a palpable absence
finding nearly empty shelves inside
a store with a clerk outside
counting customers as they enter
to find themselves nearly alone, leaving
half-satisfied to pass empty buildings,
cars less frequent than the few pedestrians,
to arrive home, present in my absence
Today is Day 10 of National/Global Poetry Writing Month, and the prompt for
The Perfect Seven Lines, from Frank at dVerse Poets Pub
is simply to write a seven-line poem.
The prompt for napowrimo.net is to write a hay(na)ku – a variant on the haiku,
with a three-line stanza of one, two, and three words, sometimes chained
to create a longer poem – so I have edited this to create a hay(na)ku.
a palpable absence
clerk
counting customers
entering the store
surprised
to find
I’m almost alone
frustration
on finding
nearly empty shelves
leaving
half-satisfied
to drive home
passing
empty buildings
on empty streets
finally
arriving home
present in absence
Image source: artoflivingguide.org
rivrvlogr 
It works well in its broken down form.
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Thank you, Lisa.
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You’re welcome, Ken.
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That was very much how my wife described shopping this morning at a local grocery store.
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Toilet paper for the past month, but now it’s pasta and rice, occasionally water, and on some days bread. It’s almost surreal.
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The stores are empty of all the things everyone is searching for…toilet paper, pasta, soup…etc..our local grocery distributor came on the news and said people need to stop i!t They have over 22000 items on the shelves it may not be the brand you usually buy but, some sort of equivalent product is there. That is not so true if you are looking for tp.
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Yes, pasta & rice panic. As if it’s never going to be sold again!
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Grocery shopping is a strange experience these days.
This worked well in both versions.
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Thanks, Merril.
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Interesting that we both had the same impulse. Like Merril I like both versions. The first one a circle, the second a line. The enso is just right. (K)
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Like minds. Thank you, Kerfe.
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