Septoling Options

[JustDaniel]

Septoling is a brand new form suggested in Norm Pollack's recent postings on his site. Though he had not named it during his experimenting with the concept, I thought I should capture it with that designation. He has agreed.

Like a septolet, it has seven lines, but the similarity ends there. The poem has two stanzas with a syllable count of 7-5-3-1 / 5-7-a single -ing word, such that the poem looks like this:

Single -ing word

xxxxxxx
xxxxx
xxx
x

xxxxx
xxxxxxx
single -ing word


The last single word of the poem becomes the Title

...and it is a gerund ^{(present participle)} of any number of syllables.

Norm's first posts in this form:

hibernating

sleep within the folds of air
but do not disturb
the flow of
dreams

i have memories
imbedded with DNA
hibernating

presaging

the winds of our history
cannot blow away
conscience like
sand

civilizations
tell us that "is" becomes "was"
presaging

_{© Norman S. Pollack}

and my own first attempt:

minimalizing

so much wears away with time
but there's more than rhyme
with poets'
terse

appreciation
honestly grows when you stop
minimalizing

_{© MLee Dickens'son 23 July 2007}

[Larry]

Contemplating

Staring at your newest form
brings consternation
and some doubt
so

I’ll give it a shot
but it might take a lot of
contemplating