Wrote this this morning after I'd seen a Swedish singing star interviewed with torn, torn jeans talking about how he came to be no longer nervous when performing.
Sing Your Song All Wrong As Long As It Feels Right

(a prose poem  - meter but no rhyme – well, a little)



I used to be invisibly controlled by rules,

Sometimes blamed on pressures peer:

Perhaps I am still, will be ever.

Rules inhibit, yea, dear reader,

Leading art and your behavior.

Double whammy*, inspiration, guide and model

When you would most like to feel

Creative, and spontaneous,

Well pleased, extemporaneous.



Subtle, so immensely, so intensely so;

Astonishing how much one swallows,

Soaking up, believing garbage as god’s truths

So hard to scrap;

All those rules coming from the praxis of the earthliest of mouths.



What is it sought beyond all else?

It’s freedom, spontaneity,

Belief that what you’re doing

Is its own confession, own possession;

Valid as the others

Always followed and believed the best.



Now I’m older.

Times have altered.

Folk appear on television with torn jeans.

Fashions once thought awful - trends.

In the end,

The young will always be impacted by

‘The others’ they think templates,

Patterns, blueprints, guides.

I have seen the light.

Sing your song all wrong as long as it feels right.



Sing Your Song All Wrong 4.21.2018 Vaguely About Music II; Our Times, Our Culture II; I Is Always You Is We; Definitely Didactic; Arlene Corwin

whammy |ˈ(h)wamē|

noun ( pl. -mies) informal

an event with a powerful and unpleasant effect; a blow : the third whammy was the degradation of the financial system. See also double whammy .

• an evil or unlucky influence : I've come to put the whammy on them.

ORIGIN 1940s: from the noun wham + -y 1 ; associated from the 1950s with the comic strip Li'l Abner, in which the hillbilly Evil-Eye Fleagle could “shoot a whammy” (put a curse on somebody) by pointing a finger with one eye open, and a [double whammy] with both eyes open.

Don't Eat Anything That Can Run Away From You


Do not eat a creature that can run away from you.

Is that too much a task to ask?

Chances are that if it can – if it can run,

And running’s not from simple fun,

It’s scared, has pain, a brain like yours.  It’s suffering.

So if it relays to legs four

To spring from harm and/or from killing,

My admonishment is this: be willing

To NOT eat this thinking, feeling, fleeing treat.

It is not mete to turn this flesh into a meal,

Make an object from a subject that can feel;

Act unmasks the cruel toxicity of villainry,

Defeats the heart of mercy,

Ergo,

Do not eat the thing that seeks to run away from you.

*I first heard George Osawa, the creator of macrobiotics say it in Chico, California 1963.

Don’t Eat Anything That Can Run Away From You 4.19.2018 Nature In & Of Reality; Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Corwin

Finding Your Rhythm

Your rhythm can have heat,

It can have speed.

Depending upon what you need

In the moment’s feat,

It’s very heartbeat.



Whatsoever gives you power,

Your bio-clock

May rock

That hour.



Power by the minutes is what counts.

It mounts by seconds as you play.

It plays,

And you should let it play

Since rhythm’s power never stays,

Permutating with each pulse.



Respect it, for it’s no one else -

The simplest sample of the minute’s you,

All you are and all you do,

Adapting, altering, amending,

Reconstructing and evolving

As you solve new pages,

Entering and leaving stages.



When I play or sing

Finding tempo’s rhythmic swing

Is key; door’s opening

To fundamentals: moving, sitting, cooking,  eating…

Finding beat the core and more.



At the bottom your rhythm

Lies a measure of your pleasure,

An intrinsic part of it;

Pleasure in the heart of it.

Finding Your Rhythm 3.28.2018 Vaguely About Music II; Circling Round Energy, Nature Of & In Reality; Arlene Corwin

I'm always trying to figure out why I go back time and again to writing poetry.  It's such a strange phenomenon.  Sometimes, like now, I'm allowed a glint.

      Poetry Is My Means

Poetry is my means:
To thinking out a thought;
To finding more about myself;
To analyzing good and bad:
To making tail or head
Of circumstance.



Poetry helps me define,
Refine,
Become a finer person,                
Binding my persona.



So many things I did not know
Of which I had not one iota
Of ability to see:
The ****, silly, plus the *****-nilly
Miracle of mind,
Its mysteries revealing hints
And hinting at the revelations
Which belong to geniuses
And saints:
Everything I ain’t.

In learning and forgiving            
Poetry is everything a giving gift
Can give.

Poetry Is My Means 4.15.2018 The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative III; Revelations Big & Small; Arlene Corwin

You Need Someone Who Believes In You✍️

I Love The Discipline…

I love the discipline of form and meters.
Crummy, yummy twitterings
To turn a base, base/superficial
Into something interstitially aesthetic, helpful.
What it is that gives this gift I’ll never know,
But there it is – a discipline addictive;
A dictation from below;
Not just adding to an increase in IQ,
Nor the storehouse of expressing,
Nor of word when crossword puzzling;
No, a serendipity with aspects heavenly.
A guzzling from an endless well of secret knowledge,
Sacred knowledge for the few.
But earthy too.  

Anyway, as we of poet’s tree like saying,
When you find an impulse that you can’t resist,
Don’t, you hear, anti-resist,
But kissed by It
Continue till the whole caboodle* springs your noodle
And the lights go out.

I Love The Discipline…4.13.2018 The Processes; Creative, Thinking, Meditative III, Arlene Corwin

*caboodle |kəˈboōdl| (also kaboodle)
noun (in phrase the whole caboodle or the whole kit and caboodle) informal
the whole number or quantity of people or things in question.
ORIGIN mid 19th cent. (originally U.S.): perhaps from the phrase kit and boodle, in the same sense (see kit 1 , boodle ).
noodle 2
noun informal
a stupid or silly person.
• a person's head.
New Oxford American Dictionary

Talking To My Brain

Brain, do the righteous thing today –
Health-wise, peace-wise,
Be wise and obey.
Be creative.  Be at peace.  
Make life easy.
Be a brick* -
Choose the moral and the ethic,
Thought spontaneous without cliché.
Make this day
A blend of deep and, let us say,
The funny,
Seeing humor, beauty and delight
In every action, every minute.
It’s not difficult for you – you’re clever,
Taking knowledge out of everything,
Making knowledge out of everything -
Memory dug in.
Brain, I’m talking to you.
Listen!

Talking To My Brain 4.12.2018 The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Arlene Corwin
*(English slang for ‘be a good fellow’’ or ‘be a good guy’.)

You Never Can Tell What Stage You’re At

You cannot tell what stage you’re at.
You simply cannot see it.
Oh, you can compare,
Sometimes aware of highs and lows,
The glows in others and yourself,
But deep inside, where knowledge grows
In secret, by accumulation – there
Where flaws are balanced out,
Leaps are made and hurdles cleared
Through secret routes, unknown
To even he who owns the lot -
There, where they’re first set and graded,
Met then faded out -
It’s there to which there’s no access
And it’s of little use to guess          
What’s going on, while what is going on goes on.  Oh yes,
You think you know yourself;
You see results and where you’ve failed or sailed through:
That’s you alright:  partial you;
A hidden, most potential you.
You never know your stage.
But if you’re very good and kind – a little sage,
You get a glimpse of things to come;
Hints that you’ve removed the ****;
A tiny slice no longer slum,
And just enough to keep you crowing,
The best is to keep on going,
Concentrating on a something
You don’t even know is there;
So elusive that you’d swear
It never was, except for books: saints,
Men and women: claimants –
Just like you – who won.

You Never Can Tell What Stage You’re At 3.23.1995/reworked 4.11.2018 Definitely Didactic;  Arlene Corwin


.

Written this morning, I had an inkling that the title sounded familiar, so I looked it up (bless the computer) and lo! there is was - a poem, not at all the same, written in 1998, twenty years ago, even published under the misprinted title Pushed Around by Fat.  Anyway, here they are:  Pushed Around By Fate#1 &
#2.
      Pushed Around By Fate #2

I'm editing my next book "Definitely Didactic"  and in coming across this one, I decided - this must go out long before the book. Listening to and about other's woes,  I just fell in love with it.

        You Never Know The Clout You Have



You never know the clout you have,

Clout a blow or target;

Most of all effect or power

You exert by being you.



Take care! Be careful, scared! Be wary!

Everything you say, you do -

Each word, each vow, an influence.

In circumstance an ambience

You pray will be benevolent.



You, you, you in all you do;

And you have impact.

Make a pact with mental you

To be a kind and gentle you,

Giving out rewarding vibes,

Enriching, beneficial, fruitful.

You, yourself a scribe imbibing

Influences from abroad,

From world untoward – in discord!



Take some in and turn them ‘round.

You abound in power.

You can be man* of the hour

Just by being who you are.

You can be the lucky star

Of every person you encounter.

So remember!

You ne’er know the clout you have

To save what ever may occur.

* of course woman too!

You Never Know The Clout You Have 4.29.2017 Definitely Didactic; Coffee Book II; Arlene Corwin

My Killing Machine #2

A Career From Bed

It’s luxury.
To lie in bed, thinking thoughts;
Pillowed head, notepad and whatnots;
Lifting laptop at my side
(my writing bride –
or husband, as the case may be)
And write my poetry.

Uncomplicated, ‘easy peasy’
(English jargon) child’s play
To type some fragments,
Work them through,
Sending them away
To you.

In come the comments.
Not a penny changes hands.
No long-term contracts –
Only contacts,
“Like you”come-backs
Unseen as a daytime star:
With sweet, smart followers galore.

This passive bed of roses
Lap of splendor and much more…
Career from bed
Conducted solely from my head,
Solely in unsaid creation.
What in heavens could be bed-der?
(Sorry for the awful pun;
An un-withstandable temptation).

A Career From Bed 4.4.2018 A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Arlene Corwin

Knocking On The Doorway Of Eternity

I’m a mystic out and out.
I never shout it out,
But I’m a little ‘high’ right now
(the morning coffee works – and how!)
Simple prayers, requests and hope,
A little child-like – a puppy.
Yet coming by small feedbacks in small ways;
Minutes, hours or days -
It can’t be just coincidence.
It could be basic innocence.
In any case,
Face flushed with happiness -
Muted or giggly.
No great gesture,
Just a cherished jest
‘Tween the divine and me.
A mystic always knocking on the entrance
To eternity.

Knocking On The Doorway To Eternity 4.2.2018 To The Child Mystic II; Arlene Corwin

The Poet

The poet is a thinker:
He has to be.
The poet doesn’t only think:
He is a visionary.
He takes us from the lower to the daily,
To the higher daily quality;
A vision of reality:
The underlying daily.

He makes us see us all
In feelings large and small.
He is important in the sorting out
The whole assortment of our sentiments.

He steeps us in the deep
Without our knowing,
Showing us through images and pretty rhyme,
Rhythms in and out of time.

Showering the reader
In the afterglow of beauty
It is his duty
To be leader to a higher self:
That is the poet in a nutshell.

The Poet 4.2.2018The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative; Arlene Corwin

Sitting in the bath once again, small blue pad in hand, bit of plastic as support, I write this poem.   Albert Cat demands a bit of attention and pad slides into the water.  I grab a bit of toilet paper to blot it.  That makes it worse.  So, blurred and vague, I reconstruct it, using magnifying glasses (2!) while watching the evening news.  Here it is:
             I Like Facebook

I like Facebook. I don’t know exactly why.

I like looking at the pictures,

Friends I’d never meet another way.

I like friendly messages,

Passages of verse I’d never read

If not for Facebook’s lead.

I like Likes and Comments kind,

Find in comments rich expressions.

Possibly I’m one of few - or few new millions.

I’m inspired when tired, fired up.

Even when I’ve written ‘crap’

No one’s there to trap me.

Some reviewer always sees my views,

Understands.

Someone always sends

Me praise; ends with a Like.

I’ve never had a spikey word;

Cordiality is all I’ve ever read or heard.

Commonality forever somewhere, there

Where someone wants to start a group.

Always somebody to whoop de whoop:

Somewhere folk who populate;

A troupe with common passions.

Then there are the monthly Happys:

Happy Birthdays, Christmases and Easters…

Never had one word rescinded.

Reminded gently daily:

Classmates, playmates

I’d forgotten, dovetailed,

Blazoned on the psyche;

Friends and places,

And of course, the faces -

It is Facebook, after all; the key, the glee,

A source of history.

As for weaknesses I’ve read about –

Never think to route them out,

Going ‘bout my business,

Focused on creativeness,

The lofty and the small.

I like Facebook.

Happy Facebook to you all!

I Like Facebook 3.31.2018 Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Corwin

Can It Be?

Can it be that we
No longer have to worry,
Be concerned about IQ and such,
It not much longer meaning much
When something’s to be learned?

Can it be we do not need those centers
To adapt and enter
Higher states,
Taking in non-useful crates
Of knowledge and/or information.

Wouldn’t that be lovely…
Days that don’t demand the shove
Of knowledge from an app
To make you happy?

Synapse, axon, neuron:
Hordes of intricate connections
Just to reach a level new;
Some new standard, some new status
You consider you.

Well, it seems that they’ve discovered
What you probably knew all the time:
You only need a darned few dendrites,
Through the days and nights
Of facts and figures all around;
Surrounding signals chemical/electric
To slow down the darned runaround.

Can it be that life that thrives
Is simpler than our brains surmise
From all the data thrown at us?

Maybe just a little meditation
And the silencing of motion
In the ocean of illusion
And the feeding of a news that’s false -
What we’re really needing,  
The concoction and the potion
Has been right before our noses
All the time.

Can It Be? 3.29.2018 Our Times, Our Culture II;  Revelations Big & Small; Arlene Corwin

Finding Your Rhythm

Your rhythm can have heat,
It can have speed.
Depending upon what you need
In the moment’s feat,
It’s very heartbeat.

Whatsoever gives you power,
Your bio-clock
May rock
That hour.

Power by the minutes is what counts.
It mounts by seconds as you play.
It plays,
And you should let it play
Since rhythm’s power never stays,
Permutating with each pulse.

Respect it, for it’s no one else -
The simplest sample of the minute’s you,
All you are and all you do,
Adapting, altering, amending,
Reconstructing and evolving
As you solve new pages,
Entering and leaving stages.

When I play or sing
Finding tempo’s rhythmic swing
Is key; door’s opening
To fundamentals: moving, sitting, cooking,  eating…
Finding beat the core and more.

At the bottom your rhythm
Lies a measure of your pleasure,
An intrinsic part of it;
Pleasure in the heart of it.

Finding Your Rhythm 3.28.2018 Vaguely About Music II; Circling Round Energy, Nature Of & In Reality; Arlene Corwin

I Am Guilty Of All My Failures

I take the blame for all I’ve done;
Own up to all those failures mine;
Failures from:
Naivetể and laziness,
Unworldliness
An focus-less

Yet I’ve managed to fulfill
Some crude achievements,
Accomplishing on intuition:
Not a bad guide, nor a good one.
All sits in the readiness;
Instinct in the readiness,
Prowess in the readiness.

Even if there’d been instruction
I’d have had to wait it out
Until my twenties – eight or seven
When the background synthesized
Into a foreground wise.

Inborn, unshorn weaknesses
That held one back,
In untold ways,

I could say, “***** it!”
Or complete the work
To fight off other frailties;
Develop and maintain
A lively strain
Of concentrative energies,
So that my foibles will be few-er.
Mea culpa!  Mea culpa!
I say, “Do it!”

I Am Guilty Of All My Failures 3.27.2018 Circling Round Egos; Circling Round Energies; I Is Always You Is We;

Bad Thoughts

Bad thoughts in youth:
Energy, gifts given, offered,
Why we suffered…
We knew nothing.
It just was.
‘…wasted on the young’, said Shaw.
This truth endures:
Energies were boundless.
Such a plus and it was us.
But minuses with M, big M,
They were the dross,
The rubbishy behavior of those days
When we paid no mind to the affluence,
All assets.
We were young, un-formed.
But now, formed, social-normed,
What have we for excuse?
Those days diffuse,
We leave those days all honeycombed.
Now we know.
Bad thoughts have nil excuse;
Crave discipline to loosen.
Self-destructive in their essence,
Nuisance to the mind.
Trust this writer: make you blind.
Know thyself, said Socrates.
The phrase that follows - obvious.
Be kind!
You cannot lose.

Bad Thoughts 3.20.2018 I Is Always You Is We, Circling Round Egos; Circling Round Energy; Arlene Corwin

I was thinking about human essence and this came out.

I've re-written it.  When i read it over this evening I hated it.  The sequences needed adjusting, the whole thing made more sense of.  it was too abstruse, downright vague the way it stood.  Crap.  Here it is:  I hope it's better, clearer, stronger.

       Vanity Or What?  Or Not?

Will they miss me when I’m gone?

Would they miss me if I went?

Is the Facebook thing, this Instagram,

Snapchat, this and Snapchat that  -

Is only just to reassure, insure and all the -sures

An immortality that’s hardly possible

With such as these?

A question and a statement.



If you should land upon an isle,

No phone, no clothing, just a smile,

Who’d care that you’re not there or where?

The ego takes a jolt when true result is that

A lively world’s been going on

In the short while you’ve been isle borne.



When you take up, upon waking,

Cell phone, laptop out and working,

Think about your motive deep, some path new chosen.

Leap into the seasons, steeping self in new horizons.

Public profiles pass from sight, from mind, from heart

Once they depart.



Querying the motives that define,

I’m off to take out, open mine,

The whole controlling

‘Spite the knowing.

Vanity or not?


Vanity Or What?  Or Not? 3.18.2018 Circling Round Vanities II; Circling Round Egos; A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Arlene Corwin

As I wrote to a reader this morning, "I'm an R&M person, a rhyme and meter person (on which I work hard)" Content, form - they go together. This morning's work: which may need working on sometime in the future, natch'

        Vanity Or What? Or Not?✍️

On seeing the Hawkin news some hours ago: Be the first to read/react to my reaction.  Not about jazz, not about yoga, but about recognition.


         Outside Time: Hawkin March 14, 2018

No obit this,

But chance to memorize, memorialize,

Tattoo the size of genius,

How it comes to earth in time

Then goes god-only-knows how/where –

Knowing only: not ****** here.

Yet ‘there’, by definition place,

Perhaps is space;

Maybe a ‘where somewhere’ in space -

A guess both uniformed and obvious.



Mister Hawkin, master Hawkin

Freed from chair and ALS,

Cells and intellect’s fine processes;

Mammoth efforts of all kinds

To feed the body,

Read the mind(s)

Of universes.



To record this day inordinately mixed

With sadness, pride, heroics -

That a man second to none

Has been an Einstein all his own;

Whose works we’ll clone (to yet go farther)

For ‘by works you shall be known.’’

God blessed the non-believer Hawkin.

Outside Time 3.14.2018 The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Revelations Big & Small; Nature Of & In Reality; Circling Round Reality; Arlene Corwin

Lying In Bed In Truth

I lie in bed.
I look down at this body.
Mine.
Not very interesting.
I wish to feel the single this.
Aloneness.
Thingness.
Separated and detached,
No past which wants to show itself;
Just now.
Alone but not a lonely I,
For as a Buber labeled it,
An I and Thou,
All others also I and Thou
Surrounding and surrounded by…
Monads all.
Single souls.
Working on and out the hole
And whole of this existence.
Fingers typing,
Eyes a-skyping
Mind hard to describe
Where is it?
What’s it doing?
All and nothing.  
What’s it want?
A knowing all integrally,
Organically,
Unseparate yet separated.
This is mysticism underrated
In a nutshell.

Lying In Bed In Truth 3.12.2018 Nature of & In Reality; Circling Round Reality; To The Child Mystic II; Arlene Corwin

True confessions: When I’m High

You all know how one just loves one's morning cup of coffee!  

When I’m high,
And morning cuppa’s done the trick,
Slow-ish thyroid smart and quickened,
Then I start;
Choices clear, mind too,
Arms, legs, body knowing
What to do
And even how to do it.
‘High’ sounds utterly,
So totally, so wholly, awfully
So negative.
(Forgive the ‘so’ dear reader, dear.
Its hyperbolic overkill so clearly
The result of coffee).

Back to diplomatic understatement:
When I’m high and un-befuddled,
Elevated in an un-bemuddled way,
In optimal condition where
I share in
Energies that pick and choose
So’s not to lose a time so prime.

And yet, the wonder is,
The mind, which picks and clicks,
Multi-tasking, seeding shortcuts,
Riotous new recipes,
Old elements, new mergers.
Even quiet-less, no-fuss ideas
From made-up phrases that proliferate.
Remembering,  selecting, nominating:
High’s amazing!
And it only takes a cup of coffee to a-raise it.
Thus I praise it!

In conclusion:
If there’s been collusion between you and me,
And on some level you agree
I’ve reached the goal of vers-itry,
And these one hundred ninety
Really odd, God given words were worth it,
Then it’s worth, been worth the birth pains and the plod.

True Confessions: When I’m High 3.12.2018 A Sense of The Ridiculous II; Coffee Book II; Arlene Corwin

I never remember what poetry I've put on Facebook, AllPoetry,  or even on my own site, Arlene Corwin Poetry.  And I'm much too lazy to check.  (I suspect that that's the danger when one writes everyday)  If you've read this before well, read it again.

It just is what it is.  The fact that Sweden's smuggled weapon rate has skyrocketed since the Malmö-Denmark bridge was built - as has the crime rate.  A good example of the dark side of the moon.
The dark side of the bright side.

When You’re Alone

When you’re alone more than half of each day,
Can you make sure that it doesn’t decay?
I suppose
You could wash out the hosiery,
Dust, vacuum, chat on the phone,
Watch the tube
(Feeling much like a ****) -
I know lots who do that.
You could scrub walls and floors,
Pots and pans…
My own day has its plans
Which it forms from its hub,
Is its nub:
A lie in the tub,
A walk to the post;
Whatever shows up
Ends in verse anyway,
Which lipsticks the day
As it coiffures the gray
Of aloneness.

Original:

When you’re alone more than half of each day,
How can you see that it doesn’t decay?
I guess and suppose
You could wash out the hosiery,
Dust, vacuum, chat
On the phone, watch the tube.
I know others who scrub
Out the pots and the pans.
My day has its plans                                                    
Which it forms from the mail
And whatever shows up.
It all ends in verse ;
Some is good, some is worse.
But it feels jolly good
And it sure lifts the curse
Of aloneness.

    When You’re Alone1.28.2000 The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative; 1&2 (revisited, re-formed 3.6.2018)Arlene Corwin

I write everyday. This daily practice leads more and more to ignoring the past. Here is a poem - as newsworthy as ever, from one of my books published 2012 called Our Times, Our Culture which I happened to be going through this evening:
It's page 162 of a 302 page book; was written in 1996.

How Many People Would You Have To Change To Change The World?

How many people would you have to change
To change the world?  
The other day the man I love,  
One who has faith in God above.
Declared the impotence of man.
Insisted phrase by rehashed phrase:
“This world has never been so bad.
It’s getting worse and worse and worse!”
He feels so helpless. What a curse!
Has no belief in his own richness;
Can’t understand the reach
Of butterfly’s effect: the flap
Of wings in Florida
With vibes that stretch to Africa.

How does it work?

You find the thing you’re born to do.
You do it hour by hour by hour.
Work through the furor,
Take your power,
Use it, focused on the now.

There’s nothing more.

That small series called your life
Is quite enough to end all strife.
Not instantly, not right away -
For life takes time.
But yours is prime:
A mix of self-esteem
Humility and bravery,
Seeing life reflectively
With love and strength
The length of days.

How many people would you have to change
To change things?
Think of wings!

How Many People Would You have To Change To Change The World? 3.2.2018 Our Times, Our Culture II;

Coming Down To Earth

If you’re famous,
There will always be a someone
Who has never heard or seen a picture
Of the likes of you;
Not seen your picture,
Doesn’t have the least idea
Who, what you are
Or what you stand for.

Doesn’t that scoot little you right down
To terra firma?
Started this in two fourteen.
Found it on a teeny hidden-somewhere-scrap.
It’s two eighteen: I feel the same as.
(rhymes with famous – see line 1)
Poet’s freedom once again,’’’
I can’t resist.
Might have been comedienne,
But then,
It’s not my calling.)

Anyway,
It does become one
(rhymes with someone -see line 2)
To come down to planet earth
And stick to anonymity.

Do your job,
Stick to your your day.
Things are working out your way
Without you knowing
What they’re doing.
Let the winds of fate and karma
Make the lack of show your army.

Coming Down To Earth 3.1.2018 Circling Round Reality; Definitely Didactic: Arlene Corwin

Just wrote this:  You know how these little revelation-***-thought-***-wish-hope...come.
    Let Me See [Y]our Plans Completed

I used to pray each morning,
God, please plan my day.”
Now, it’s morn,
And I’ve matured (it seems) since then.
What occurred to me as root,
Not You, non-absolute,
An Ignorance of what comes next,
But - as I do - surmising that it all began,
Was planned at the beginning, and
That all occurs in Law determining
A chain of cause/effect the thing -
Then cause original must bring,
Determined from the very start,
An end, an end to each event,
To each and every incident.

There is no fluke, no bit of luck,
No happenstance, no accidents;
All provide-nce.
Therefore I pray, to start the day
And just to get my head on straight.
(Already planned and known beforehand).

So I say, for my head’s sake,
“Let me see our plans completed”
Though I know it’s all been planned,
One might say programmed
From the start:
The very start,
Of which I am a nano- part.

Let Me See Your Plans Completed 3.3.2018 God Book II; To The Child Mystic II; Circling Round Reality; Arlene Corwin

Your Calling

I was talking with my husband about
What a blessing and how pivotal
It is to hit upon or feel the urge
Toward some profession,
Way of life or some vocation;
Trade or craft that calls you:
Which is why they call it calling.

Some pull which you can’t resist,
Insisting, splurging all it has,
That spurs you on,
A something giving you a kiss,
Summoning and intervening
(But which doesn’t always happen,
There not being any app
To lead the way).

Some just ‘have it’,
Never entering their heads to
Chase or fall into another path.
Lucky they who craft or hath
The gift or talent and good luck
To never buck the system,
Or its converse, follow hollowly
Right into mediocrity,
Stuck on levels never-growing,
Always burrowing and furrowing
The earth, the brow
Never to get somewhere no how.

Say a prayer if you’re not there yet.
Find your groove and move to bare it.
Sleepily or creepingly, but ardently in heart and mind
Till you find the calling key;
Use it in tranquility and fervor -
They go hand in hand, auguring well -
Passion can be quiet too.
You deserve a calling.
Serve the calling coming to you.

Your Calling 2.27.2018 I Is Always You Is We; Revelations Big & Small; Definitely Didactic; Arlene Corwin

As I Meditate…

As I meditate upon the general idea of peace,
Wash my brain with waves of …waves
I see an impact and increase
In the days that follow; expertise                                        
Unexplainable inside these
Small, small, small effects.
Nicer, kinder jets of thought;
Generous, inclusive this:
Embracing (the flip side of scorning or dismissing)
Giving ‘thumbs up’ easily.
I
Even feel my IQ up.
Recall dropped into my lap;
The bank behind them all
Accessi-ball,
(a jokey bit of poet freedom)

Patterns and impressions sharper.
Harping on the small things lesser.
Plus,
My mind turns bad to good.
(As I’ve always hoped it would.)
All opportunity!
I never understood
This peace idea.
Not worldly grounded, power founded; sheer
Self caused and self achieved.
Every pause a chance to sieve
The good from bad, the stuff that had
A weakening effect on me.
Since I is always you is we,
All university,
I simply send this little notion;
Hoping it brings oceans
Of the positivity
It’s giving me.

As I Meditate 2.26.2018 The Processes; Creativity, Thinking, Meditative II; Revelations Big & Small; ArleneCorwin

Just editing my next book "Definitely Didactic" and thought I'd share this.

   Days Of Distraction: The List

What can they be?
They seem to go on endlessly.
Helping out a friend in need;
Finding ways to heed the need(s)
Of several needy friends in need.
Ignoring things that might be done,
Might be some fun
And useful monetarily.
Ignoring requisites of I, myself and me.
Structure: that’s one key.
Thinking practically; harmony.
Priority to me, myself and I.

Life is simple.
Roof, warmth, food -
Summed up sample of the simple,
Which gives ample time
To carry out the other,
'Other' meaning tools which further
Happiness and satisfaction.

Paying bills and buying,
Days of duty and temptation;
Stress and tension:
‘Stressed out’ grown to idiom.

What to do about this ‘dream’,
For dream it is.
This is a list and not a scheme;
Not a plan nor stratagem.
Read and think, find out!
The answer lies in nought but thee.
(That’s you and me).
You’ll see
               what works.

Days Of Distraction 10.21.2017 Definitely Didactic; I Is Always You Is Me; Arlene Corwin
Chatted with my 'English rose' of a daughter (raised in Oxford, England now residing in Oregon, USA.) who complained of distractions which keep her from other, perhaps more practical or and/or rewarding things.  It inspired these little reflections.
It will go into my collections: Definitely Didactic and I Is Always We Is You.  By the way, my 16th book Birth, Death & In Between II went into publication today!

Every 4 years I post this, hoping that the message, although lighthearted, will come forth.

             The Doped Olympics

Why don’t they simply create a new branch
And call it the Doped Olympics?
By the laws of semantics
It soon would come into the language, legitimized:
Youth forgets past.
Soon the word would have lost its original shame,
While the name of the game
Would be guilt-free and blame-free,
And those who would qualify
Could have drug deliverance, muscles defined, bodies divine.
If they dropped dead at forty
At least they’d have entertained millions,
Fulfilled their ambitions,
Made lots of folk rich
And set records untold.
Let those few or many spend hours in training;
Let chemists develop concoctions so new
That the pole-vaulter flies,
The sprinter’s a jaguar,
The shot put is sent into orbits of space,
The long jumper jumps twenty meters
While men become fierce
And the women grow beards,
Which gives all of the chemists new projects to work on.
A yes to the ***** Doped Games.

The Doped Olympics12.2. 2004 revised 1.27.2016re-revised 7.25.2016  Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Corwin

I Don’t Write Nature Poems

I don’t write nature poems.
My husband is the nature guy,
While I, I sit around
Bound by philosophies and wond’rings why.
However, last night, ten or so fifteen
The crescent moon
Outside my window
Turned from white to orange.
No mirage, I, on the edge of sleep
Sat up amazed,
The deepest part of this un-phased, rather blasé Arlene
In bliss.
How does one explain it, share it, do it justice?
How does one make clear magnificence?

Orange caused a drunken binge
Whose hangover
I had to share
With you, dear reader, reader dear.

Stuff To Talk About

Either I’ve a lot to say, or I convey
The selfsame things in lots of ways.
If the latter –
Ten degrees above ch-chatter,
It’s my nature.
As a watcher and a searcher,
It’s a feature picture:
Fixture of that nature
In a structure something that I’ve got to…

Here is what I’ve got to say:
In the long run books are syllables in print.
Remember the Old Testament:
Apples, snakes, man, woman, knowledge.
In the short run, they’re terrific – [books]
[an] aid and shorter route through college.

That said, it’s projection all the way,
A basic you which never brooks stupidity,
Though fixed, and fix a thing,
But give it meaning:
Means and leanings leading to, letting you…
A simple but-not-easy-principle
Where there is circumstance and fate,
Chance, cause, luck and upshot.
Notice I don’t mention choice.
We choose and voice, but inside lies
Our nature – always you who’s you.

Is character your nature?
Is nature you identity?
The answer’s tricky
And you definitely have to try…
You have to definitely try.

Stuff To Talk About 9.22.2014 Definitely Didactic; Arlene Corwin

Truth Will Out

If you’ve got a thing to say
A real thing, the words will play
Through synapses old/new,
The new unused, creating unconditionally unsaid
Phrases you alone invent unaided.

If you’ve something pregnant there
Inside the cerebellum,
You’ll be inclined to share
And tell ‘em.
Truth will out
Not shouted, but with clout
Deliberately aimed or not.

Then we come to something there
Called instinct’s intuition
To transport you far and near - everywhere
You need to go
To every place you need to know.

You must, gosh **** it, trust it!

Because all truths
Are there in places ‘neath the scalp
Beneath your hair, sculpted by the roots of roots,
By nerves that serve you night and day
Which tell you things that may,
Have what we call, the truth.
(Not every thought’s idea is true
Though it’s all you.)
A tricky thing this ‘God hath wrought’
Just always call to mind this thought:
Truth will always, in the end, want out.

Truth Will Out 2.20.2018 Circling Round Reality, Nature Of & In Reality; Revelations Big & Small; Arlene Corwin

It’s All Yoga
    (Simple but not easy)

I don’t think people understand.
It being trend and only trend
They don’t exactly know
What they are doing.
Some think yoga is for beauty.
Some think flexibility.
Some think health of body,
Possibly tranquility.
The list goes on, with vanity foremost.
Yoga has an aim or two or three or four.
Surely, there is more to understand than four, for
Yoga aims at understanding
On a level corresponding to the tangible,
Intangible, (what we call spiritual)
Which means total, total, total, ALL!
Yoga  is a vehicle
For every single thing you do in mind and torso
To amplify the total you.
SO,
Focus on your fingers when you touch, grab, push.
Focus on toesies when you lie in bed.
Focus on the brain parts in your you-know, head
When quiet, worried, hurried, rushed,
Anxious, peaceful, doubtful,  ‘fraid:
The list goes on and on.

Focus, focus, focus find.
Nowadays they call it mindfulness
Or meditation.
It has always been.

Since everything you do contains
A means to find the who you are,
Defining what you’re headed for,
Ought to go and ought to know.
The principle
Is oh so simple -
But not easy.
Don’t be queasy about living.
It’s all take and it’s all giving.
Make the most of it.
Toast to it.
Make a yoga of this tool kit.

It’s All Yoga 2.11.2018 Circling Round Yoga II; Circling Round Reality; Nature Of & In Reality; Arlene Corwin

It's wonderful how a cup of  morning coffee can wake the inspired and inspiring part of the brain.

       A Question To Be Thought About


Brooded over and annoyed

To not be read

Before one’s dead

Is justifiable.


Poor guy, Van Gogh,

And other names we’ll never know

And God knows how

****** many artists of all sorts

Went to eternity, their arts

Unknown, unseen, unsold

Is undeniable,


This sad, sad, fact

Which begs the question:

What is it one’s aiming at

When writing, or composing that sonata?

To be reflected and accepted, for

It may be my, your

Very

Destiny.



Many say

It is the journey.



A Question To Be Thought About 2.18.2018 Circling Round Reality; Arlene Corwin

You Have A Plan

You have a plan.
You’ve had it since the start of man.
You never pause, it being plan nobody knows.
You work through laws
Consisting of effect and cause.
And so, before I go
I transfer all my hopes to You.
Before the final bye, byes
I would like to know some certainties.
To understand the rest:
The key to and what is
The highest.
Or, life is a meaninglessness.
Instinct longs for happiness.
Even ignoramuses intuitively reach for this.
So in pursuit of bliss’ nearest,
I report to daddy dearest
Universes far from me,
Yet deep inside implicitly.

A force for good,
A force that make things all they should,
A some non-thing as source of all
Behind, in front and in the ball.

There is a plan
That was before the start of man,
And’s going on right now as you
And me
And all of mankind’s destiny.

You Have A Plan 2.14.2018 God Book II; Nature of & In Reality; Circling Round Reality;

Writing In The Middle Of The Night

There’s something nice about the facelessness
Of  Internet,
The anonymity you get
Despite the photos and the instant thing
You hope will ring the bell
Of those around the global ball.
A kind of secret.
You needn’t tell your thoughts,
Spell correctly,
Use our mouth, make a sound -
Just sit there typing while the world goes round.
North, south, east, west,
You’ve got all the time to test your creativity.
Believe me, it’s the best invention
Since sliced bread, the paper clip,
The toilet roll, words ‘hip’ and ‘soul’.

For people who want name and fame
It is a trip to paradise.
The price   is shekels.
What the heck, it’s only money!
And for people whose agenda is pure vanity,
A dream (both fantasy and joy).

In any case, if I may say it once again,
There’s something I appreciate
About the gate that’s opened
Through the faceless anonymity,
Potential creativity and artistry
Implicit
In the Internet.
Writing In The Middle Of The Night 2.9.2018The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative; Arlene Corwin

To select and understanding friends, with love and empathy.

    The Thinning Skin Or, I Never Stopped To Think


I never stopped to think,

The skin gets thin.

Then looking down, I saw my leg,

And there it was: the winter

Of my life in action: reneging,

Processing past youth - and losing.

Not amusing!

Definitely not!

Fragility, a new reality;

Oils, creams and salves to save

A youth no longer tangible.

Every syllable wail of decline.

Not fine,

Definitively not, not fine!

And yet, I saw the possi-probablity

That by design God is benign,

And if the wine goes sour

Some divine sweet guarantee

Will make it fine -

Despite the programmed skin of youth’s denial.

The Thinning Skin Or, I Never Stopped To Think; 2.5.2018 Circling Round Aging; Circling Round Wrinkles; Birth, Death & In Between III;

Sitting up in bed on a Sunday morning editing, re-writing, refining. A bit long but worth it in the reading - thinks I!

        Coffee (A Conflict Of Values)
Catering to a certain need for stimulation,
Even relaxation and the psychic high,
Coffee bean in cool, dark tin,
Fragrance and the oil in
The box or jar or bag’s supply
Of pleasure ought to make the drinker
Think a little about why
The bitter sweet is such a stinker,
In whose absence droops the mood
The energy, the good;
Whose undemanding look
In cafeteria or china cup and just a slurp
Creates the nervous, wrecked and hooked.
Symbol of that quiet urge
For pleasant conversation’s purge,
To say this has a feeble ring,
Insistent urge to reach a high, high as the sky
From just a thing
(to say this has a feeble ring),
Well, surely pleasure comes from means
Far less addictive than caffeine’s
Delicious smell and taste,
Java’s clutch (was Java Dutch?)
Conversation’s time-filled waste;
That needs no brew,
Nor company of two.
But then, an energy from what?
Oh dear, the will is weak
When pleasure lies within the cheek and coffee ***,
And one has never learned the art
Of keeping silence in the heart.
Bitter devil, wreaking havoc like a weevil
On plantations of the body.
To steal upon the cells by stealth,
Speed the heart, adrenals, pulse,
God knows what else;
Claiming vitamins and health –
And still the perils lie elsewhere,
Where habits have their hidden lair,
Vice/virtue, meet excess;
Battling for their piece of peace,
Posing as a social duty,
Threatening in bitter beauty.
Dear, oh dear, I fear that life (it’s clear)
with coffee’s here to stay,
My own cup one small hour away.
From Macbeth: the coffee oath:
Stir the sugar, stir the milk,
Make the coffee smooth as silk,
Help the migraine, the depression;
Be benign in our transgression.
Tranquilizing our confusion
Make gregarious the nation.
Cof-free or cof- fiend?
Or just plain coff… and what you make it be?
Coffee (A Conflict of☕Values) 4.21.1999/ 1.8.2011/2.4.2018Coffee Book II; Definitely Didactic;Arlene Corwin

A Dangerous Place

Not new; the world
A risky place:
Too many schools of thought;
Their base defective.
Schools, which in themselves are seeking
Thought that knows thought’s ever-rules.

Kipling’s twain which never meet;
Krishna’s castes all separate;
Towers fall on Babel Street.
Not new.

Impossibility out there:
Worlds of danger everywhere;
Dangers that we can’t escape
Except by staying put
Content with parsnips.

A Dangerous Place 5.9.2004 Our Times, Our Culture; Birth, Death & In Between; Arlene Corwin
          A Dangerous Place #2

Two thousand four come/gone.
Two eighteen still anonymous.
Am I apocalyptic?  
World the warmest since…forever.
Messiurs Putin, Trump and every nuclear dictator,
Arsenals as big as ever.

What we were afraid of then
Is now in multiples.
Viruses that won’t give up,
Fighting each development.
Small to middling large eruptions
Under, over, on the surface.
Coverings and dryings up;
Methane gas, folk that pass
Leaving matches in the grass;
Flarings unintentional.
My old bones susceptible
To substances and circumstance they never knew.
Nature duping us.
Boo hoo? Or ballyhoo?
Is there something new awaiting?
Something generating happiness,
Content with standing-stillness? Wellness?
Who can tell,
Things being as they are:
Not fine, with every sign
An indication
That we’re going in the wrong direction.  
Sorry!

A Dangerous Place #2 2.1.2018 Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Corwin

It Rules The Planet

It rules the planet, schools the planet,
Still we don’t take seriously
Storm and earthquake, flood and rain,
Temperature and ocean size,
Human death and insect death,
Animal and fauna death,
Heat waves, all the waves,
Attempting step by step
To step on it,
Then conquer it.
How idiotic!  
Wars continue.

Thinking that the cyclones, floods,
The sweep of muds, the slides and thuds.
Containers, trucks,
The heaviest of objects turned,
And then the fires, people burned
And buried
Under forces too complex to list.
Category that and this,
Numbers measuring the forces.
Cars on roofs, numberless losses;
Categories three, four, five,
Searches for the people live, the few survived.
And still the wars.

Unpredictable the changes.
Some think they have a wealth of time.
Changes in intensity, they stick around through lava lime;
Stubbornly they stay and die.
Some say we’ve learned a lesson.
Experts say it will get worse.
It the curse of global warmings.
Non-believers like D. Trump play golf through stormings.
There will be repeated more to come.
Volcanic heat that lies below,
And some don’t seem to care or know,
Which (that) alone can blow the flow
As wars and hate
Accumulate.

It rules the planet.
Still we do not seriously
Change our path.

* 1.23.2018 Horrifying coincidence; day after this is written there is a 7.9 earthquake in the Alaskan Gulf.

It Rules The Planet 1.22.2018 Circling Round Nature II; Our Times Our Culture II; War Book II; Arlene Corwin

Pain Of Place

We were happy or we weren’t.
Blended feelings formed the most;
College, restaurant, bookshop, church,
Street, park, architecture host
To chunks and bits of searching,
Forming eyes of yesterday.
Covered market, cups of tea,
Open market on a Wednesday,
Stalls of veggies, jewelry;
Child to school and child picked up,
The walking to, the walking back,
The elder tree we plucked, hands cupped,
While counted blocks betrayed a lack
Of some fulfillment.  What the target?
Surely not the streets and market.
Not the people either, nor
The daily passing through home’s door.
Gone.  But pictures still remain.
And with the pictures tints of pain.
Of place that’s not the face,
Not company.
The place acts independently,
Its energy “the spirit of…”
Its colors move.
Algos: pain.
Nostos: going home again.
Sweet nostalgia’s pull is ‘bull’.
Place may frame the pre-ordained;
Memory’s the game pre-pained.
Twists and lists: a dream.
Place and act, smell and sound:
Mind boundaries.
Mostly, we were happy or we weren’t.

There Is A YOU That’s Only You

There is a You that’s only you
And no one else:
The meditative point’s dynamic
Force that stimulates all progress;
Within the system You or process.
You the core, nub, bottom line:
You without a fine distinction.
There is a Cause that’s cause
And nothing, nowhere else.
For some an easy goal,
Even a means of solid gold.
The point of points is to unite
The You that’s only you with Cause,
Invisible, one might
Proclaim invincible.
So let us start with you, your tool:
Arms, legs, trunk, head
Inside of which the trillion cells
(More than the stars, the galaxy’s as well)
Which make up I and All Q that is you.
Why do you think they’re there?
To share with others, naturally,
But to evolve to unity:
A two in one,
(or if you’re into Trinity
Then three…)
To make the story short,
Wise thinkers, seers over all the planet
Have perceived pragmatically
Two ends:
To find the You that’s only you;
To get into
The Cause that’s root.
After which you’re through
To all that is and true.
The end.
There Is A You That’s Only You 1.9.2018 To The Child Mystic II; Revelations Big & Small; Arlene Corwin

Synapses

A scien’terrific, spiri’tool
To fool around with; a reality
The best of microscopes can see
And measure.
Pure arithme-ticking over,
Showering the brain with light;
Sparks queueing up in scans,
A cue to IQ variations, and
The more the better.
Riches of all human wishes lying there
Waiting to be bared then shared:
Nature in infinitude.

One good turn deserves another;
One good synapse serves another.
“Wakey, wakey” here comes knowledge!
Insights new, fresh out of college!
Insights causing you to grow;
Daring you to dare to go;
Blowing horns you dared not blow.
Synapse and invention new;
By definition a new you.

I’m signing off with love (or luff),
This synapse stuff the glove
That warms,
Synapses’ arms
The magic charm.

Synapses 12.9.2017 Circling Round Science II; To The Child Mystic II; Arlene Corwin

They’re All Agreed

They’re all agreed –
It’s very, very quiet there.
Up or out or maybe in
A space so hidden
That it is a twin
To so-called outer space
Where it is very, very quiet
In the place where
It is all created:
All the synchronistic sequences
That take the meaning
Out of chaos.
I read that they ‘re all agreed,
And I’m afraid
A little,
Which just shows that I’m not ready.
They’re All Agreed 6.13.2010 Revelations Big & Small; To The Child Mystic; Pure Nakedness; Arlene Corwin