Daze of the Week by Peter A. Witt

I never drink on Tuesdays,

that's when I brush the dangling

hair off my shaggy dog,

pull weeds in the garden,

write emails to my lost loves.

On Wednesdays I recover,

by nursing a fifth of vodka

while watching endless Seinfeld reruns,

my life is pretty much like Jerry's,

pointless, privileged, and  absurd.

On Thursdays, I dabble

in the poetic arts, finding rhyme

where none exists, ruining meter

both iambic and hexameter.

By Friday, I'm ready to socialize

with the Bukowski wannabees

at Jakes, a place where

no one can remember your

name after nine p.m.

Saturday is for laundry,

mainly dirty, sometimes ironic,

often humorless, maybe iconic,

nonetheless success is

hanging sheets in the wind

until they're dried out.

Sunday I repent, with my dog,

gusto, watching the doomsday

preachers talk of hell and

the evils of drink, after which

I mourn losing my sobriety

at sixteen to a sixpack wielding

pothead who was twice my age.

Monday is the day I trundle

into work, tell my boss she's

the reason I drink, which

she insists on discussing

over a two martini lunch,

which invariably I pay for.

So that's it, a seven day

routine, with all its trimmings,

nothing left out except the

occasional AA meetings,

and my wife yelling at me

something about remembering

to put out the trash.

Peter A. Witt is a Texas poet, avid birder/photographer, and researcher/writer of family history. He started writing poetry after 42 years as a university professor as a way of recapturing my storytelling and creative writing abilities, skills he'd lost in the stultifying world of academic writing. His work has appeared in several online poetry publications including Rye Whiskey Review, Fleas on the Dog, Open Skies Quarterly, and Active Muse.