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Arlene Corwin Feb 2020
Things Come & Go

Things come and go:
Lightening bright and sudden
Over in a nano-second.
Dew, its job completed,
Lost in air, evaporated.

Forms diverse;
A shared non-substance: emptiness.
A single thing the ring of truth
Is that we are illusory.
Still paradoxically,
But for a shape, look, name
We are,  we have the permanently
                                            same inside,
The rest a mutable: ephemeral
And seldom in the know
Things come and go
As quickly as they do.

Things Come & Go 2.4.2020 Birth, Death & In Between III; Arlene Nover Corwin
Arlene Corwin Jan 2020
Influence

You have much more an influence than
You have an idea you have.
So much weight and leverage on thing and man;
So much impact by simply being.
So beware,
Become aware
That you control and are
A role,
An inspiration and example
On behaviour.

You, your goodness and your faults
Shape norms and shapes,
For mankind apes -
And that’s a fact.

So, do remember that it’s you, through choices
Who make trends,
Starts, ends…your voices
Ringing loud without a sound.
For what comes round one can’t predict,
Outcomes more complex than that.

Do not forget
You have an impact.
Don’t ignore your inner store
Of power
Which goes out by minute
And by hour.

Be an ever growing you.
You sow the seeds by what you do.
And what you do is what you think,
So sink your life in wisdom-ed virtue.

Influence 1.28.2020 Pure Nakedness II;  Definitely Didactic; Arlene Nover Corwin
Arlene Corwin Jan 2020
To quote my dear Swedish Kent “A less abstract”... poem.  I like that, because I suppose I have two aims when writing: one is to write a poem the reader can identify with - something both concrete and universal and two, to write a poem of quality.  As an example, this simple, some might say simplistic "From Wakeful Night To Active Day" took roughly a day and a half or 6 hours to write from idea to end.  And you never know, it may not be the finished product yet.

       From Wakeful Night To Active Day

I lay awake.
I no longer take
                      for granted
Night long sleep.
That’s quite alright.  
I wind, unwind my yogic limbs,
Find things to do
While torso twists & screws,
The mind at ease,
Positions so brand new,
No book has yet to catch or photo.
There I lie with things to do.

There is a ‘me’ that does not choose;
A something that already knows;
Some inner cleverness that goes
From limb to limb, joint to joint,
Anointing every cartilage, each ligament
With blessed flexibility,
Accessibility,
Facile ability:
Yoga session moving forward
To a most advanced degree.

It isn’t fun to lay awake,
But when it’s done,
One falls asleep.
Perhaps not Rem or deep,
But it’s enough.
A cup of coffee
                       does the trick.
Awake and quickened,
Competent to not delay
But go the whole way
In a stream from recent dream
To active day.

Mysterious this nighttime cycle;
Structural, visceral, mental, spinal,
Hormonal, remindful?
Grateful and humble,
Glad to report that it was not final.
From Wakeful Night To Active Day 1.26.2020 Pure Nakedness II; Nature Of & In Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin



ARLENE CORWIN
ArleneCorwinPoetry.com
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Arlene Corwin Jan 2020
Sitting bored in front of the TV, open computer on the coffee table in front of me, this came out.   A poetic babble perhaps.        

     Brain Change

It happens all day long.
Inside the head, its gorgeous throng of targets sits
The brain; synaptic nerve cells.
Tiny gaps across which impulse tells
One or another thrilling and exhilarating news
                                                                    to use,
Communicating and collecting,
Stimulating and connecting,
Electrical or chemical;
Pre-, post-, now,  past,
It hosts the most.
With a tiny blast of current,
It emits, transmits life long,
From head to body-solid.

(With its) mind-boggling effects,
The synapse’ clean neuron-ic jets
Affect each thing we think and know,
How and what we know and do.
How the brain arranges you!

Place targeted,
Remembered never to forget,
Some venue in that gorgeous head,
Its gorgeous throng of secrets
Sits a brain of infinite and wondrous range,
Perpetually changing.

Brain Change 1.23.2020 The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative; Arlene Nover Corwin
Arlene Corwin Jan 2020
As much as one hates to use the pronoun “I”, writing or speaking, there are times when ‘I’ is the middle point and of the essence.
Sincerely,
Arlene (see footnote).        

  Now & Then, How I Miss…

I practice living the Now.
But now and then
I miss the old Arlene
Who had ten
                    fingers;
Who could play arpeggios
With ease:
Adagios, capriccios,
Effortlessly
Trouble-free.

Un-nostalgic, chanced to see
And old Youtube of Arlene-me
Singing, playing“All God’s Chillun” speedily,
Gleeful, musical and jazzy.
Wound up teary-eyed.

With just three left to play with:
Thumb and index on the left, only lonely thumb the right,
Filled with weakness
I can play a swinging bass
With Monk-like dissonance between,
The right thumb not at all a small dumb finger.

The trick will be to sow creativeness anew.,
Augment, stretch, grow and not go into
Any other place than Now
(if Now at all can be referred to
                                        as a ‘place’.
I rather think of it as space).

In any case,
I was a little sad today;
The old Arlene who cannot play
The way she used to,
Caused by nature’s vagary.

Dear reader, please forget  
This sentimental, reminiscent “…How I Miss…”
A useless business at the very least.
Now &Then, How I Miss…1.6.2020 Vaguely About Music; Pure Nakedness; Arlene Nover Corwin

Arlene Corwin collapsed on August 3rd, 2019.  In a coma for a month, when she awoke, there were 4 fingers missing on the right hand, 3 half fingers on the left,  and two catheters in one kidney   The cause: Blood poisoning or sepsis (from the Greek ‘sepin’ make rotten).  After two months she was home.  Muscles shrunken, walking with help she began a regime of sit-ups, pushups, yoga…and using every object inI the house as tool now is fully flexible and growing stronger with each day.
But the hands, those hands…We’ll see what happens.
Arlene Corwin Jan 2020
As much as one hates to use the pronoun “I”, writing or speaking, there are times when ‘I’ is the middle point and of the essence.
Sincerely,
Arlene (see footnote).        

  Now & Then, How I Miss…

I practice living the Now.
But now and then
I miss the old Arlene
Who had ten
                    fingers;
Who could play arpeggios
With ease:
Adagios, capriccios,
Effortlessly
Trouble-free.

Un-nostalgic, chanced to see
And old Youtube of Arlene-me
Singing, playing“All God’s Chillun” speedily,
Gleeful, musical and jazzy.
Wound up teary-eyed.

With just three left to play with:
Thumb and index on the left, only lonely thumb the right,
Filled with weakness
I can play a swinging bass
With Monk-like dissonance between,
The right thumb not at all a small dumb finger.

The trick will be to sow creativeness anew.,
Augment, stretch, grow and not go into
Any other place than Now
(if Now at all can be referred to
                                        as a ‘place’.
I rather think of it as space).

In any case,
I was a little sad today;
The old Arlene who cannot play
The way she used to,
Caused by nature’s vagary.

Dear reader, please forget  
This sentimental, reminiscent “…How I Miss…”
A useless business at the very least.
Now &Then, How I Miss…1.6.2020 Vaguely About Music; Pure Nakedness; Arlene Nover Corwin

Arlene Corwin collapsed on August 3rd, 2019.  In a coma for a month, when she awoke, there were 4 fingers missing on the right hand, 3 half fingers on the left,  and two catheters in one kidney   The cause: Blood poisoning or sepsis (from the Greek ‘sepin’ make rotten).  After two months she was home.  Muscles shrunken, walking with help she began a regime of sit-ups, pushups, yoga…and using every object inI the house as tool now is fully flexible and growing stronger with each day.
But the hands, those hands…We’ll see what happens.
Arlene Corwin Jan 2020
When I write poetry - anything really, I try to express essences of the fiercest kind in a respectful way.  Online is an especially ‘exposed’ medium.  It’s about being honest and detached at the same time.  A hard thing in the easiest of times. When it’s about someone you especially dislike, hate and ferocity have to be handled artistically up front without the hate or ‘ferocity’ standing out.  I assume my readership is an informed one who can draw their own conclusions.  I’m neither adding to nor taking away feelings that are already there.  Just reinforcing...
     Still awake at 5am last night, (coffee too late in the day, I suspect) this  odd idea came spookily into my head.  Scribbled it down in the dark and worked on it, refining and completing it this evening.

                    Mr Trump

Will you die having denied your whole term through
That climate change is factual?
The floods, heat waves, intensive fires,
Melting Arctic, water higher?
Will you keep detaining children behind wires
Never calling, naming it for what it is:
All in the name of business?

Misogynistic haters of the female role,
What kind of deadly symbol is a Mexican?
A woman doing all she can
To have a life as rich as yours,
Who works for peanuts scrubbing floors?
Mr Trump, she cannot hurt a single soul
Except to help the whole.
Instead, you mine for, mine more coal,
Employment a most unsound goal.
We’re all in danger
And you seem to see yourself as guardian angel
Or some kind of Texas ranger.

Mr Trump, you’re on the throne, you’ve got the crown,
A folk has put your name down.
Have you made the world a safer place?
Stopped the race for rule by force?

You’re tough,
But you’ll pass through this bad world soon enough.
What will you leave that’s not been thieved?
I must say, in some way you are a strange one.
One whose legacy, I pray will be a good one.
When we add it up and deed is done
I see you golfing in the sun,
Monetary interests first.
Do you quite understand this thirst?

Mr Trump, I wish you well.
With hope my native USA is not for sale
Or on its way to concrete hell;
That some transcendent hand has planned
To help this land
To interests that will help us all
Before a global fall’s
Upon us.
Mr Trump 1.3.2020  Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Nover Corwin
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