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LITERARY NOOK
VIRTUE AND VICE VARIATIONS Extremist versus Moderation Food Situations
“Avoid extreams*; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.”
—B. Franklin
Between Excess and Elimination
Remember the children’s rhyme about Jack Sprat
a moderation lesson on excess and elimination
one of them was very skinny the other real fat
between the couple they practiced moderation
sometimes we all eat too much of foods we like
and often enough we get thick round the middle
never knowing when the heart attack will strike
self control helps to solve that age old riddle
grass gives you munchies? drink too much booze?
have one joint, two beers or two glasses of wine
don’t ‘bogart’ that joint friend, you’ll never lose
stop beer belly bloat and you’ll be doing just fine
that is a brief scan of this sonnets simple schism
somewhere between moderation and extremism.
*Benjamin Franklin’s spelling of “extreme.”
Moderation Menu/Fast Food Venue
“Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
—Sen. Barry Goldwater (1909 -1988).
Food adoration, amplification of truth
self-starvation and over-simplification
lying about drugs, liquor libation in youth
self-flagellation, excessive masturbation
local menu, gobbling fat fried temptation
guilt associations, addictive situations
solving deep fried food evasion equations
gorging anticipation, increased salivation
yoyo dieting brings weight fluctuation
some try losing weight by food deprivation
some suck fat out by liposuction operation
and miss benefits of dance exercise gyration
you pick: long life practice of moderation or
extremist paths to fat frustration and negation.
Joey ‘Pepe Batbon’ Connolly (Special to the Saipan Tribune)
Joey “Pepe Batbon” Connolly is a retired teacher and has been named a poet laureate of Tinian. He has taught English in CNMI public schools for the past 30 years. He has also taught in Alaska, New Orleans, and Las Vegas.
