many more with you–

every relative and friend.
Your texts to them just never end.
Our tete a tete‘s become absurd.
I never get to speak a word!

So there’s one thing I’d like to state.
Please cancel our next luncheon date.
The next time you desire a munch,
just take your iPhone out to lunch!


My prompt was “Old-fashioned Attention.” To get a prompt or see more JNW Prompt-Generated posts, go HERE.

Needless to say, there will be no sequel to this lunch date, but to see posts about sequels to movies, go here: https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/missing-seqeuls/

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