First came the title, then came reasoning, then summing up - the rhyme and meter genetically built in.  I loved justifying the concept.


  Homage To All Things That Happen

All according to some plan -
New, alien - to keep things going, rescue man;
The right, the wrong: it all belonging
To some one humongous system
Far beyond our comprehension.

I have read
There are a hundred million neurons in our head,
These having millions of their own:
One giant telephone;
Small galaxies
To please the laws
Of effect’s Cause..

Hard to take in,
Come to the conclusion
That all things that happen
Are for something larger than
You, me, the galaxy
And on and on…
One cannot help but gape in wonder.
Homage To All things That Happen 5.27.2021 Circling Round Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin

Once Again…

Once again I find I’m saying;
“Plan my day”
One of those potential phrases
In a phase of a quasi-prayer.

Though going to, into thin air
Aware in mind of finding nothing,
There is a kind of blind belief;
A pragmatism; faith
In nothing I can feel - like lace or steel.

Based on daily observation;
Sensible and level-headed
Practical and logic-driven:
Balanced person -
When the daily mode reveals no voice,
I have no choice but to receive a day
Of ‘outer’ planning’s voice turned play
(The voice of possibility)
By saying to myself and It,
“Plan my day!!
And take what follows,
As it comes and as it goes.

Once Again 5.26.2021 To The Child Mystic II; The Processes; Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Arlene Nover Corwin

What You Do Makes A Difference

Pro /con, yin/yang:
What you do makes a difference.
Bad/good, good/bad.
Each and every nod of head,
Each preference made:
What’s done to those nearby or world,
Though indistinct, unfelt, subdued,
The deeds send tiny substances
Into some airborne agencies
With waves that dance Into continuance,
To spread existence.
What you do has a significance ;
Makes a difference.
So be vigilant.
You are important.

What You Do Makes A Difference 5.23.2021 Circling Round Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin

Simplifying

I think the isolating medium -
(Pandemic’s global impact)
Has done the job for me;
Few demeaning ultimatums;
Calls returned, lunches met,
Malls paraded through
With nought of worth to do.

Oh, the benefits of saying in!
Throwing sins of wasteful time
Into the garbage bin of slime and time.
Everything brings inspiration.
Anything a motivation,
Open to inventiveness of one's creation
Which, in turn means making choices
Truer to an inner voice;
Not fiddling, waiting for some muse
To lift you from your busy-ness.

There is a principle I hold to:
Everything you wish to do
Will always be simplicity
But never easy.
That, my friend
Is, you could say, the end.


Simplifying 5.22.2021Circling Round Everything II; The Processes: Creative,Thinking,Meditative II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Going On Forever

I don’t want to disappear,
But stay here
Growing, learning,
Watching its eternal earning
With a quiet eye.

Yet and yet, not able
To face label Death,
There is a daring me - preparing,
Filled with stashes of creativeness
That make up for
The fear of disappearing.

Without forethought I find notes to play;
Better than before or ever.
Unpredictable the throat, but I don’t care
Because inventiveness is there.

What might have been a vanity,
Self-consciousness and worry,
Is an energy of nonchalance
Letting in pure chance
And taking in delight
In finding just what’s right
In word or song,
As if the wrong-est word
Ought still be heard by others,
Thanks to confidence
That smothers fear of being judged;
That if I’ve fudged a phrase expected,
Anything can be corrected.

Hence the fire of desire
To go on forever,
Bedded in indebtedness
Undying.
Going On Forever 5.20.2021 Birth,Death & In Between III; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Arlene Nover Corwin

I've added a line: "Even fish feel while they swish!"  
          Doddery

Am I getting doddery,
Long in the tooth,
Long dead to youth?
Or sensible, experienced, mature,
Deploring times and crimes of culture?

I feel pain, must look away
When I see creatures run, swim, fly
Abused,
Unfelt for,
Victimised.

**** fight, horse race, injured, forced;
Elephant, rhinoceros, without tusk;
Even fish feel while they swish;
Hunted whales or seals or tuna.
Turned into a grilled hamburger
I no longer eat frankfurter…
What the heck is wrong with me?
Who out there sees what I see?
*doddery;
slow and unsteady in movement because of weakness in old age: he's a bit doddery on his legs and doesn't get about much.

Doddery 5.18.2021 Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Nover Corwin

A Creative Nobody

I’m a creative nobody.
A follower of movie star,
Celebrity,
Biography,
Notable awards and trophies.
Here sit I,
A reasonable credential of activity;
Some published books, (19 so far)
No royalties,
Musician, yogin, writer, poet
(some other diverse roles that show it)
Still, I go unrecognised,
(well, some inconsequential prizes).
Writing daily,
In my eighties,
Fueled energy,
Heightened creativity.
There must be meaning in originality;
Expressiveness, creative skills
That over-match all other ills.
To be a nobody’s not all that bad,
A gladdening in all the rest
Feels sort of, kind of, one might say -
And pretty much the VERY best!

A Creative Nobody 5.15.2021 The Processes; Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Arlene Nover, Corwin

Watching the ‘’religious’ conflict.  So useless! Perspired, tired, but inspired.  So useless!  

Bits Of Absurdity
It isn’t fun:
The more insightful I become
The more aware and dumb
I know I am.
Glaciers melt;
Is there a hell?
We rave and rant;
The disappearing elephant, rhinoceros or ant.
Some things we can or won’t, or can’t;
We war, invent new types of guns,
Dependent on developing more weapons,
Losing an inherent faith
An unsure housing, planet Earth.
Speculation, reason, treason…
Truth’s relation wobblier.
To remain pain-free, completely sane
Is not too much to ask,
The task a mission in disguise.
Addictions, stimulants, inner crises,
Pills for peace and for release
Messing up the consciousness:
What functioned generations past
Working not at all for some.
The die is cast.
In our numbness we are dumber,
Soon to fumble into slumber
That may last a thousand years or more.
Bits Of Absurdity 5.14.2021 A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Our Times, Our Culture Ii; Arlene Nover Corwin

Sometimes one's just overwhelmed by this reminder.  

All Living Things Love Life II

Written many moons ago;
Writ by life-observer poets;
Scribbbled scrutinies and comments;
Detailed now on TV shows:
Perils menacing or imminent;
Calloused killings of the other,
That despite all men are brothers;
Pain or dread;
The many dead.
Frog, fly, ant
Stepped, crushed without stop or conscience -
Well, what can one say!
Living things that pant for breath
Robbed of air from man to plant.
Air, the global element,
Constituent shared by us all:
And still
We ****.
Implausible! Impossible!  But actual
This second as thought formulates;
Loved beings each transported
To a valueless oblivion.
We watch offhandedly,
Or helpless, mourn.

All Living Things Love Life II 5.11.2021 Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Nover Corwin

PS 5.9.2021I’ve done the whole thing over: punctuation, syntax - all to make it clearer to the reader - and you.  See if it makes a difference.

   I’ve been taking this apart & putting it together umpteen eleven times, unsure of what I was aiming at, unsure of my attitude and what I was saying.  Finally, it itself formed my conclusion.  Ah, the creative power of poetry.

   Fragments Of Energy II

Fragments of energy, forces of power;
Distance illusory… near, here or far.
So much is theory, notion, idea.
Is God really God,
We, the peas in an almighty near and far pod?
Is the mixture a mishmash but all-of-a-one:
Unified fractals* that make up the fun,
Snowflake or buttercup, echoing bird.
Re-stated everywhere - here, now and every ‘there’?
(Look up the word)
Clusters or clutter, matter plucked,
Plunked down with order;
A concert in motion, a symphonic One.
Part of the order of earth, moon and sun.
All of a fragment with no counted number,
Each of us members In atom toned embers.

In some sort of incomprehensible way,
One is glad to be
Even a fleck of those fragments of energy.
Fragments Of Energy II 5.9.2021 Circling Round Science; Nature; Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin

fractal; a curve or geometrical figure, each part of which has the same statistical character as the whole. They are useful in modelling structures (such as snowflakes) in which similar patterns recur at progressively smaller scales, and in describing partly random or chaotic phenomena such as crystal growth and galaxy formation.

To those of you who know about my seven fingers. (It’s just a whim that makes me write this, hoping that t’s good poetry, that’s all.)


     What I Cannot Do: To Date…

Zip up zippers; hold a glass;
Unscrew caps sealed, fused or plastic.
I’m begun to keep a list
To check what’s missing, missed and lost.
There must be hundreds I will run across -
Beyond the bounds of possibility,
Unfeasible and unattainable.

Climbing into shower or tub is easy,
Getting into places ‘squeezy’
Can be handled (but not ‘hand’-led).
I find other means uncovered.
I’ve discovered mouth and tongue,
The art of ways to stretch and hang
My clothes on hangers;
Knots and bows and ways to share
Each strand of hair
So that each hair is neat and pretty.

I can tweeze my brows,
Clip all small toenails wobbly held.
There is a problem with the cold;
Day/night, room/room -
Temperatures not temperate.
Dust and stuff too disparate.

Vacuuming is hard to deal with,
That’s the time to steel myself,
No matter how it feels.;
Knife and fork can be a hinder.
Clumsy, tender, the best boon
Can often be a bowl and spoon.
(not in public where chagrin
Would soon persuade me to constrain;
(Which shows a vanity devoid of training).

Anyway, and without straining
I grow stronger,
Lists grow longer.
Things I cannot do to date
Will train my patience while I wait for
Only goodness knows, for what!

What I Cannot Do: To Date 5.7.2021 Circling Round More Experience II; Arlene Nover Corwin

To all my cat loving friends: (I’m sure I’ve left some out - in which case, SORRY!)      

Albert Cat, Eleven!  🐈

Albert Cat will celebrate
Eleven feline years to date:
Eleven years on this good planet,
His food planet,
Perfect for a house cat!

We, his owners, cat food donors
See to it that he is cat-isfied;
Yellow/red, a golden brown,
He cannot smile and cannot frown.
A ****** calm in place the whole day’s time.

Commonest of purry furries,
Albert Cat is still, to us
Unique, well-dressed, e’en glamorous.
Though his purry, furry self is modest
He is famous in our house.
He  never, ever kills a mouse.
He simply watches, sits and stares;
Leaves the birds to eat their seeds.
While they see him. They know his needs,
They know he’s there.
It is his lovely golden hair!

Happy Birthday, Albert Cat!
We’re glad you honour us
With your existence.
Flattered that our residence
Suits you.

Albert Cat, Eleven 5.6.2021 Cat book II; Arlene Nover Corwin

It’s Easier To Tell The Truth
      (Than Tell A Lie)

It’s easier to tell the truth
Than tell a lie.
That is why
Each syllable is poe-try;
Examining a prefix, suffix
To a-fix  an honesty
Found bound inside.

With hours of refinement,
Its defining of identity:
(For what else is there
But to find out who we are?)
Glacial faults, deep and broad;
Small conversions to the good;
Youth and growth to wrinkled age -
Weak > strength >, courage:
A corsage of fortitude.

And the insight that
It’s easier to bathe in facts
Than drown in lies.
Hence the art of poe-tizing,
Its requiring and sacrificing youth and froth
To new found truth(s)

It’s Easier to Tell The Truth 5.5.2021 Definitely Didactic II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Poetry is wonderful.  Lying here and this came out.


Delving Into Life’s Significance

In silence or with voice;
To reach spirit or relax,
Using any means that works
To fix the mind is meditation.

Not heroics or polemics,
Not mechanics or semantics:
Any means to coax a mind
To find more than it knows itself.
Something far, yet in itself.
A focussing that brings to life
A state normally hidden
And unbidden.

You can speculate yourself to death,
Still not have breadth;  
Think,  reflect, deliberate,
Ruminate and contemplate .
Still not ‘get it’.
There’s an ‘it’ that has no plot
One day ‘it’ just shows up.
You know more than you knew before
You find a ‘you, not shown before.
You’re where you are.
And happier.

There is a word ‘sublunary’
Which means those who are ‘worldly,
Which, in turn, means most of us.
Then there are those whose tendency
Is numinous -
A living in not of the world:
A flag unfurled.  
To them the stanzas up above
Are relevant enough to prove
There is a better way to live,
To solve, evolve and delve
Into existence and its meaning.

Delving Into Life’s Significance 5.5.2021 Circling Around Everything Ii; Circling Around Experience; Arlene Nover corwin

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

Sometimes poetry is story telling, sometimes didactic teaching, sometimes a combination of both.

A Letting Go & Letting In

A ‘ballsy’ lady I know well,
Who doesn’t hesitate to tell
Those she considers foes, to ‘go to hell’
Considers meditation
Self-deception and delusion,
Which ‘dislike’ inspired me to re-define
In easy terms,
A practice I consider firm.

Meditation, as I find it, see it, use it
Is a mind full, filled by focus, plus,
A letting go and letting in
A ‘thing’ you can’t put finger on.
All these three are meditation.
These, a brain that’s working on
A different plane or several planes.

I admire her for her ‘*****’
But sympathize a mind the sees life as a
Nothing worthy or an all.
She may be missing what’s behind -
Which may be spirit or a soul;
Some non-something behind the earth
Contactable by non-thing faith.
No meter there to measure pleasure;
Or to calculate its treasure.

A Letting Go & Letting In 4.23.2021 To The Child Mystic II; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Today’s Lovely Word: Justice

Such a weighty concept: justice.
Simple Latin meaning ‘right’,
And nice to rhyme with ‘trust’,
No single ‘must’ in sight.

Doing what is right
Is to include what’s fair.
But there’s the snag, and there’s the hinder;
Born with ego as we are,
Temperaments and character,
Leanings that go far too far,
It isn’t fair!  
But nor are we.
There it is, the needed discipline
Oft’ hard to learn, to start, to do,
Continuing the whole life through.

Of seven deadly lust-filled sins, wrath is in.
What is not ‘in’ is prejudice and bias.
(Bible didn’t have those words.)
Of course, the “love your neighbour as yourself”
Is not far off the gist and ******
Of training to become all-just.

Today’s Lovely Word:Justice 4.23.2021 Our Times, OurCulture II; Circling Round Experience; Circling Round Everything II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Lumps & Bumps

Wrinkles, lines, ache this, pain that;
Then the lumps, perplexing bumps
From nowhere, showing, growing,
Coming and not going.
Bother!
You think cancer, other
Causes: worry, costs and doctors,
Signs and trends!
Brother!
Will they never end?
Changes down there:
Sour, cowardly -
Unsightly forms informing us
Of beauty’s loss, of songs unsung,
Boss death and wretched other wrongs.
Lumps  and bumps which must mean something;
Nature's drowsing, rousing, - dousing.
Sousing us with vinegar.

Lumps & Bumps 5.29.2016/revised 5.11.2020/re-revised4.21.2021
Circling Round Ageing; Birth, Death & In Between II; Arlene Nover Corwin

I Like Beauty
(or beauty for its own sake)  

Is it beauty or a vanity?
To paint the bare face everyday
Almost on wakening.
It feels self-serving in a way,
Yet right and satisfying.
Color, colors, shaping forms,
Mild creations, self-corrections
With no thought of operations.

Would one die without it?
Not a bit!
Months have gone,
The physiognomy anonymous,
No thought to how it looks.
Then one awakes one day
Takes out the brushes, pencils, gloss
Stencils in a brow too thin,
Highlighting skin.
It’s just plain fun - and trains one.

One knows or feels how Rembrandt felt
When melting shadows into forms
For sheer effect,
The end result:
The kind of beauty, drama, potency
To give a clout not caught
Apart from that.
An act of mastery.

So, to proclaim without an ego being blamed:
It’s beauty that one aims at -
Neither  praise nor adoration.
Like the icing on the cake,
Beauty’s pleasure for the sake
Of living, loving  exploration.

I Like Beauty 4.21.2021 Circling Round Vanities II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Tip of the Day: Become A Meditator
        ( in plain street talk)

A meditator
Can become a better,
Even good creator.
You should try it if you haven’t.
Just a tip,
Not only for the hip;
The brain feels sharper,
Extra bright.
Longterm,
Not just a single night.
Life seems to go your way,
Black turning white,
The hard stuff easy,
At least easier;
Easier to find the self,
Dine alone,
Put those problems on a shelf,
Give self-help.
Like good nutrition or a diet,
It takes time.
So try it!

Give it three good months or so -
Time to feel and time to know.
It’s nothing fancy,
Not a fancy,
Wait and see:
Continuously
Or in fits and jerks
It works,
Accumulating over years.
Start now, this minute’s very second.
You can reckon
                        on success.

Tip Of The Day: Become A Meditator 4.20.2021 The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Arlene Nover corwin

.

Words To Love: Interconnection

Crisis after crisis: interconnected.
Deeds apparent or invisible: connected.
Phases, patterns unalike, yet linked and ‘synched’*
With Laws pertaining.
Do not question, and be certain:
Every force contains its obverse.
Things expand and then contract -
Bodies, flowers - all its contacts…

Interacting constantly, the powers of reality;
Related somehow, here and now.
And so, we reconstruct, re-form;
Nature forming forms forever.

Adapting and accommodating,
Interacting and connecting,
Thus, collecting and correcting
Continent by continent.
Intra-, inter- without end.

short for synchronised

Words to Love: Interconnection 4.18.2021 Circling Round Reality;Circling Round Everything II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Sometimes it’s great fun to write nothing.    

  The Great Debate: Shower Vs Bath
(or 15 minutes with the, worth the pen & paper)

She:
Nothing can compare with
Bathtub filled with
Water’s warmth of H20
A-top an un-warapped body
Draped moistened luxury.
He:
Ah, the freshness of the ******!
It’s too, too much!
Standing under such a pressure pleasure:
So difficult to measure the enjoyment!
She:
But employment of an arm or both
Seems such a waste, the taste of water in the mouth
Unnecessary and uncouth,
You either have to swallow or you spit.
What is the sense of it?
He:
Ah, but freshness has its own
And special feeling and sensation.
Hard to put your finger on.

So it goes…
The great debate is never closed.
No conclusion, no one swayed
Each walks away, their water spray
The one and only means to get self clean -
And that’s okay.

The Great Debate: Shower Vs Bath 4.18.2021 A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Arlene Nover Corwin

The God Question

Why the papers scientific:
Guidelines; ordering the havoc;
Logic looking yet for more:
What can and is the unexplored.

Take affection’s definition:I see that you have responded and reacted positively to 3 of my poems.  It means we're on the same page.  onderful!
Not an easy one to home in on;
Take theologies:
Fusions of the theories
Of thinkers, mystics, visionaries -
They who've always been - oft’ hidden,
Metaphor their only language.

Multi-universes:
It is said; “My Father’s house has many mansions"
Fine-tuned  functions unlike ours;
Or, is it that they are also tuned to mortal powers?

Devotees of Christian thought
Have rarely sought another’s vision.
God can’t care, He’s always been,
Knows the ropes. Made the ropes!
Not always in accord  with hopes.
That we consider of importance
For what we conciser of importance
Is an insolence, an ignorance Of God’s dispassion -
Absolute’s indifferent nonchalance and essence.

When you seek the ‘infinite’ and ‘ultimate’
Consider what is Absolute:
First Creator, laws of nature;
Forces that don’t disappear.

Always two: the smooth, the friction;
Yin and Yang of every action -
All with heads and tails of coin:
The God debate can never end.
For every foe is also friend.

The God Question 1.12.2015/re-written 2.8.2016/re-written 4.15.2021 God Book II; Circling Round Everything II;Arlene Nover Corwin

Pain Is Such A ‘Pain’

Besides discomfort, pain’s a pest;
A nuisance, bother, hinder,
At its worst or best
A hurt that quashes thinking’s process:
On the list of inconvenience highest.

Common idioms in use:
‘Pain the neck’ ‘pain in the ***’.
****** yes, but two most graphic!
To be optimistic,
Usually, it takes a rest;
Not long, perhaps, but any pause
Is better than no pause at all,
The standstill most appreciated.

If it’s un-retreating, un-vacating, un-evacuatable,
Make a vehicle that’s readable -
And write!

Pain Is Such A Pain 4.14.2021 I Is always You Is We; Circling Round Experience;Arlene Nover Corwin

Writing From The Place You’re At

If you’re living in the Now,
Defining and refining
With a sense of movement-in-the-present,
Then your writing will become
A mirror of that present,
You a better writing woman/man - yes, person.
That’s a a gift!  A real present!

Moment’s thought may feel too trifling
To put out into the world, but listen!
No thought is so meaningless
As not to hurl into the swirl of word
Poetic brainwaves others have not also shared.

That is why the “I is always you is we.”
The marvel being ‘you’ is always you,
Your writing yours and no one else’s:
You, the content, style, form.
Catch the moment: carpe diem!
As the hundred zillion galaxies do this second,
You’ll expand,
A guarantee long earned, confirmed!

Writing From the Place You’re At 4.13.2021 Definitely Didactic II; I Is Always You Is Me; The Processes: Creative, thinking, Meditative II; Arlene Nover Corwin

“I Is Always You Is We.” the title of a one of my collections and coming book.

A Fragment Of Infinity

Another documentary:
Scarcely elementary, but charged with energy.
Theme: astro-cartography.
Humans working nights and days
To map the stars and galaxies,
Which mapped this moment, are eight thousand.
Multi-universes moving outward
At four hundred thirty thousand miles per second…
Yes, per second!
A small part of the great whole
A  dwarfish fraction of them all.

In any case, I had an image:
Galaxies drawn by the laws
That govern us, that are our own:
Magnetism, gravity, movement, change,
Known, the speculated and unknown.
There I saw into my brain so much in common.
I connected with the ‘there’
Feeling that the laws out there
Paralleled the mechanistic warehouse
I could use for more awareness
Of my personal existence.

All my zillion cells attracting light
By some magnetic force and might.
I drew it to myself in thought,
Imagining the links of insight
Reaching me.
I felt it come immediately;
Some form of it anyway.

I am a fragment of infinity,
Galactic laws defining this
Small lady’s universe
Exactly as they do in endless space.

Fragment Of Infinity 4.11.2021 Circling Round Everything II; Circling Round Reality; Nature Of & In Reality;  The Processes: Creative, Thinking Meditative II; Arlene Corwin Corwin

How Are You Today?

Volcanos are waking;
Villages shaking.
My husband and I
Had our second shot yesterday.
Me, I have questions concerning bacilli.
Aways the bad mixed with good, good with bad.
While lying in bed
Learning lots from TV,
All that’s around me,
Patiently waiting to see any side effects;
When, and or if…

Friends on the phone,
Themselves all alone:
Some CoVid and sick-ish, some fine,
Some immune.

All is in movement:
My cat at the moment.
Icebergs and soil,
Men drilling for oil;
Out of one’s hands, much unpreventable
Maybe the whole.

All that I wonder propped up as I lay,
Head on three pillows, is how, really how
Are you feeling today?

How Are You Today? 4.10.2021 Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Passing On Experience

Passing through as in a cloud;
Passing on to all the crowd
By passing out free tickets
Transferred, shared;
Life intention, sentience,
And the Law of - well, Experience.

Passing On Experience 4.6.2021 Life, Death & In Between III; Arlene Nover Corwin

“I never doubt the qualities of God.  When I meditate, (which I try to do whenever I’m not speaking) I have these qualities as a kind of mantra each of which I focus on individually, taking them into myself as completely as I can at the time.  After all, they are God’s.  They are: peace, power, purity, knowledge, love and bliss.  Purity was a hard one for me for a long time. But I understand the process better now.  As regards it, I’m aware, for example, how many layered it is, and how so much it led up to my, shall we say, fingerlessness, involving, as it does so many different kinds of choices on the way. Just a small example.  Nowadays I’ve also begun to take into the whole of my brain ‘light’ - not as a concept but as a kind of literal and visual process..  Although a verbal being, I’ve never had much of a visual talent.”

           Ruminating

I never doubt God’s qualities:
Doubt aways there somewhere -
But I suppress it (as one should)
Because it does no good.

A thinking brain invaluable,
It wants the best,
Works while it rests,
Retreats not
When we eat or sleep.
Has multi-synapses of neurons deep;

It, a force, of course,
For every power has a source,
A course,
And cause is force
Of one kind or another.

So I take the bother
To reflect and weigh,
Meditate throughout the day
Ponder, wonder, analyze,
Musing, using inner eyes,
Chat, think, ask,
Use every task
As means to reach
The endgame beach,
Teaching the brain where it should aim.
The qualities I use for that have names:
Power, purity & peace,
Knowledge, love & happiness.
Simply put,
Repress your doubt
And try it out.
It cannot hurt
One little bit.

Ruminating 4.5.2021 Circling Round Reality; To the Child Mystic II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

The 'I' Form

Some like it, some do not.
Some avoid it, voiding it
Into the well of meekness, weakness;
Too confessional to speak.
I was one of them,
Sometimes still am.
The ego’s always there with shame.

If the theme is terribly self-biographic,
Graphic, ******…
Then ‘’i’ becomes ’one’, ‘he’ or ‘she’.
Usually, I don’t need privacy
But like to share a message
Writ as poetry,
Assumption being ‘we’
Is always you and me -
Same experiences,
Feelings, senses…
All that differs is the tongue.
Behind it all, one song that’s sung,
Pearls of life strung on one string,
The common gong of simply being.
Let us share the ‘I’ form bravely!
I is always you is we.

The ‘I’ Form 4.4.2021 I Is Always You Is We; Arlene Nover Corwin

One Can’t Keep Brooding…

One can’t keep brooding over gravity:
The drooping, dropping mushy *****;* -
Hormone’s programmed mystery
Which summons all and wins.
One’s tired of mirrors,
Made up terrors,
Looking in at thinning skin.
The time spent on the pimpled chin:
Hours that spoil.

Loyal friends disinterested,
Strangers with the least concern;
Who has time to burn
On affectation and facade,
The cavalcade of vanities
That seize the eye?
One can’t protest
What which is useless.

****** is the warmly affectionate  Yiddish  word for ‘***’’ or ‘bottom’
or ‘rear end\’, none which has the tender expressiveness of ‘*****’.

I Can’t Keep Brooding 5.8.2008/re-composed 4.4.2021
Circling Round Ageing;Circling Round Woman;Circling Round Nature;Circling Round Vanities;
Arlene Corwin

Happy Easter

There is no master holy day
That beats the Easter holiday.
No fiesta with its vista of eternal life:
The basis of an Easter.

Sister to Passover,
Depth more than a four leaf clover
Where no fluff can dwarf its notion
And no proof but a convention
Grown from Biblical tradition
It is history worth telling;
Worth the celebrating,
Pondering;
Astonishing, confounding:
Jesus’ fall and rise
The most bewildering surprise.

So let us spend a day
To think about eternity
And then be happy
At the possibility
Of love that lives immortally
Happy Easter!

Happy Easter 4.2.2021 Our Times, Our Culture Ii; Arlene Never Corwin

Sometimes One Needs A Personal God

The atheist soldier or sailor who, drowning,
Calling for mama, God or simple help,
Have mind-sets identical yelping for help.
Secular, temporal,
Pious and scriptural,  
Chemistry’s at the mysterious base,
Influenced neither by race or by grace.
The mind/brain’s the same when conditions are right,
The fact is that truth is the same, day or night.
Only the names are dissimilar.

Faith is a standpoint, dependent on hope,
Not on piety, dogma, nor doctrinal dope.
Everyone has wishes in one form or other;
Money or status, -isms or power.
Most neither useful nor lasting: a feather!

Faith is invisible, chemical: personal.
Often irrational but somehow functional.
No one knows how, why it works, but it does.
Therefore, it pays to have something to trust;
Something to go to when all’s a big bust.

Grown and mature, you see through illusions,
Knowing the platitudes, maxims and truisms.
Tired and seeing, you seek what is true:
Principles governing metamorphosis -
You’re seeking its purpose.
Change doesn’t fade.  No thing has ‘stayed’.
Sometimes one needs to believe in a God
That can house all of this.

Sometimes One Needs A Personal God 4.1.2019/re-composed 4.1.2021 To The Child Mystic II; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Circling Round Reality; Circling Rond Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Newly re-discovered and re-written with the eye and mind of an 86 year old.

             Gone

It isn’t that I was a beauty -
Ravishing or stunning,
But the young have assets winning
In the limber and the nimble,
In the willowy and flexible;
Ligament and cartilage,
New formed partnerships.
Skipping grace, the ageing seeps into the
Shortened, lengthened, thickened heaps.
Creamy, glossy, high cheekbone
Erased and gone,
Replaced by pressing lines that frown.

Not loss but changes [to the]
Self, our peers, - our generation disappearing.
Knowledge which, though understanding
Is no restful, cheering peace
But fear that meets us with a tear,
With answers which may ne’er come near
But carry on their jeering.
        
It isn’t that I was a beauty.
Looking-glass and date remind me
How much beauty’s in the supple,
“You’re the apple of my eye”, says nature.
Ageing’s wit and not an answer!
Muscle mass, the well-formed ***,
Ratio of nose/lips, waist/hips;,
Elasticity an aching stiffness;
Movement showing signs of stress.
Hostile drooping chin through to neck…
Heck, hopefully, the wick of beauty really comes
When youthful beauty shrinks and runs.

Gone 10.23.2008/110.29.2008/re-written 3.39.2021 Circling Round Ageing; Arlene Nover Corwin

Coping

The lord of boredom is the mind.
If you can’t find
This bond with mind,
You’ll always seek external aid:
Stimulation from outside.
And with no inner guide
One cannot help but slide
Into displeasure which
No pleasure can assuage.

To cope is not to mope
But increase in one’s scope;
Enduring to the -enth degree.
Enthusiastically adapting the whole time
Through silk or slime,
Change bringing hope
If you can only cope.

What type are you?
The basically dissatisfied,
Always looking for a lot, lot more?
Unhappy, filled with pain, aggrieved?
Reaching, searching for the truth,
Your youth again?
Passive, extrovert, submissive?
Angry maybe, and aggressive?
Do you think it’s all a lie, conspiracy and bluff?
The easy explanation not an ‘if’ but ‘is’  - and stiff;

Qualities of character inept,
Or ones to fix or plain accept;
If knowing who you are’s the aim,
Then play the game.
The start:
To know components of the heart.

Coping 3.28.2021 Circling round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Note: “to know is also to know that you don’t know” - Kent Anderson

We Who Keep Writing

I listen, read and look,
The world around a book.
This simple observation
Stimulation.
To one linguistically inclined,
As Swedes say,
“It lies ‘in the spine” *
Another way of saying,
In the gene or DNA.

This Facebook thing,
The many, many sites that ring,
Communicating, reaching out
To those of us who think and write
In words
Are worlds of benefit and benediction.
So-so intellect and talent
Notwithstanding.

We who carry on,
Persist, keep on
By virtue of some motivation
Indivisible, invisible,
Yet Siamese twin
Are blessed without, blessed from within.
This tiny verse took 15 minutes.

We who Keep Writing 3.28.2021 The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin
* (for I live in Sweden)

We Who Keep Writing

I listen, read and look,
The world around a book.
This simple observation
Stimulation.
To one linguistically inclined,
As Swedes say,
“It lies ‘in the spine” *
Another way of saying,
In the gene or DNA.

This Facebook thing,
The many, many sites that ring,
Communicating, reaching out
To those of us who think and write
In words
Are worlds of benefit and benediction.
So-so intellect and talent
Notwithstanding.

We who carry on,
Persist, keep on
By virtue of some motivation
Indivisible, invisible,
Yet Siamese twin
Are blessed without, blessed from within.
This tiny verse took 15 minutes.

We who Keep Writing 3.28.2021 The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin
* (for I live in Sweden)

Gerontology*

Sitting in the car and thinking…maybe wrongly,
Youth cannot identify
With one, who eighty-one or two
Is me - or you;
The age non-real,
Too far away to feel.
Sadly,
Doctors too: your doctor, my…
So many symptoms pass them by.
The pity is, it’s we who sigh, or cry…or die.
We, who do the main research,
Left in the lurch
To crouch in front of the computer,
For we must,
There being none to trust
Except for God,
Who, just and boss
Is first in charge of  soul and loss,
Age and body,

We need doctors eager, sage,
Whose zeal is aimed at us: the aged:
Who burn to, yearn to heal, engage
The living old,
For theirs and they
Will be join the white-haired fold
One day.

Gerontology re-viewed, renewed 3.24.2021(original 10.18.2016)  Circling Round Ageing; Birth, Death & In Between III; Arlene Nover Corwin
*Gerontology
the scientific study of old age, the process of ageing, and the particular problems of old people.

How Much We take For Granted

There’s more I can’t do than I can.
With seven fingers amputated,
The only thing I find that’s bettered
Is creative mind, un-fettered
And un-shattered by the principle: mind over matter.
For it’s matter/mind
Refining, re-aligning
By  some all-surpassing intellect.
It’s odd that forces we call God
Set courses new;
Courses brewing in the quiet
While the body riots
In complaint.

So many things to learn to handle:
Twisting, turning, grabbing, holding,
Pushing, pulling, squeezing, folding,
Lifting, mixing, gluing, fixing…
What a list! And what I missed
When there were ten.
How much we take for granted!

How Much We Take For Granted 3.24.2021 Pure Nakedness II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Just thinking...    

  Getting Your Affairs In Order

I’m getting my affairs in order.
By affairs I don’t mean love affairs -
They got ‘ordered’ long ago.
You reach an age where you no longer
Think yourself un-deadly;
Getting one’s affairs in order is a ‘getting ready’ -
You who having left your prime,
Traveling through time not only limited to astronauts.
Life support that may have passed,
‘Affairs in order’ is the comfort of a passport,
No more a worrywart divisive,
Indecisive about treasure gathered over years,
Tied and bound by tears nostalgic;
Wondering who’ll want this, where shall this land?
Pondering over hindering or squandering.
You want those apples of your eye,
Your prides and joys,
To go someplace where they’ll be loved;
Want to leave the place you lived
Not just an empty space but gift received.
We weave a life we’d wish to leave,
Woven for those far or near, bereaved or dear,
And that means putting your affairs in order
From consideration of a future -
Not of yours but of the other.

Getting Your Affairs In Order 3.22.2021 Birth, Death& In Between III; Arlene Nover Corwin

Comeback

Perhaps I should be grateful
That I never was recipient
Of great applause,
Years of adorers,
Broadway’s honey,
Years of being stunning,
Grateful that
I never had to kowtow, bow out,
Miss the kudos and the fame,
Never knowing what life was
With and without them, since I never got them.
Never got to play Las Vegas,
Glad there never came a time
Of longing for a non-existent encore,
Cheering I no longer hear.

Hair going grey,
Kilos heading the wrong way,
You are asked to make a comeback,
Or you’ve asked to make a comeback;
Life feels boring,
No alluring pleasure takes the place
Of listener filled with earful grace.

You sweat and strain, extra kilos off again,
Get back routines,  
Move as you did in your teens,
Flexibility, the voice retaining every nuance.
Frank and Cher came back again - and then again.
We followed each rendition, each gradation, limitation;
Cheered until the cheers turned into hesitation.

I am grateful that I never
Had the clamouring for autographs and tresses,
Shredded dresses, theirs and mine.
Never had the glamour and the clamour of masses,
Fervent need to make a comeback,
Coming back to audiences smelling wine:
Hard to define.
And still I play and sing and grow.

Comeback 5.28.2008/revised3.19.2021
Birth, Death & In Between; Time; Vaguely About Music; Arlene Nover Corwin

You Are Aware

I was thinking of and out and through
A thing I’d like to send to you:
Meditation, contemplation, rumination;
Is it speculating, worrying, deliberation?
No, not really.  
It is something that gives transformation,
Peace and focus,
Which of course, uses the brain,
Uses mind;
Silence of a certain kind.
Observation there,
You are aware.
Mantra, God, an optic point…other aids;
Tools to have as mental base:
Yes, to any/each of these.
Any indices on which to focus;
Any means to give you peace.

You Are Aware 3.16.2021 The Processes:Creative,Thinking,Meditative II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin
Note: Do keep a dictionary nearby.  There may be words that are new to you.

My Barometers Are…

That no matter how it looks,
Everything expands till it contracts:
Beings, universes, forms, e’en ‘facts’;
That everything that lives loves life
Through one or other framed belief;
That human beings love themselves,
Have egos, inborn tendencies
Inherited from endless chains
Of genes that either hinder,
Getting in the way
Or manifesting advantageously
In the mind and body;
That energy, regardless of - the good, the bad,
The sane, the mad, the shown, un-shown
Contains within
The opposite and equal influence.
Untold measures to describe the treasure islands
Which reflect the ways to judge existence,
Put to use in everyday experience.

My Barometers Are 3.13.2021 Circling Round Reality; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

My Dear Friend: A Response To

My friend wished for his ‘childhood’s nest’
Where he felt best;  
Protected and…not least:
Time which went more slowly than
The feverish haste in which it can
(Or seems to)
Run away each grownup day.

Time goes neither slow nor fast:
It only is!
Always passing; tasted, wasted.
Friend, the aim is
Not at to feel It pass at all.
Which, my friend can never fail
If one has peace in the soul.

Peace-in-action is a mix
To fool the brain in terms of time;
One of tricks to prime techniques;
Premier help rid the self of pining
For a past un-lasting.  
Nostalgia is a painful thirst;
An ache usually illusory;
More unreliable than trustworthy.  

Summing up, dear friend,
Do not worry, do not yearn.
Do not burn for pastimes gone.
They, good/bad, fast/slow
Dull/thrilling as they are right now.
My Dear Friend: A Response To 3.12.2021 Circling Round Experience; Circling Round Time II; Arlene Nover Corwin

late 18th century (in the sense ‘acute homesickness’): modern Latin (translating German Heimweh ‘homesickness’), from Greek nostos ‘return home’ + algos ‘pain’