I never get tired of saying it.  

     I Love Talent

I love talent!
I just love talent!
Talent is a grace, an ace,
A freebee, blessing:
Something that you get for nothing;
Something that’s a bank, a chest,
Toolbox/treasure all-in-one.
How to leach it, turn it to a skill and fun;
Teach it how to be its best handmaiden,
Guest of soul.
Toil at the risk of pain,
Ignorant of the world’s disdain;
Refining and aligning self to inmost gain.
I love talent!
How I love it!

I Love Talent 8.17.2001/revised 5.3.2017/revised one more time 5.3.2021
Special People Special Occasions; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative; Arlene Corwin

It Was The 1st Of May

It was the 1st of May today.
I’d not one new idea to play with.
I drew an odd poetic blank.
Was this the start of writer’s block?
Washed some ******, cooked a meal,
Had thoughts to think, much to thank.
Thought about success, illusions,
Dreams, delusions,
Mediocrity,
Folk who do things differently,
Acceptance of diversity:
Aspects of reality
(Which seem
To be my constant theme.)

Look, a poem is out!
In spite
Of not
A thing to cite or write
About.

It Was The 1st Of May Today 5.1.2021 A Sense Of the Ridiculous; Arlene Nover Corwin

More Than Pet

Albert Cat lies at my side.
Pressed up against my thigh he sleeps.
He’s slurped some yogurt from my thumb;
Not much, for he’s not hungry -
Took a whiff, showed interest;
I appreciate his interest, his intelligence;
It shows we’re equals:
Pals.
His senses know my tones of voice.
I try my best to sense his choices:
Moods, foods, evidences he evinces through the day;
His likes, dislikes, what’s good, what’s play.
He’s whimsical and unpredictable;
I’m conversational, respectful;
Relationship reciprocal,
I am the more responsible,
And that’s okay with me;
The mutuality enriching each.
Time tells me,
So does he.

More Than Pet 4.30.2021 Cat Book II; Circling Round Experience; Love Relationships II; Arlene Nover Corwin

At least it feels that way.

A New Phase Of Awareness
   (Bared For All To View)

I am conscious;
See and hear and all the rest.
I am aware, newly aware
The I am consciousness.
That’s huge!
Not only senses but
The sense behind the senses,
I am sense-ness.  
Consciousness.

As soon as you add suffix -ness
A noun becomes the all-embracing;
Something in itself.

No longer parts divided and connected
But a unitary abstract quite un-nameable;
Sustainable — an ‘it’.
Not’ only ‘quite’, but It.

Oh, the limits of the word!
It is absurd that what you are
Is in reality an It:
Alive, eternal, undivided.
Some deny it, but it’s true.
Consciousness is you.

A New Phase Of Awareness 4.27.2021 I Is Always You Is We;Circling Round Experience;Arlene Nover Corwin

No One Reads Poetry

That’s what they tell me:
Verse doesn’t sell
- Nobody reads…
No one will buy…
Poetry!  
Well-meaning kin,
Publishers who make it known,
Who **** you around
When you send in your soundest work:
Who say,
“Do not send us works of verse!”

Self-trust torn a-sunder
One starts to wonder,
“Is it me that’s mediocre?”

Let me tell you reader dear,
Thousands out there read each stanza, each cadenza
Meant to catch, attach, draw, touch the heart.
Thousands care!

Ingenuity, fertility, a universe in unity;
Intensity and lyric beauty:
Wholly, utterly and unreservedly
Unique!
The peak of truth and culture, muse and genius!
“No on reads…”
Ridiculous!  

No One Reads Poetry 4.27.2021 Circling Round Everything II: Arlene Nover Corwin

I’ve Only Ever Known Jazz

Of singers who lay claim to jazz,
I only hear a copied trend:
Styles, arrangements, timbre, sound
Make their populistic rounds.

Then I sing; hear harmonies,
Voicings, bass lines, every chord;
No schmaltz, no crotch, no gestured show,
Knowing I’m a jazz-rich throat,
Each note sung on the spot,
Improvised creatively right from the start.

Do I have a heart? Sure, but
I never will be Bassey - more a Sassy
Jazz-directed to my toes;
God knows how it begins and shows.
My instrument the ears and what they hear,
Voice right or wrong Informed by song.

Monk-like clusters mustered up by choice and taste;
Diatonic or laconic, unexpectedly chromatic:
Product of the 50’s ‘cool’.
Schooled by Ella, Vaughan, Tormé,
Miles, Gillespie, Chet, Monk, Christy,
Frishberg’s, Dorough’s’’s Blossom’s *****,
Mose, Matt Dennis; Hendricks, Hancock,
Hundreds more…great tunes galore:
Some you haven’t heard before!
These my first and opened door.

Whereas some others have their glaze,
I’ve only ever known cool jazz -
Spontaneous, each choice unfazed.
That my music’s cool soul’s razzmatazz.

I’ve Only Ever Known Jazz 4.24.2021 Vaguely About Music II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Believe me, I don’t start the day with intention of writing.  And then it happens, a moving phrase read, extrapolated and boom, the synapses light up in connection.  
I’m not a nerd, not especially informed, but something inside is always on the lookout and knows more that I do.

Many Small Acts Of Indifference

They pile up one by one.
The largest iceberg melting, crumbling. falling slowly:
Then, ‘all gone’!

What could be truer -
People neither bad- nor good-er:
Just indifferent;
Never seeing unconcern
Till forests burn.
Therein the problem.

Mostly, one can’t lay a blame.
There is no name, no exclamation:
Maybe something thin and lame like, “****!”
To call this sad phenomenon.

It’s all of us;
Our routine habits that are cause;
Unoriginal, derivative. monotonous…
For where the planet stands today, we’re breaking laws
Set down by nature.
(This planet ‘ doesn’t ‘stand’ it goes,
But where it’s going no one knows);
Round and round or down and down:
It’s all a terrifying puzzle.
We, the powerless and muzzled.

Anyhow, the very slowness gives one hope.
You and I, the dopiest
Can change this moment.
Coral, porpoise, whale dies; gases rise;
Oceans foam, the whole fomenting
Sentiment and action:
Thanks to worldwide inter- nets:
Information at its best.

Beware indifference’ shrugging off,
Bent, trump-ian off-sloughing of the evidences.
It’s you and me, kid,
Who can rid the damage done,
The inner mental situation
Of those small indifferences.

Many Acts Of Small Indifference 4.23.2021 Our Times, Our CultureII; Definitely Didactic II;  Nature Of & In Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin
Pandemic-wise