This is a true confessional, part nonsense (as in the genre ‘nonsense poetry) part didactic, meant for those like myself.  🤭😇😅😘🤪 😣 - these emojis representing various aspect pf me, the last called ‘perevering face’.  What fun!

      Learning To Shut Up

How often do you interrupt
Before the other finishes his sentence?
How well do you listen,
Taking in or recollecting
Details and/or essence
Of the other’s presence?
Mea culpa!
That sin mine, wherein
The ego governs;
Two ears  deafened
How embarrassing!
I’m confessing,
But I’m learning,
Earning points in listener’s heaven.
Like a silly pup,
Learning to well,
Shut the h__l up.

Learning To Shut Up 11.11.2020 Circling Round Experience; A Sense Of The Ridiculous; Arlene Nover Corwin

It is November 5, 2020, 3 days after the presidential election.  This is perhaps the most unfamiliar poem I’ve ever been impelled to write.

         Let’s Face It or Perhaps He’ll Never See The Point

Let’s face it,
People do not like the Prez.
When I say ‘prez’
I don’t mean Lester (Young).
It’s hard to give support
With head and heart
To one who seems so nar-
                                         cissistic.

Even weak political emotions
Set in motion bitter potions
Of the toxic kind,
Taken over by a mind aggressive:
One usually meek and pleasant.

But this present president
Evokes an ire
Wired by a man who fits the classic liar.
It’s pathetic one’s own character
Is challenged thus;
Burning like infectious pus,
The psyche’s plus turned to a minus.

Here’s a man who wields great power.
Here is we, who yield to anger
Like a stranger in a field of danger
With our only weapon
Ethics, thought, determination.
Hope born of conviction.

Let’s FaceIt 11.5.2020 Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Nover Corwin

It’s not yet tomorrow, the 8th November. But like a child I’m already celebrating it with anticipation.  I’ve no real emotion, rather a quiet gratitude and awareness of life itself.  My eyes see nature differently, I hear and put together sounds in a newly discovered way.  The whole picture of what and who makes up life has taken on a new significance and hue.

   Happy Birthday To Myself

Happy Birthday To Myself!
My outer self, my inner Self!
The body me, the mind-full me.
The trillion cells
That keep me well.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO IT ALL!

Happy Birthday to the mood
That helps to make me feel good.
To fates that brought me where I am;
The virtues, gifts, the blames I claim.

Happy Birthday to the tricks
I’ve learned to use  at this
My new day’s eighty sixth;
Tricks and tips, clues, hints to share,
(One is ever part aware)

And so I send myself this mail
Literally as I am able.
Satisfied that I’ve not died.
With years that morphed
Into an age where I can sing this song:
Happy Birthday To Myself! 🎶
Toodle-loo and Cheers!  So long!  💕

Happy Birthday To Myself 11.8.2020 Birthday Book; Arlene Nover Corwin

At  this time, Wednesday, November 4th, 2020 5pm Swedish time, still glued to the TV, not knowing yet who’s in! This was written in October.

               Self-Doubt

I sometimes wonder, try to picture
Men like Mr Trump, sitting on the ‘loo’ or ‘john’
For really, he is one
                               of us - just human,
Doing what we humans do.

I wonder if he’s ever plain unsure,
Plain insecure.
I wonder if he has self-doubt.
Skeptical about ideas that come to mind,
Understanding that the mind can find
The craziest of thoughts to think.

Myself, I waver, do not savour every Corwin blink.

And here we have men of the hour,
Men with power
Posturing with face, hand, fingers
Giving out their unsound signals;
Accusations unconditional;
Wholesale and total.
Do they never have self-doubt
When I, the lowly writing poet
Try to deepen virtues that I am without?
I, who analyse and question sides unseen?
Seeking ways to harmonise the pieces and the one,
Smooth out the rougher parts
While at the same time being soft at heart,
Broad, kind and well defined,
Wise and well-informed in mind?

Self-confidence dissolves self-doubt.
To recognize, discern the two Is good to do,
Good for you, of value to your future                
And by definition,
Everyone’s.

loo, john are English slang for toilet.
Self-Doubt 10.2.2020 Our Times, Our Culture II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

On Facebook

Gladdened and astonished
At the countries that are reached
By writing simple verse;
That old and young
Whose native tongue
Is manifestly not the English one,
One’s filled with admiration.

We should all be grateful
If, by easy clicks we set a ball a-rolling,
Sharing, seeing commonality
In all humanity.
My tears, fears theirs or bared,
My hopes, the insights, all I’ve earned
Shared, learned by all the yearning, scared globality.

Wars come and go.
But flows of longing, kindness, information
Are the highest trophies reaching nation
After nation
From this windy, rainy Swedish morn.

Inspired, un-tired and breakfasted,
Looking forward to the Mac,
Face-booking, and the fact
That there will be somebody out there
Somewhere in Antarctica, Australia, Africa or Papua…
Who will be made the happier by stanza,
Or plain utterance .  

On Facebook 11.2.2020 Our Times, Our Culture II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Maturity

What was one thinking then?
What was one thinking when
One did the darnedest things
Ringing of naivité.
Or did not do things of substance;
Choices based on ignorance
And make-up’s many-sidedness.

Looking back today
They seemed so brainless,
Some foolhardy, irresponsible and thoughtless.
“How could I?”  And why, you sigh -
Tear-filled eyes the only prize.

Sizing up with clearer powers,
Time has passed, transgressions paid.
New sown flowers replaced errors.
Karma’s laws have laid the end
With just results: some good, some pained.

That’s what growth is all about -
With rings on trees the perfect symbol;
Narrow, wide, but growing still;
Even now (the adjective)
In silence and tranquility (the noun)

The coming of maturity,
The blossoming sagacity.
One hopes and prays
It comes and stays
Through lasting days
           of wine and roses.

Maturity 11.1.2020 Circling Round Ageing; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

This is the opposite side of the coin to “Everything We Do” (Facebook or Wordpress site)

        The Bad, The Harmful & The Worthless

The nail biting, smoking, drinking,
Mind cliches, the one that ******* -
All the zillion daily habits
Which, like rabid dogs are glitches
Which are setbacks which push back
The forward ****** of progress,
The kind of life meant for the best:
Life happiness!

Repetition may be key
To all achievement.
But like energy's great powers;
Sources that house forces
Dour, sour on the hour;
Positive & negative;
Latent, inherent, permanent
(Reference: atoms vis á vis the bomb.
Doesn't that just make you numb?)

Tips and hints: Pointing nose in the direction of,
You guessed it: truth and fact;
Learn to act with light and love,
Convert the covert negative
To merit, benefit and giving;
Good for all and plain overt.

The Bad, The Harmful & The Worthless;10.31.2020 Circling Round Reality; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin