Or Rolling the Dice

Five types of mushrooms seem to represent
Five types of bad behaviour: all taste fine,
And all of them look good, go well with wine
Well chosen, sauté with a lovely scent
Of earth-toned flavours, and, to some extent,
All five of them can be seen to align
With sweet, umami, bitter, salt, sour: dine
On mushrooms; goodness is impermanent.

My own insistence on remaining nice
In the mean face of evil may seem stale,
But starve the substrate and the mushrooms fail,
However strong they start. There is a price
For doing right, or wrong, or rolling the dice.
Choose carefully, and thereby hangs a tale.

What Do You Know

Resentment is my middle name, disdain
Is my first cousin, and my son-in-law
Knows all about the January thaw
That unexpectedly allows the rain
To leak from cracks appearing in the drain.
A generous impulse would be a flaw:
The vermin living in the walls will gnaw
Through wires, through years, in silence, and in pain.

What do you know? Do you recall the day
Becoming evening? Summer turns to fall,
And fall to winter, quickly. You recall
The crisis of the rising water? Say,
What new catastrophes are underway,
What new disaster coming for us all?