A bit schmaltz-illy didactic, but so what! It’s what occurred to me this morning and I worked many an hour on it - believe it or not.

   Corruption Of The Heart

Just when I was thinking that I'd run into a wall of writer's cramp...✍️

In light go all the heartrendingly serious problems I've been writing about lately, I decided to write and enter another side of things.

A Lighthearted Poem For All We Scorpios♏️

This is a poem to cover
All we Scorpios alive or not.
In case you didn’t know,
We are a special lot.

‘Cover’ means:
Envelop and enfold, embody and embrace.
We are lovers
And the charming-est of ‘race’..
(of course I’m not impartial).

We are: fixed, we don’t change easily.
We must learn flexibility.
And mixed: Our colors brown and black,
Deep red/maroon;
Our rulers; Pluto, Mars, Uranus, Moon.
We’re born between:
Oct. 23 - Nov. 22
This poem’s for me, this poem’s for you.

We are the highest and the lowest:
So you ‘knowest’, we are:
Forceful and intuitive, passionate, magnetic.
Lovers,
We are great survivors.
BUT, we’re also jealous and possessive,
Wilful, secretive, compulsive and obsessive.

Make sure you choose the best;
Turn secrets to transparency…
Watch out for all the rest.

Believer in the mystic all/ material
One or the other/none of these
You are a sister, brother, father, mother
Therefore, take astrology with ease
And live with love, and how you please.

A Lighthearted Poem For All We Scorpios 10.31.2018
I Is Always We Is You; Circling Round Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin

This funny little phrase occurred to me today, and so I wrote...

World Famous & Legendary 2,  Or, It’s All About Illusions

This poem is dedicated to Bhaghirath Choudhary, a kind and generous Facebook friend who sends admiring and encouraging notes regarding my poetry.

No Idea Comes Out Of A Vacuum #2
(When I Say I, I Mean You Too)

The Thinning Skin Or, I Never Stopped To Think

Tonight's a full moon so I thought I'd leave you with this, written in 2003.
Mister Moon Looking In The Window

An End To Everything #1

What Would I Do Without You?
(Or Scribbling in the Car)

What would I do without you, lexicon?
What would I do without you, dear thesaurus?
Rhyming book to rhyme with -saurus: chorus, porous, e’en papyrus if it fits?
Wiki’s storehouse ‘cyclopedia?
Little things that make me big and ‘pigg:
Languages that set agog
The richness of the word?

So much I would  not do without;
And isn’t that what life’s about!

Mind so connected to the word,
I would think
Without a varied herd of word
T’would shrink.
T’would atrophy,
T’would wear away,
Become cliché
As cliché wears away the play
From boredom’s lack of stimulation.

So connected is the action of the word
To all the wisdom, the absurd
in all the minds in all the world
Of minds and hearts unaired, impaired…
Is mind to word.

pigg is Swedish for lively, spirited
What Would I Do Without You…Mind So Connected To The Word 7.19.2018 The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Approaching Eighty-Four

I Am Here…Now⏰⏳

The Love Of Money

[There Are] Things You Can Never Change

Once More I Watch

Doing Justice To Poetry✍️

Easier to read than the first:

Storm Michael: One More Symbolic Sign

Storm Michael: One More Symbolic Sign

Worsening fires,
More dire censures
From poor mother Nature;
Storm winds and torrents
Since last tempest Florence
Hit North Carolinas;
Coastlines more flooded,
And still those who doubt it.
Like President Trump,
Dumping the evidence,
Still in denial.
Shunning the evidence…
What about Pence?
The climate thing vile.

Yesterday’s hurricanes,
Quickening winds and the rains with no drains…
Roofs blown off, trees blown down;
All of it happening all over town,
And all of it shown on TV.

We are living in times without equal.
With sequel statistical  flooding next door.
Storms know no borders,
And people are urged to be hoarders -
For crises like this are but chains,
And the rains have no enemies.
(maybe the sun - but that’s only one,
And nature’s not done with us -
That is for sure.

I’d bet my Schwinn bike
That Michael is far
From ‘taking a hike’
And happy to hear
That there’s not been one like it
Since records began.


This entire ramble
Is merely a gamble:
A figure of speech
For the breach in the wall
Of political wailings
And also their failings.

Storm Michael: One More Symbolic Sign 10.12.2018 Our Times, Our Culture II;Circling Round Nature II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Doing It All

I’m doing it all:
Publishing, editing,
Getting the meter right,
Developing a theme
Which I  may rhyme or not.
Modifying, reappraising,
Going through with laser eyes;

Taking hours, days, weeks…
(Years because I tinker),
After all, I am the thinker and re-thinker,
And there’s no one there to help.
I am the pulp,
The flesh and bones
Who goes it all alone
Out of conviction,
Inner aspiration,
Internal prodding
From a living and supposed God…

I guess I’m not so all alone,
Without assistance
In the instances of writing,
Since I’m citing someone higher as as cicerone.

Doing It All 10.11.2018 The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Still Needing Reminders #2

Still Needing Reminders

Being Remembered

How would you like to be remembered?
Do you leave a name unblemished?
It seems to be today’s decor
That it is fame one’s going for:
Instant fame and more, more, more.

Life affirming while you’re living:
Your ambition:
Do you listen?
Does it have humility as spark?
Candidness, the best of trademarks?
Honesty, transparency?
A structure or a stricture?
Does the structure have self-knowledge
And the willingness to say “I’m wrong”?
A part of songs you wish to sow?

Bona fide fame comes slowly. (Pronounced bona fid-ee)
Doesn’t last if it comes fast.
Real work lurks in its background:
Lack of vanity to say you’re ‘so-so’
And indifference to fiasco.

But the trend is chasing marathons,
Traveling to distant lands,
Building ships on sinking sands
In lands where lava sleeps
And water ever creeps
Onto small isles that tremble.
Be remembered.

Be remembered
As the good go-getter for a better
World, the ground
Of future fertile worth
Whose girth is round.

Being Remembered 10. 9.2018 Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Nover Corwin

I was surprised when this poem showed up this morning, chosen as 'front page picks' on AllPoetry.com, (most popular poetry site in the world? the universe? - I don't know, but who cares). I'd even forgotten I'd written it. But reading it over, it's good! Good and even informative. Have a read. ✍️

"Who ever thought of it as the peninsula it is. Inhabited by native Americans and called Narrioch, a ” land without shadows”, “always in the light”, its beaches facing south and ‘always in the light; a “point” or “corner of the land”. Come 1600’s and it’s Dutch bought for a gun, a blanket and a kettle. Also called Coninen Island, then Coney Hook, then maybe Conyn Eylandt. Maybe even Konah, even Colman after John Coleman, slain by the natives 1609."
Wikipedia
CONEY ISLAND

Sometimes I Wake Up Thinking…

The Particles Of God

The Stimulant

There is a plan.
Prevailing since the dawn of man;
A master plan that never pauses,
Working through unchanging laws
Consisting of effect and cause.

So knowing thus,
I’ve pledged my whole - Including what I call my soul
To have a voice (despite no proof that we have choice)
And ‘spite my preconceived ideas;
To ‘giving in’ before I die
To changeless codes in changing life.

(if death means bye, bye-bye and bye -
If not, then learning reasons why…
I’ve got to understand the rest,
All that which serves this life as best;
Or life seems meaningless or mournful,
And who thinks we’re born to mourn!

Every instinct longs for joy:
Contentedness and happiness
Insect to four-legged beast - man, not the least;
From ignoramus to the fool,
Pursuit of joy both goal and tool.

What works for me is godhead nearest
(who I sometimes all God dearest).
Universes far from me
Yet deep inside, implicitly.

Thus, ‘fore I leave, ‘fore setting sail,
Believing in a force for good
And something which controls it all -
And this, right in our neighbourhood,
I leave this paper meant for Man:
There is a master plan inherent
Meant for us and our enjoyment;
Stimulant for saint and mortal:
Total life we have a right to.

The Stimulant 10.4.2018 God Book II; Circling Round Reality; Revelations Big & Small; Arlene Nover Corwin

This was/is in response to a lovely comment to what could be considered a not entirely straightforward poem I presented the other day.  
A.

         Whoever Is Receptive

Whoever is receptive
To your works, ideas and thoughts
Will slurp you up and in
With pleasure’s grin
While others spit you out.
And that’s what life is all about.
So, not to worry,
Life’s a magnet of attraction:
Primal law that governs action;
Matinee of love and ardor.
Therefore, don’t work harder
Than you must,
And don’t be disappointed,
When the things you want go bust,
Turn into dust.
The persons  who need what you’ve got
Will come to you and stay because, and just
Because the law’s at work
To everybody’s satisfaction.

Whoever Is Receptive 10.3.2018 Circling Round Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin

Eccentricity Isn’t Craziness, It’s Daring

Eccentricity isn ‘t craziness, it’s daring
To the -enth degree:
A caring not what they decree,
Not caring what they think of me.
The unconventional disarming,
Often charming -
What is normal?
Living life like all the rest,
I guess accepting colorlessness.

Planets are eccentric
And the sun’s just doing fine.
It shines on planetary quirks,              
Sustains the quirk so that it works.  
So,
We too can be a sun;
No planet going round,
No moon, but one
Unusual, bright son-of-a gun                            
Who does his ‘thing’ because it is
The only thing that makes things run,
The only thing that makes life fun

The misfit may not be a genius,
May be middling or bizarre.
Having said that, I give honor
To the one who does his thing
Since he sees through
The illusion, the delusion, the chimère .            
Eccentricity Isn’t Craziness…9.3.2015 The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; revised/ 9.30.2018 Arlene Nover Corwin

No Man is A Victim

Can it be, and do I mean it?

It’s a phrase that came to mind,

And so I looked it up.  

One harmed or killed by so-called fluke;

One duped or tricked;

One who feels helpless faced with setback:

So I  chose the last to help.



There’s truth in fate that causes earthquake,

And one’s sole concern’s escape.  

That is a victim.

Then again,

One is alive, glad to survive.

Grounds to begin

Because one can!



But what about

The ones who feel useless in the face of sense,

Interpreting all happenings

With sadness, negativity and impotence,

Downhearted from the very start?

You’ve known a few. Me too.

Perhaps it’s you,

And what to do –

The problem philosophical, pragmatic, existential.

And, if one’s inclined, then spiritual.



Start a something, anything, for life’s a skill.

Good comes from bad, calm follows ruin;

Results come from what’s had or been;

And nothing lasts forever.

One’s endeavour is to strive,

For one’s alive.  

Remember that you’re clever!



Act as if you have a choice

And make one – with your tiny voice.

Summon up your forces,

For of course, they’re many.

Do not hurry.

Lives are scurrying around you.

Do not worry,

For the ‘musts’ and ‘oughts’

Are values of society,

Not boo-choo, cry

Or future you.

No Man Is A Victim 9.30.2018 Our Times, Our Culture II;Nature In & Of Reality;Definitely Didactic II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Arlene Corwin Poetry.com

The Highest Prize

I am not intelligent;
IQ middling, slow to think
(except when I’ve had caffeine’s drink))
I know people whose vocabulary,
Skills in math and history
Outdo, surpass and outshine mine
By kilometres miles,
Eclipsing talents, each outrivaling  
My wiliest of guiles.

And yet, and yet
I lie or sit
And never quit
Creating verse.
My biggest blessing, little-lest curse
To (all the time) be struck by phrase
That never hazes,
Never dazes or confuses.
Simply takes my life and uses it.
Perhaps fusing the parts, (I hope)
Unjoined or compromised or *****.


Of course, being the seated type
That learned to type when just a tike,
I snap things up and write them down,
Typing up and clipping to with paper clip
Each page of quip and deepest scrip
While taking ownership of ideas wise
And ideas definitely dippy.*

I admit, without self praise,
That I’ve been blessed with artist-joy.
(A gift I didn’t have to buy
It being given me for free).
The gift to knock together, forge concoct,
Then synthesise chords, words, whatnot…
The highest prize I could’ve got.

Perhaps intelligence is overrated.
One can feel complete and sated
By a zillion other qualities:
Not sensory but definitely
Meeting needs:
Ones that feed the world as well.
All other prizes, as you know,
Gone to the hell of false impression’s phantom spell:  
Of no importance whatsoever.

The Highest Prize 9.30.2018 I Is Always You Is We; A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Arlene Nover Corwin

(written certificate)
*(scatterbrained, silly or eccentric).

Serious stuff.

The Illumined Poet

Who is he?
Does he exist?
Is he consistent?
What does he see others don’t?
Does he know what others don’t?
Is he he, or can he also be a she?
In these days you have to ask,
For it is ‘in’ to be defender
Of the genders one and all.

Poets stand, some sit in chairs;
While sitting up in bed some stare
Into an inner or an outer space
While letting, waiting, waiting, letting
Ideas come with no thought as to future comings,
Future poem-ings,

Afterwards he/she is empty.
Emptied of all relevance
To theme that took poetic stance,
Metered dance,
Seemed to be an endless well.

A well, it wells up from below.
What does it do?
Flows upward, outward,
Shooting, spewing, spurting, spouting,
Summer-springs that sprout
Ideas, conceptions, thought.

No one knows where all this comes from;
Poet-sage without intention,
Living on without ambition,
Driven by no aspiration,
Only the illumination
Bringing into birth a poem
That some
Will grasp, appreciate,
Others miss or misinterpret:
Know it!
This rare member of the planet:
The illuminated poet!

The Illumined Poet 9.28.2018 Revelations Big & Small; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Don’t Copy Or, Have I Said This One Before?

I Keep Writing

I keep writing.
Keep communicating,
Keep commiserating,
Not berating
The who rule - are even cruel;
Mind a channel and canal
From higher drives than the banal.

No saintly motives certainly,
No angel, me.
Avoiding self-conceit, the counterfeit,
Just letting writing’s drive win out.
To float the boat of human spirit.
Concerned with benefiting it,
Its underflow.
And how do I, the author know?
Because when put aside, read afterward,
There is no pride, no sense of good.
Just there, a theme from sitting where
A page is sometimes sage
And kind, the writing shined to some perfection.

So, professing fun and love,
Carved from talents from above,
Conditioned like a kind of Pavlov,
I keep writing
To a public never seen
From a hidden, obscure wellspring,
Writing vows but  to the ‘now’
And no self-gloating holier-than-thou.

I Keep Writing 9.26.2018 The Processes: Creative; Thinking Meditative II; Arlene Nover Corwin

I woke this morning with this word somewhere in my brain. Looked it up and my brain did the rest.

"she saw youths tampering with her neighbour's car: interfere, monkey around, meddle, tinker, fiddle (about/around), fool about/around, play about/around, toy, trifle, dabble; do mischief to, doctor, alter, change, adjust, damage, do damage toLeading nowhere useful in particular.
harm, deface, vandalise, ruin; informal mess about/around; British informal muck about/around."

Tampering With✍️

Anything can inspire, for example, sitting in bed this morning.

Partners In Rhyme✍️

This is an interesting one.

I'm on a roll.  Same day, two poems:

             There Is No One Method

Finding Out About Yourself

Who am I?
Who are you?
It will be asked till time is through.
In fact, it may be
Life’s key issue we pursue;
Extro- intro-, odd man out;
A coverall for all the doubt.

Who are you, you the total real?
Finding out will skål the soul,
Give skill to soul,,
Transform the budding soul/you whole,
Give vision of capacities you’ d no idea,
Where life’s no more apologia.

It’s a game of Treasure Chest,
One where you must persevere:.
And in the end you are the measure of the treasure
And your best.

How, you ask, can little me be all in one:
Human, angel, paragon?  
In a nutshell, a nice person!
Remember too, it’s only ever you
Who knows exactly who you are,
All others are interpreters, projecters
Of who they are.
Far
From who you are at any moment.
So,
While you are there observing,
Being altered and improved
Finding out about yourself, you cannot waiver.
It’s a trip demanding courage
Into superannuated age,
Its pointers in the right direction never over.

Skål - Swedish: drink (to) the health of, drink to, salute, honour; archaic pledge.

Finding Out About Yourself 9.20.2018 Nature Of & In Reality; Revelations Big & Small;

Massaging Each Other

A kind reader called me ‘wise’. Who knows if one is wise or not? One has insights now and again. Sometimes judicious and far-sighted. One is never sure. One simply looks around, reflects, selects, words based on one’s own propensities and character. One is happy if one’s ideas stir the *** of good feeling, constructive feelings – some things positive in any case, in another.

Full OfLife’s Meaning

Health and meaning,
Productivity and goodness,
Each without the other
Pointless, empty, aimless.
Karma is as karma does,
Cause, effect, impact that follows
Following the karmic laws;
Chains of act and motivation:
Like a train into a station;
Moving on - you get my point.
Pointing in and at direction
New to view, ensue, continuing
Forever on.

For that reason goodness pays.
So does purity of heart.
These the simplest of start,
Richest at the end.
(and even in the middle,
though not looking like it then).

This, a facile little verse
Written post a cup of java.
Oversimplified, naive,
Written down with caffeine fervor,
Nonetheless sincere endeavour
To get at a truth received;
The intellect experiential,  never swayed
By morning  coffee’s  coaxing way.

And so it ends as it began:
Metaphysical, material and grand,
Taking effort to achieve,
You and I but motes
And sometimes idiots
Living disquietly in worlds of floods
And wars and riots.  

Just remember, life that’s full of
Health and meaning, creativity and goodness.
Each without the other pointless, empty, aimless.
Life itself, its energy
Was meant to be
That!
Full Of Life’s Meaning 9,17.2018 Nature Of & In Reality; Revelations Big & Small; God Book II; Arlene Nover Corwin

I'm becoming quite, quite addicted to sharing with all of you out there.  It's elating!  I thank you all for being there.
              Another Realization

After my poem “Ageing” I received the following comment.  One on which I hadn’t reckoned.  It inspired this answer and a new poem:

“Well, it is so true and depressing. I was reading this hoping that you wrote something positive at the end, bot not…I would really like you to conclude the poem with a POSITIVE end.  It’s my desperate request as I need it.”
T.

Dearest T—-
     The positive in it is this: If you soak yourself in every moment (which requires constant trying - for trying is training - focussing on every breath, every deed, your whole existence changes.  The point is to become ‘perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect’ while you’re still alive.  Then there comes an automatic joy and insight In other words, the whole chemistry changes.  Ageing doesn’t change, but you do!  And for the better.  
     We must talk about this!  But I’ll continue to send you my poetry for most is filled with hope and optimism.  Even fun and funny.

Soak Yourself In Every Moment Or, Trying Is Training

Keep cool inside yourself.  
Detachment is the key.
It’s not un-interest or indifference:
But an objectivity, Impartiality,
Ability to see
                    things as they really are;
Possibility in probability
And vice versa.

When you peel off the outer, see the inner,
The illusion of exclusion drops away,
Inclusion comes to stay
And you’re so much, shall we say,
Gladder, gay.*
(There was a time when gay meant light and full of glee;
Free of care, carefree:
A surely helpful way to be).
Keep cool and be life’s fool: flexib’ool’, adaptab’ool’,
Versatile and tool of circumstance.
Life can be a dance,
Full of significance,
Non-material,
And joyful.
Soak yourself with honesty
In every little point in time - and see.
Life’s often fun - and funny.

Trying Is Training 9.12.2018 A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Circling Round Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin

Ageing

Ageing is the strangest ****** phenomenon.
It’s sneaky, going ‘long
With universe’s basic law of change.
We hate it cause we cannot change the change
With choice, with voice in matters
Dealing with each atom looming over time.
You watch a documentary of a famous person you once loved.
What you see is change or interchange.
Voice now gravely, hairs now straggly,
Mind not gaga (maybe),
But the teeth, fat, skin itself deranged.
It’s all so strange.

Invisible the first half century,
(If you’ve been so lucky)
Then they come: the boom of bombs begun in womb.
The stealthy hum of failing health a-zooming in,
The forms of  everything you took for granted
Changed from light to odium
Enchanted idioms of youth now faint or quaint.
And the damnedest twist of all
Besides what’s going on outside,
Visible and tactile,
Is that life has lied.
You thought it stretched ahead forever,
That it never stopped
And then you’re bopped on your old head:
You’re dead.

One’s left to speculate and ponder
Where does life go on from here?
Where and if…

Ageing 9.11.2018 Birth, Death & In Between III; Nature Of & In Reality; Circling Round Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin

I’m often asked by readers whose native language is not English.  Here are a few words of which they might like to know the meaning:
odium;  general or widespread hatred or disgust incurred by someone as a result of their actions:
tactile;  of or connected with the sense of touch: vocal and visual signals
bop;  verb (bops, bopping, bopped) [with object] hit or punch quickly: Rex bopped him on the head

With all the nice little Likes I receive and possibly give, I must say something (I've said before):

I Like LIKES But Favor COMMENTS.

I like likes but favor comments.

On our minds more each day:
          Have I Come Too Late?

Ooh, I can be  brazen, sometimes...