Woe is Donner

[glaucon]

Hi, Donna

Welcome to the Finnish line! Tervetuloa! Thus begins and ends my knowledge of Finnish.

Insecurity is a great snapshot of longing and unrequited.... love? Friendship? I think of missives sent at 3am into the void, hoping for a reply, but expecting none.

I'll Do It makes me pouty that my deal with my wife, when I retired a few months ago, was to cook EVERY night. I want his deal!

Adam takes... is an excellent little sevenling. I was thinking perhaps she could teach him Eve-ish. But he'd never learn anything except the swear words.

Seeing the orange peels tells a gentle story, and the seventh line ties it up nicely by returning to the first strophe. I can think of no way to improve it.

Thanks so much for all the kind words and the lovely poetry, Donna. Looking forward to doing it again soon!

best,
-Charles

[GreaterMandalaofUselessness]

Hi Donna,

Thanks for the Sevenling links, I'd not seen that before. And wow! a pffa competition with prizes! Those were the days.

This last has me a little puzzled, probably on cultural grounds, because I'm wondering what cereal litter is. Are these from cereal bars, or breakfast cereal maybe -- do the kids eat breakfast there? (In the UK, outside of an agricultural setting, 'cereal' tends to refer to breakfast cereal: cornflakes, that sort of thing). Anyway, I'm seeing crumbs. On first read I thought she left crumbs for the homeless man. Which gives an interesting read given the the bible reference. It suggests the N isn't going to get much back. Then I started think she'd left crumbs for the crows. Then I wondered if I'd just misunderstood what cereal litter is.

-Matt

[Donner]

Thanks, Matt x2, lauriene, Karen and Charles, and everyone who read and commented this month.

lauriene - You wrote a pretty spiffy sevenling yourself, and first time out. I'm glad you enjoyed the form and was more than happy to provide the links. It's a fun one.

Karen - Thank you and you're welcome. Hope you're now hooked on Sevens and will be back.

Charles - The trick with the deal was to find a task he enjoys so he'd stick with it. If I'd asked him to take over vacuuming or laundry, need I say how long that would last? Thank you, too, for your kind words as well, and glad to have had the chance to read your work again, too.

Matt - With "litter" I was thinking of it as a group term, that the pen, the orange peels and the cereal (as in the breakfast variety, so crumbs would be logical) are litter. I played with it as both a noun and a verb and settled on the noun. The backstory is that the homeless man that hangs out in front of the church from time to time offered to sweep up after himself and our pastor told him the birds would clean up the cereal. I figured he was sharing his breakfast with the crows, so I swept up everything but the cereal. Sure enough, the crows took care of the Cheerios he'd left for them by the time I left after service was over.

I'm feeling a little under the weather tonight, so I'll fluff the last few poems tomorrow I haven't gotten to yet. Thanks again, it's been good to share this Sevens with you all.

Donna

[Bench]

Hi Donna, I love these last two sevenlings. It’s a form I’m yet to try: tying the two counterpoints with the final line demands great awareness of the message from the off- I struggle to think that far ahead, but you’ve produced two simple and compelling scenarios, delightful to read, that beg an existential interpretation: bravo. Thanks also for stopping by my thread and leaving such encouraging comments, you make the masochism so much easier to bear. It’s been a (twisted?) pleasure, thanks, Ben.

[Jee Leong]

Hi Donna, in your Adam and Eve sevenling, my ear is caught by the chiming between "over" and "dinner" and so it wishes that the line ends with 'word searches" instead of "news," and for the final line to end with "He never taught her Adamic, never," which will echo, of course, "over and over."

[Donner]

Thanks, Ben (belatedly) and Jee. (I see we have to be on our best form this Sevens with you here, Jee. ) Good suggestions on the Adamic sevenling, Jee. I hadn't thought about the repetition or switching the activities in that line, but they make a lot of sense and would strengthen the poem.

Given it's February and we have the Cupid's Challenge going on, I thought I'd do something this Seven's I've never done - try a love/Valentine's Day/symbols of the season theme.

Donner

[Donner]

American Sentence

As long as I have my stash of road rage chocolate, no one gets hurt.

[5th column]

I like the use of the word 'stash' as it suggests something that's akin to contraband, which in turn leads one to think of what chocolate has come to represent. I this case I seems it's something secretive, something used like a drug to numb the very specific challenge of road rage. I see a glovebox full of neatly stacked but often melted (currently deep frozen), dark (?), chocolate just waiting for the moment

[GreaterMandalaofUselessness]

Hi Donna,

Yes, "stash" had me thinking of drugs too. And I'm imagining dark chocolate too. The hard stuff!

(Hmm, and maybe also because of the resemblance cannabis resin. My distant memory of it, anyway).

And here we go again for another week. One down, six to go.

-Matt

[JFN]

Donna, sorry I missed those last two sevenlings last month. They are lovely. I have never before considered the language Adam would have spoken.

road rage chocolate. Love it. I'm not averse to a secret bag of treats in the driver's door pocket myself.

Looking forward to another week.

John

[Jee Leong]

Donna, "road rage chocolate"! It makes "stash" sound violent. Nice.

[Donner]

Neil, Matt, John and Jee - Thanks, this AS pretty much wrote itself. There's nothing like knowing you have some chocolate on hand to keep calm while waiting in long lines at the bank drive-thru. Peanut Butter Snickers work, as do Tim Tams. And here's an exhaustive list of chocolate bars for stashing away in the glove compartment. But my to-die-for chocolate stash of choice is Schogetten Milk Chocolate with Hazelnuts:
.

Donna

[Donner]

Do you remember

that day we sat in your car
in front of Olive Garden after lunch,

making out because we couldn't wait
to get home? It made me laugh

between kisses to watch those kids
under the awning, staring at us,

grossed out by two "old" people
who shouldn't still be interested

in such things doing that
right there in the parking lot.

I kissed you again. I couldn't help myself.
If they only knew how much better it gets.

[GreaterMandalaofUselessness]

I like the way the title wrong-foots me, sets me up to think that this is a remembrance of the distant past, reveal, and an added moral at the close. "kids" in particular works well, because if I imagine them as young adults, "kids" reads as children; but seeing them as "old", I can imagine the kids older too.

-Matt

[Sorella]

hahahaa: road rage chocs! Seems a paradox! Back to sleep here, more later.