14 Comments
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Jo Wright's avatar

Prescient.

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Dian Parker's avatar

“…in this time of want” and those who don’t need to want, want. All the wanting left wanting.

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chris cavanagh's avatar

Delightful and a regular feature of every grocery trip since the beginning of the pandemic. I particularly love:

"that I’m not

the only

stocked-up

lucked-out

loser left "

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man of aran's avatar

Thanks, Chris!

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James Maynard's avatar

This one really flowed from start to finish. Great lines.

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man of aran's avatar

Nice to hear that from you, thanks!

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Richbee's avatar

To take sour with bitter to find sweetness of lemonade, and sit in the shade take time to see the pantry is full of summers stock prepared for winter snows. When you are prepared, you don’t need to hoard, take from shelves, from those that didn’t know there would be a snow storm of want.

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man of aran's avatar

Good point, thanks. Not much long term thinking going on here! :)

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Paul Wittenberger's avatar

Well done, Alan - Speaks to everyone, even those who already have but always want more.

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man of aran's avatar

So glad you like it, Paul!

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KR (Kenneth Rosen)'s avatar

Interesting selection of object and theme, and well-flung poetic dart. Though I don't know if a lemon is bitter or sour, but confessing and hoarding lemon concentrate is bitter and sour, pebble-grained lemon peel, tough as pigskin. How did evolution settle on such sour-bitterness to in guarantee proliferation, or whatever ate lemons in the wild? I purse my lips at the thought of it, just as you pursed your poem's oddness and frame.

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man of aran's avatar

Just sour to me, KR. Thanks for the speculation, and your sharp response!

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KR (Kenneth Rosen)'s avatar

You too? Speaking if which I always instruct wife to buy TWO at a time, as I use Italian lemon juice, faster and faster, to temper my chopped Peruvian raw ginger root in my golden coffee, now up to six or seven ingredients, the least of which is a half teaspoon of generic supermarket instant coffee.

THE SOLAR PLEXUS

I have an obsession

With the sour sweetness

And attendant ambiguities

Of a yellow lemon. Do

You as well? Me two.

KR, 2.16.2025

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man of aran's avatar

Ah your coffee recipe sounds extraordinary! My wife is more the lemon person than me, it’s part of her daily routine. Mind sharing how you make coffee?

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