Gluttony

Only when you go to sleep

Will this need to eat and drink cease...

And as you dream

You’ll want it all

You’ll want much more.

Your mouth,

A door to hell and paradise.

And you realize

Your vigilance

Your sobriety

Your self-control is now

Ruined and extinct.

Grievous disgust and guilt.

And you call pig the one in the mirror

Craving to get rid of an anxiety

Which you forgot how long ago...

An anxiety

Which no love or sport

      will ever call off...

_____________________________________________

‘Spinderella Soap: Frogs Legs For Dinner’ Mounted Print by Minaz Jantz

Acedia

Why cry?

Tears left home long ago

Why cry?

I need to close myself up

Unaware that’s where I am

Need to go away, escape

Unaware I am already there

Yet this feeling

This numbness follows me

Far and wide

Why cry?

Can’t walk and if I do

My heart weighs so

Bearing this melancholic strain

Isolation and alienation, my friends

Why cry?

No matter how much the bells toll

Or just because

Reminding me my life will also

Soon be concluded.

_______________________________________________

Woman on The Wall by Linda Gregory

Sloth

No one awaits

No one cares.

   Right

Freely choosing

   where to go

And then not doing so.

   Nice

Reclining

Trying to go to sleep

Even languish

Drowsily figuring it out

   Fine

Hearing the phone ring on

Check and decide

Not this time

   Quite.

Someone‘s fond of me

After all

Still

   I am not.

 ____________________________________________________________Written for OSW

‘Woman Resting’ by Deborah Conroy