L’escargot

Inspired by an episode of The Andy Griffith Show.

PEARL of wisdom may I offer you:
BASTE, season, sauté or stew,
SNAILs will still be slimy goo.
QUERY the staff before you choose.

Guilt

GUISE of hope falls, even momentarily, leaving faces
PALER from the fearful launderer, who demands
UNDUE loyalty from all and threatens to
QUELL uprising with prejudice.

New Madrid

HABIT of thinking they’re a far-away thing oft
SOOTHes my careless thoughts; the
ADAGE of blindness aptly describes my
FAULT of forgetting about New Madrid.

NB: The New Madrid fault quaked in the early nineteenth century with such ferocity that the Mississippi River was said to have reversed its current for days. The quakes and aftershocks also formed Reelfoot Lake.