I Was Thinking About… *******

I was thinking well,
That ****** is just ******:
That and only that.
So what
Is all the fuss about?
It’s over when it’s over.
Then it’s over.
What is wrong with us?
Making all that fuss?
At eighty-three,
Experiential, observationally  
I know.
I knew that many years ago.
And so, I thought I’d share this piece of wisdom: wisdom’s peace.

I don’t imagine any creatures
In the world of nature
Go around with fantasies.
They’re made to do it upside down and right side up
Sideways, frontways; ways that burp and slurp and cup;
After courting, both exhausted,
Nothing forced, small joust completed,
There’s an end.
Splendid seconds or whatever,
He goes his way, never thinking back with fever.
Neutral fact, passing act,
Overrated,
We fixated.
Org-astic yes, fantastic –
But at best, an instant.

I Was Thinking About ****** 12.6.2017 Circling Round Eros II; Arlene Corwin
* ****** |ˈôrˌgazəm|
noun
a ****** of ****** excitement, characterized by feelings of pleasure centered in the genitals and (in men) experienced as an accompaniment to *******.

Saving Me From Myself

I pray for this, I pray for that
And wonder why I never get
Or haven’t got
The goals I set.
Suddenly in one great burst
One leap,
Gone is the thirst
And I feel cheap,
See the task before my eyes -
It’s just to bask, not analyze.

I’m getting everything I need,
The rest irrelevant indeed,
And full of greed and ignorance,
Requests of inborn arrogance,
Destructive if un-timed.

Instead I should be thanking It
For waiting until I’ve been primed
For It, and saving me
From everything
Unscheduled my self.

Saving Me From Myself 5.14.2000 Pure Nakedness; To The Child Mystic; Arlene Corwin

The Disappearance Of The Flora & The Fauna

As usual I watch TV.
Not news but documentary.
“Care and Sustenance of Nature” theme, wherein I learn
The world’s downfall is not the climate, wars or other,
But the disappearance of the fauna, disappearance of the flora.
Population out of hand, we continue in our building,
Take the forests and its bounty.
Must we mutiny?

In the forests are the flora and the fauna:
Insects, mosses, mushrooms, herbs;
All dependent on the flora, all reliant on the fauna.

Population out of hand; swelling daily,
How to build for it more wisely?
Species dying out of hand,
We, the ostriches in sand,
Where lies duty, where lies blame?
Where lies power and restraint?
Who shall act with calm and tact?
I, you, we who lacked the facts?

T has plans to dig the Arctic.
There can be no Noah’s Ark. Bit bores and drills.
Do we need oil?
Fated to be hanging there somewhere in space,
Green, over-green, impure for sure?
Seen from up above, sun-blocked from war?
Submerged in water. What could be:
‘Hell on earth’ no more cliché but nature’s blithe reality.
The Disappearance Of The Flora & The Fauna

12.1.2017 Our Times, Our Culture II; Circling Round Nature II; Circling Round Reality; Nature Of & In Reality; Arlene Corwin

I was sitting in the bath doing my usual grubblande (Swedish for brooding, musing or contemplating) when I had the thought that there's no one special way that suits everyone.  All great teachers have know this, and I, being a 'great' yoga teacher thought about my lovely ladies each of whom has entirely differing needs when doing the same posture.  Hence, There's No One Way - written on a near standing envelope with a dull black eyebrow pencil.  It was a hell to read what I wrote hours later.

        There’s No One Way

Isn’t that grand?
There’s no one hand or leg or breast or eye;
No muscle, vein, no capillary:
No technique for everybody.
Find out who you are!

No one way to take a bath,
Wash a dish, play the harp.
No one true A that’s flat or sharp.
Find out what you want!

Nature’s force is infinite;
The ways of change spectacular.
Sudden sometimes, mostly slow,
So you don’t know what’s happening
Until it blows (as in volcanoes).

What conclusions can we draw?
“Know thyself” the door essential, referential.
Gleaning rules for self -behavior,
Self- analysis, for judging not;
For simply knowing what
And how and when to do
What’s good for you
Because there’s not one ‘tried and true’ for Fu Manchu,
The cuckoo, the well-to-do.
Renew yourself in any way that suits!
There’s No One Way11.30.2017 Nature Of & In Nature; Definitely Didactic; Arlene Corwin

Every Day’s A Phase

Every day’s a phase – nothing but.
The moon unfazed goes thirty days
With shadowed light a-waxing, -waning,
Straining not, just losing, gaining,
Noticeably self-contained.

You and I, the Gershwins said,
“We sweat and strain, bodies all aching racked with pain”.
C. (that’s me) augments with comments,
“You and I, we wish too much,
Not accepting or in touch
With our restraints;
Not what we are nor what we ain’t.”  

Satisfied is not complaisance.
Compliance, maybe – not complaisance.
Satisfied; acceptance, ease;
Being pleased with whatsoever.
You’re not clever, not the Saviour?
So be it!
You’re not a nitwit for all that.22
You’re not great at what you do?
***** it!  
You are great in ways to praise.
Nothing stays, since everyday’s a phase
And nothing but.

Everyday’s A Phase 11.28.2017 Nature Of & In Reality; Arlene Corwin




;

I’ll Never Be A Virtuoso
(Notes from a Piano Playing/Singer/Poet)

I’ll never be a virtuoso.
Sure as I’m an expert on
My name, my palm – I know it.
So I ponder as I listen to
Michel Petrucciani on piano,
Joe Pass on guitar,
Wayne Shorter on the tenor -
Am I any less an artist sans finesse
If runs, uneven, coarse run out into the sand?
Of course not.
Never to become a virtuoso is my lot.

But I’ve a lot that’s going for me:
Tempos, energy,
Out-coming spontaneity,
Ongoing creativity, ingoing spirit,
And an awfully cheerful personality;
Gifts and graces I don’t even know about,
Waiting to come out – or out.

Noel Coward wrote: ‘the talent to amuse’....
Perhaps I use that talent,
And there’s nothing wrong with that.

My notes are high while not the highest,
Vocabulary not extensive,
Not the most imaginative;
IQ slightly more superior than Pooh’s:
Who cares?
(That’s not a question but an exclamation).
Never virtuoso, I shall be the one
Who wears her brain upon her sleeve,
Her heart her slave.

Somewhat below, above so-so,
I know I’ll never be a virtuoso.
I can live with that.

I’ll Never Be A Virtuoso 5.21.2014 Vaguely About Music II; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Pure Nakedness; Arlene Corwin

I Can Write But I Can’t Speak

I can write but I can’t speak.
It’s as if God says,
“You have a message.  Write the words.
I’ll give written words a glaze,
But eloquence that can be heard’s
Off limits, for I slow you down
For honesty, integrity:
To **** the vanity you’ve sown.
I’ll make you stumble, clumsy, dumb,
Slow-thinking, witless,
Sounding somewhat girlish.
I’ve obscured your verbal self
So that you can’t impress.
I keep you in the house
So you must guess
What is and what is not success.

Left there to stammer,
Lose my language;
Syntax, grammar
In a sandwich
Of aphasic doublethink,
The phrases weak,
Technique oblique,
My karma manifestly leaking,
Left to do my dharmic seeking,
(Swim or sink)
Through scribbled, scratched and silent ink.

I Can Write But I Can’t Speak 2.11.2003

Flattered

This is actually a letter
To the editor.
I'm flattered, flattered, flattered
When the editor begins and ends
His email with "You're trending."
It mattered, boy, it mattered.
The kind of confirmation
That gives artists of a genre whatsoever,
Faith and trust and strength
Which almost never
Happens otherwise.  
Thank you Hello.
You have made me feel like Jello.
Thanks and thanks and thanks.

Flattered 11.26.2017
A Sense Of The Ridiculous;
Arlene Corwin
This is really a thank you note in disguise.

Flattered

This is actually a letter
To the editor.
I'm flattered, flattered, flattered
When the editor begins and ends
His email with "You're trending."
It mattered, boy, it mattered.
It was the kind of confirmation
That gives artists of a genre whatsoever
Faith and trust and strength
Which almost never
Happens otherwise.  
Thanks Hello.
You have made me feel like Jello.
Thanks and thanks and thanks.

Flattered 11.26.2017
A Sense Of The Ridiculous;
Arlene Corwin

[There Are] Things You Can Never Change

You make provision for; you train,
Prepare, do anything you can,
And still,
You have to deal with the moment:
Variations never-ending,
Ever modifying and evolving
Subject to the will
Of something your own will,
Will never understand.  
(why do you think there are so many meanings to the word?)
Good luck, and blessings on us all.
May we cull the best from life in every world
That may/may not exist.

[There Are] Things You Can Never Change 11.25.2017
Definitely Didactic; Circling Round Reality;
Arlene Corwin

Brain, Give Me The Answers

Does this sound too much like prayer?
A little red-faced,
Weakness in my psyche.
Embarrassed ‘cause it’s not like me,
One feels the hypocrite:
I, who stake
My life on ‘God, who makes not one mistake’,
And here I sit,
Baby-ish,
Asking to change destiny –
At least push it my way.
Shame, shame on me!

I’ve got to wait –
Just like all others.
Meditate,
Reject my druthers,
Concentrate.
(I’m poor at that).
Be grateful for the goods I’ve got
(and that includes MyQ
and its capacities))

Nonetheless, addressing you,
Dear self so true,
We have a pact
(And that’s a fact)
So if you will cooperate,
I’ll wait
Until who knows, the whimsicality of fate
Is ripe: propitious, and/or generous  
And brain-wise,
Advantageous.

Brain, Give Me The Answers 8.24.2017
Pure Nakedness; I Is Always You Is We; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II;
Arlene Corwin

Sometimes I get the silliest memories.

The Twenty-One Inch Waistline

When I was young -
As yet unsung,
I yearned, no, burned
To be like she
Who had a waistline twenty-three:
I was twenty-four.
Hungered voluntarily.
Now they’d call it self-starvation,
Anorexia;
I soon set sights on twenty-one.
There was envy,
There was vanity.
Oh, if I could only be
Like her.
But I remained a twenty-four.
It wasn’t in my nature
To be less or more.
These days I’m fine
With my twenty-four/five inch waistline.

Twenty-One Inch Waistline 11.22.2017
Circling Round Vanities I; Pure Nakedness;
Arlene Corwin

Always In Preparation #2
          (a rather long simplification)

Always in preparation for an interview:
What will I answer? Never know.
- What do I like? do things I do, the way I do?
- Write poetry, play jazz, do yoga?
Body/mind my mental window in my mental interview:
And I must justify it all.
Some germ, some theme begins the whole:
The technical; word hurdles
When I write or sing;
All challenging,
Performing, writing or just doing.

T’ween two covers it’s official;
Everything grist-for-the-mill,
I’ll likely publish ‘til I’m still.
No special motive winks or flirts,
No motive hides behind my skirts -

My ears hear musically,
It all comes naturally, substance counting most;
Not tricks, not formulae, cliché -
If there’s a Corwin idiom
It’s in the DNA.
I work out tunes, -out poetry, -out ******.
The mind works out spontaneously,
I (wherever I is to be found) give in, give form,
Substance from-and-in the frame.

In short, I paint myself into a box
And creep around  
Until some [final] satisfaction binds.
A futile paradox:
To clarify and satisfy
The interview,
But there am I,
Always in preparation.

Always In Preparation 7.6.2014
Pure Nakedness; The Processes: Creative, Thinking,Meditative II; revised 11.21.2017
Arlene Corwin

Flawed

Listening to Thelonius Monk.
(Give him a try -
If you haven’t already)
I myself am sunk
In heaven.
(or is it ‘raised’)
Anything for a rhyme
Anytime.)  
Ouch!
Anyway, there’s genius
In being flawed:
In honesty, in bravery  -
Wrong notes,
Strong, short, long notes;
Flatted fifths, half-tones the chord;
Finger placement – absurd.
Who can be bored!
Who cares?
He dares.
Stares into space,
Jumps up and down,
No smile, no frown -
He plays his junk,
Always a Monk – Thelonius..
And so I sit in pillowed bed,
Caffeinated (to my toes and head),
Cogitating.  
Letting, simply letting…
Waiting, writing
With an honesty and ***** (see Monk, sunk, junk)
Flawed to the gills.
Hmm, sills, bills, chills, kills…hmm.

Flawed 11.19.2017
A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Vaguely About Music II;
Arlene Corwin

I Am So Grateful [Anybody Reads This Stuff]



I am so grateful anybody reads this stuff.

Exasperated that most others don’t.

And even with an inner miff

I carry on, pushed by an inner drift,

(some would add an inner gift)

Ambition not my motivation.



A brainstorm popping from wherever popping up pops up from.

You will recall it’s happened to you all;

You know, thoughts over which you’d no control.

And yet you thought them, acted out on

Drives beyond what’s called

Free will.



So, am I grateful or detached?

Dispassionate, disinterested, crosshatched?

Standing alone from strength

Yet obstinate from weakness’ lack of confidence.

I’m sure of this:  the length

Of life that’s left to me,

I will persist in poetry.

(One must

When it lies in the guts)

Tampering with syntax, spelling, yummy slang,

Choice aesthetics in good taste/

Choices ****** and a waste;

Writing with a rhythmic sense,

Caring very much for tense,

But not for meters recherché;

I, utmost mystic and most earthy:

Quelle dichotomy!

Hypocrisy?  No, contrast only!



I am grateful for and to the one

That read Ms Corwin.



I Am So Grateful 11.14.2017

The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative; I Is Always We Is You;

Arlene Corwin

In A Cloud Of God

I meditate
In a cloud of God,
The phrase enticing,
Spicing up my inner vision,
Paradis-ing selfsame vision
Into supervision.
This decision to be deep in thought
That isn’t thought exactly
But a tactful way to find the mind
Without a wandering in imagery,
Colloquially speaking,
And between you, me, i.e. we, us
Who chance to meet on this  
Our [quasi] paper
Is escape of noblest kind,
Leading blindly on pure trust
To someplace nice – yes, nicest!

In A Cloud Of God 11.13.2017
God Book II; The Processes; Creative, Thinking, Meditative II;
Arlene Corwin

Morning’s Minute Meditation

I send my heart this morn,
Not with emotion but with intellect –
For I suspect
                        that’s quite okay.

One may think one’s way,
Not necessarily emote,
For one connects
                                 in any case,
Each with a modus operandi.

In conclusion,
Not to worry how it’s done
Every bit a hit
(as in reward for effort).
Just one minute needed.

Morning’s Minute Meditation 11.12.2017
The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; To The Child Mystic II;
Arlene Corwin

I’m Writing For The Universe



I’m writing for the universe;

No man or woman, special group.

I’d hope you understand this,

Aim, a statement/thought

Encompassing the concrete and abstract.



The philosophic reaching out

To turn into endeavors

Which depend on character

Which finds itself in x conditions,

In you, out you;

Efforts too,

All undertakings the result

Of birth and genes and chance surroundings.

(is this dance really just chance?)



Special needs abound within the needs of all:

The ego, vanities, the strengths, the skills;

Bad, good, dark, light,

Mediocre and the bright –

A sameness sewn in rich arrays

Of hims and hers,

A one which covers,

Pierces through the universe.



I’m writing for it all, the All, the Goal.

In short, the whole,

Myself included.



I’m Writing For The Universe 11.10.2017

Nature Of & In Reality; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; I Is Always You Is We;

Arlene Corwin

An Eighty-Third

Ego there, but something’s going;
Some things gone –
Both nice and nice’s antonym.
Prefix Nov- linguistics’ whim -
What does it stand for?
One cares less and dares much more.
Nov means nine but mine’s eleven:
8th November, month eleven.
November eighth; November, Nover.
Arlene Faith "is now in clover"*.

Still, one has reached an eighty-three, (one being me)
We’ll see
What life has left at all…
Life being so irrational.
Et al.

*written by my 6th grade teacher Mr Martin when I graduated from public school

An Eighty-Third 11.8.2017
Birthday Book; Pure Nakedness;
Arlene Nover Corwin

Getting Loonier But Freer

Sitting in the bathtub come prepared:
Pen and pad squared off,
Ready for the spinoff
Boring or imploring
Phrase, theme, word
To make inspired this not tired,
Not yet batty lady
Who, in dotage her,
Is sounding more and more like Lear
(not king – the other one)
Using words in play from fun
To pleasure those with fun-ny bone
Or anyone come close –
With dose of looniness and freedom.

Each thought legitimized – seen through her eyes -
She writes as if the script were scripture,
Thought brought down from god-knows-where,
She, prepared to edit if she must,
Every bit writ down on trust.

The paper pad is soaking wet,
Words dimmed and saturate.
Time to get out of the tub,
Dry hair, the ***’
And superficially skin deeply
Watch the evening’s mediocre,
Scary, all too interruptedly TV.
(For TV’s actually for money,
Not for me, or them’s that’s like me.)
Pity!

Getting Loonier But Freer 11.6.2017
A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Bath Book II;
Arlene Corwin

I Need That Drug

It’s 4am and I’m awake,
And so I take up Mac
Who sits beside,
And ***** for pen to start the ride
Into a poem,
For phrase and rhyme of the most nebulous formation
Have installed themselves into my equally
Unclear and foggy brain train station.

Left to need a drug to write,
This sluggish mind awake this night
And cloudy when it’s morning light,
Won’t think, won’t write,
Cannot create
Until that cup of coffee.

So, until the sun comes up
And hubby brings that morning cup
With warmed milk and a pancake.
I remain unwillingly awake
Mac’s screen the only source of luminescence,
Pen and paper of the essence
Funny ponderings, mental wanderings,
Scrawling like a daft bedbug
Waiting for the morning gulp
To bring my muse to shape and type
The rest.

I Need That Drug 11.5.2017
A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Coffee Book II;
Arlene Corwin

WHY MOURNING

Do you know anyone who doesn’t die?

Who hasn’t died?

Who will not die?

Not I.



How to accept?

Not mourn?

Think through to not have pain,

(For pain seems fruitless), for

To not accept

Is like rejecting sun and moon,

Existence, proven, measured, seen.

Do I lament when atoms split?

Grieve, regret,

Have sadness that I can’t get over.

Nover

Doesn’t.



Pain [we have] when others die –

That ‘other’ human, cow or dragonfly.

The local forester sawed down a fir

Which was for sure,

A hundred fifty years or more.

I mourned,

Stump and its rings all it passed down.



Is it absence or remembrance?

Is it longing for a something now a non-thing non-existing?

Is it clinging to a someone

Over whom we have no power,

Never had? Could it be wrong-er?

Fate and destiny his, hers or its

Through all of time and history.



I cannot think of one good reason

Vindicating mourning.

Were we meant for suffering?

Though I [clearly] cannot clarify,

We’re seeing wrongly,

Thinking strongly wrongly,

Wrought of ego’s braggadocio,

The hallowed hoaxer of emotions.



Nover: me, born Arlene Faith Nover

Why Mourning 11.4.2017

Birth, Death & In Between III; Nature Of & In Reality; Revelations Big & Small; Circling Round Reality; Circling Round Egos;

Arlene Corwin

“ After decades of measurements and debate, we are now confident that the overwhelming majority of our universe’s matter – about 84 percent – is not made up of atoms, or of any other known substance. Although we can feel the gravitational pull of this other matter, and clearly tell that it’s there, we simply do not know what it is. This mysterious stuff is invisible, or at least nearly so. For lack of a better name, we call it “dark matter.” But naming something is very different from understanding it.  Over the past 15 years, for example, experiments designed to detect individual particles of dark matter have become a million times more sensitive, and yet no signs of these elusive particles have appeared. And although the Large Hadron Collider has by all technical standards performed beautifully, with the exception of the Higgs boson, no new particles or other phenomena have been discovered.”
Dan Hooper, Associate Scientist in Theoretical Astrophysics at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and Associate Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago.
I am indebted to EarthSkyNews and its writers and editor Deborah Byrd for their inspirational articles that set an imagination afire.

                           Looking For God
                  (a personal interpretation)

Oh, my goodness, Halloween.
Secular as we’ve become we search between
The stars for something we can’t find -
Something way, way, way behind
(or maybe not), for calculations more than hint
At something there.  Something here
And all around,
Something we can measure,
Possibly a ground of being -
Universe the metaphor -
Or should one say ‘universes’?

Utterly enchanting this research,
For ‘re’- means ‘one more time’, afresh, again;
We’re looking all the time and then some.
‘Search’, its origin in Latin’s ‘circle’
We are going ‘round in circles
To complete a circle, time and time again.
Looking for design and pattern
Palpable, its charm disarming
And perhaps alarming,
If we ever find it.

Looking For God 10.31.2017
Nature Of & In Reality; Circling Round Reality; God Book II;
Arlene Corwin
I am indebted to EarthSkyNews and its writers and editor Deborah Byrd for their inspirational articles that set an imagination afire.

I’d Like To Find Another Word For God

I’d like to find
Another word
For God, for named in scripture’s world
It is a word – a name – word just the same,
Quenching some, offending some,
Plain annoying to some sorts,
Explaining little, saying lots.

Lord, Almighty, the Creator,
Maker, Godhead, Yahweh, Allah,
Father, Son, the Holy Spirit,
Brahma, more, the Man Upstairs,
A thousand other
Endless names for one ground grand initiator.

Birthright, culture, parentage,
History, heredity and what they’ve led to,
What we’re bred to,
Simple leaning notwithstanding,
Pre-programmed we land un-manned.

I think highly of the theist and it’s opposite the non-
With no high regard for anti-s,
For the principle of love embraces
Fat and thin, uncles, aunties.
                                      
In the meantime,
Brain un-stymied,
With ideas and inner truths,
I continue in the use of
God, the word that makes some happy,
Giving comfort, consolation
While I seek some substitution.  

What we want to know
Are secrets, keys, realities;
Of life, of death, of fate and how
To live consistently serenely in tranquility;
Long-lived and daily:
Life without anxiety,
Fulfilled with understanding.

I’d Like To Find Another Word For God 10.29.2017
God Book II; Circling Round Reality;
Arlene Corwin

Message To Garcia Revised

I, admittedly without the skills or knowledge of
Affairs of state, power struggles, machinations
Do not get one certain thing:
Western world-ers all, bombing
ISIS, and who else I can’t remember,
With the threat of conflict spreading -
Would it not reduce the blood
If it were weapons plants we bombed instead,
Exhibitions where the latest are displayed
And all the demonstrations demonstrate,
Their potency impressive –
Would the killing not be shortened
If we bombed the messengers?
Am I naïve, so uninformed?
Or is it too undemocratic?

Message To Garcia 10.28.2017 (found ‘revised’ somewhere in Mac)
Our Times, Our Culture II; War Book II;
Arlene Corwin

I See It All Around

I see it all around.
Filling, thrilling palpably.
Lying here upon my sofa
Watching men and women suffer softly for their art;
Interviewed, performing in one way or other,
It is I who gain -
Grains of magic bonding cells
Of thankfulness.

Oh how I love, just love the talented:
The skilled, devoted - all the nuances of gift.
My eyes see beauty, ears learn more.
I cannot underscore this marvel,
And I do not try to understand.
I simply shake its hand
And say thank you.

I See It All Around 10.28.2017
Circling Round Reality; Big & Small Revelations;
Arlene Corwin

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!

Peoplephobia

You’ve heard about them all,
The misanthropes, misogynists,…
But have you heard of peoplephobes?
Detestation of a group,
Fear and loathing
Women, men, trade deals, the globe:
You-know-who - I think he’s got it.
Actions show it,
Does he know it?                      
Groundless, baseless,
Senseless
To the point
Of being foolish.
One who has it
Doesn’t know it,
Has not conquered anger, temper and self-interest.
All those traits of vice that simply aren’t nice!
Traits that ultimately cause destruction
Of the self and those who follow.
Hollow traits that scoff the poor,
Prizing, praising the well-off.
Leaving Latin, leaving Greek
And colloquially stated,
New created,
Peoplephobia’s the thing
For understanding would-be kings
And you-know-who,
Thanking God that it’s not you
Or me.
Which would be woeful, sorrowful and lousy.

Peoplephobia 10.17.2017
A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Our Times, Our Culture II;
Arlene Corwin

I was watching a reportage about the strong possibility of a war between Iraq and Kurdistani Kirkuk.  I don't consider myself a political person, neither politically aware nor politically active.  But sometimes, I'm moved on a deep level at the futility of and process leading up to war.  This is one of those moments.  I went directly to the computer.

        You Can’t Have A War

You can’t have a war

Unless you have weapons;

You can’t have those weapons

Unless you have industries;

Can’t have an industry earning no money -

And money means profit,

For who runs an industry

That doesn’t profit -

Profit the carrot.



Weapons-to-profit:

The distance is multi- or many small instances

Building the one upon other,

Easy to disregard,

Turn a blind eye to.



Oil or real estate,

Access to coast,

Minerals, labor:

Possession and use.

Passions’ abuse

And war is the certainty.



It’s terribly sad,

This fighting for terra;

A sickening error

Pretending it’s doctrine or canon or righteousness.

Overruled, conscience.



You can’t have a war,

Restrain it,

Unless there’s this chain of re-action,

Everyone playing his part.

It’s breaking my heart.

Ain’t it yours?



You Can’t Have A War 10.14.2017

War Book II; Our Times, Our Culture II;

Arlene Corwin

Gifted But Out Of Tune

Doctor: “What can you expect?
You’re eighty-two!  Accept it!
Vocal cords, no longer tighten.
Yours will never close again.”

Goodness knows, boy, do I know it!
Unpredictable, quixotic.
Coming, going, throwing
Intonation out the window.

Eighty-two, all soon to be
An eighty- three.
Must Corwin flee because of age?
Flee the stage because of age?
****, no!
Today, tomorrow,
She says no to going!

Sings her heart out – when she can.
Songs fantastic; jazzy, cool,
Breaking rule harmonic
For the music and the fun of it.
But voice, alas, hard to control,
Its life so unconnected to the whole.

***** pitch, stich with crooked seam;
Bad, sad, how she sorely wants to scream.
She doesn’t.   Giving out the gifts from heaven,
Hearing flaws – now a given.
Focusing
                on now and only…
Singing, playing joyfully;
Doing when and how,
She crowns the gig and takes a bow.

Gifted But Out Of Tune 10.7.2017
Vaguely About Music II; Pure Nakedness;
Arlene Corwin

Who Would Want To Be World Famous?

Who would want to be world famous?
This, the planet so humongous,
Virtuous and villainous,
Full of goodness, full of badness.
Who wants to expose himself’
To the injustices of pelf
That lay in wait upon the shelf of fates unknown?
I’ve come to think: Remain un-shown,
Roof up above, food for the day,
A bed on which to lay your head,
Doing what you’re born to do,
Meant to fulfill you
Without pushing for reward.
Those who aim for fame today
Go absolutely the wrong way.
That’s it – and all I have to say.

Who Would Want To Be World Famous? 10,1.2017
Definitely Didactic;
Arlene Corwin

Nazis On The Streets Of Sweden
(1st draft – there may be others

We have illusions, all.
But most of us don’t want to ****.
I looked it up.
I asked some simple questions.
Google told me:
**** symbols are allowed in Israel!
Also in the USA!
Prohibited in Germany,
Allowed in Finland.
Austria is definite.  No! no! no!, no! and no!
Some countries have no laws at all –
Apparently no views
Or views so lax
They seem to non-chalate* the facts.

Neo- Nazis plan to march
The streets of Sweden,
Thirtieth September, twenty seventeen.
They call themselves a neo –
Their philosophy is old as ******,
Old as Wagner, long before.
False ideals, inner lies but outer dealings
Hates delusional, baiting plentiful.

March occurring on Yom Kippur,
Near a synagogue, to boot.
Their aim: to root out, root out, root…
Annihilate, decimate, eradicate,
Means inhumane,
And most important,
Based on lies!  
Statistical, imaginary, fantasized.    

Nazis on the streets of Sweden,
We do not believe in you!
*non-chalate: I’ve made a verb out of the word nonchalant
because such was needed and could not be found in the dictionary.

Nazis On The Streets Of Sweden 9.30.2017
Our Times, Our Culture II;
Arlene Corwin

Someone Out There Needs This

So you write!  
So I write,
Trying hard to say it right,
Forthright but kind:
Trying hard to find the word
That does not hurt
But flirts and heals,
Feels universal
By some sort ‘you’
Who needs it then
At just that moment.  
For
There’s always someone out there
Who needs what you have to say.

Someone Out There Needs This 9.26.2017
I Is Always You Is We;
Arlene Corwin

Morning Greeting to God

On waking I say (thinking, really)
“You’ve been here all night.
You’ll be here all the day,
Providing time, my needs,
And more abstractly, destiny.  
The trick is to be welcoming,
A trick that makes the play of pain
More comfortable,
For comfort is so comforting.

When I say pain,
I do not mean
A shoulder ache or thereabouts.
It means the pain of all around,
An ‘all around’ that’s all unbound
Which one will never have the skill to grasp,
Or power to reshape.

The day’s blank piece of paper,
Bland or stimulating,
Filled with action or quite still –
Always etude and apprenticeship.

So I ask myself (symbolically)
What can I learn?
With no idea of what’s to come,
Anticipating nothing
I accept each crumb that falls from
Shall we call it ‘heaven’s table’
(just a metaphor.)

Heaven’s table may be fable,
Morning’s greeting, fleeting phrase;
Both are ways to start the days
With positivity, an energy
To improvise with happy creativity.
What could be better?

Morning Greeting To God 9.25.2017
God Book II; Nature Of & In Reality;
Arlene Corwin

Pull The Plastic From The Sea

Un-political, no single placard,
Expressing view through rhyme and meter,
This appeal in un-bombastic, modest ways,
It says:
We have to save the planet.

All and you have heard this
Twenty thousand – at the very least -
Repeated so that
You’ve put cotton in your ears,
Forgotten all those many years
Cliché-d, near inappropriate.

And here I sit,
The **** increasing day by day –
This final phase,
Little me in what feels pointless.

Trifling, trivial, inconsequent small
Plastic forks and plastic bags -
They can’t mean much compared to wars.  
Why get excited over bags, while cars
Of aging metal fill the holes,
Oils and chemicals **** corals;
Toxins all the rest.

Barring fishing fish for shekels,
Killing off the planet’s whales,
Slaughtering live things with scales,
Things with tails and entrails
I implore you not to put
                                     more plastic
In the growing, unavailable and sickly sea.

Pull The Plastic From The Sea 9.22.2017
Our Times, Our Culture II; Nature Of & In Reality; A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Circling Round Nature II;
Arlene Corwin

5778, So That I Remember

What a bad Jew I am -
Having to write a poem
So that I remember, can recall
Once and for all
The joy of Rosh Hashanah
And the length of centuries
The Jews have thrived,
Have managed bravely to survive.
A feast that serves the feat,
(In fact, the feat deserving feast).

So much I do not know,
Therefore, to show heredity’s identity
To world and to myself,
I shall repeat the word, the year, the sound
Till next year when it comes around,
Turns seven eight to seven nine.

To all who like this person mine
Have left all contact far behind:
Happy New Year – Rosh Hashanah!
Shana Tovah – Happy New Year!

5778, So That I Remember 9.19.2017
Special People, Special Occasions; Pure Nakedness;
Arlene Corwin

(Watching the oncoming hurricane Maria.  The 2nd in two weeks – same place)

   Death Is Always In My Mind

Death is always on my mind
In one way or another.
Lying there sneakily,
Shaking me
When something happens on TV.
All around a violence:
In the weather, in the city,
In our children, in the poverty:
Calamity.
How to stay calm lamb myself;
A question half my brain
                            is taken up with.

Hurricanes, shoulder pains,
Underlying wonderings.
Questions without answers;
Wishes not yet answered.

And the time!
Always the passing
Without chance of stopping;
In the stars, the planets;
In the ants & stones & plants.
Yet a cup of coffee
And the world is right.
All the worries of the night
Transformed,
And energy to right my life -
If not the world –
Uncurled -
Thus one goes forward.

Death Is Always On My Mind 9.19.2017
Pure Nakedness; Nature Of & In Reality; Our Times, Our Culture II; Birth, Death & In Between II:
Arlene Corwin

Just Peachy

Sitting in the bath eating a peach,
Out of reach shampoo and things.
I use my fingers.
Conditioner smushed * into hair,
I wait for gunk to work.
Head dunked an inch below the water
And still chewing, crunch intensified a thousand fold.
Damp pad and all,  I hold the pad in front of me and write.
That’s what I call exciting!

I get dafter by the day –
Soldier-bolder,
Hanging-from-the-rafters thing
I fling all trivia aside.
Riding time on high.
I’m ridin’ high* on time;
Strategies unplanned.

smush; my own word, meaning a mixture of smash/knead/crush/massage/rub/knead
**See Cole Porter

Just Peachy 9.18.2017
A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Circling Round Baths II;
Arlene Corwin

Advice About ***: Consciousness

It isn’t ‘nice’
To give advice
About the art of copulating.
There are many ways of fornicating,
Very few to carnal urges,
Carnal surges being what they are.
Double myrrh
Is double pleasure;
Philosophic, not ******.

It is wise to sacrifice,
Pay the price
Of being spat at,
Being got at,
Many living lives in anguish;
The taboo in all - all foolish.

Words of wisdom come to this:
When you touch,
Be cognizant of what you feel
In your person, as your person.
You yourself are sealed onto
All the knowledge in the world.

Always subject/object both,
Know how much
You are the subject though subjecting
Other to a lover’s clutch.
Be betrothed
To him and you, her and you,
Even it, yes, it and you.

One with brain and all the senses,
Make the fences that divide,
Of flexible, transparent goods;
Not barriers but guides
To knowledge, peace and joy –
All upside with no downsides.

Here’s the pool of rule that is the school,
The tool as well as fuel:
Pay attention to sensation in your senses and your limbs.
Do not think too much, evaluating her or him.
Loving is a kind of gym –
A paradigm of health and recreation;
Educational if let:
The entire carnal alphabet.

Advice About ***: Consciousness 9.16.2017
Circling Round Eros II; Definitely Didactic; Defiant Doggerel;
Arlene Corwin

A Body Winds Down

A body winding down -
Its signs a preparation:
Loss of appetite, sound sleep at night;
Strength in arm and grip,
Youthful movement in the hip;
Fifty small, small things of note -
To note, denote, remote
As they may be.

Beginning early, barely showing:
Gone or worn, the bite uneven,
Pearly whites no longer pearly;
Vocal cords and tongue or throat
Cracked, coated…
Body borne from infancy,
Winding down.

There it is, the fact of it.
Can you take
The tact of it?
(Or tactlessness -
The zero chance to make
It over?)
Living’s always closing in on kith and kin -
On all and every who can’t win,
The numbers passing by
Each day receding into destiny.
                        
A Body Winds Down 9.14.2017
Circling Round Aging; Birth, Death & In Between II; Circling Round Wrinkles;
Arlene Corwin

Once I Write ‘Em

Once I write ‘em,
I don’t read ‘em.
If you’ve had a feast,
You don’t go back to feast again -
At least not feast selfsame.
Eaten’s eaten,
Drunk is drunk.
The yester- feast a kind of bunk
When looked at and reflected.
Looked at un-corrected.

Nothing’s wrong
With bettering that song,
Polishing and honing,
Yes, fine-tuning.

Last night’s feast had too much salt.
You won’t do that again,
Fix the fault
But write some more.
More’s the door
To consummation.
Less salt to improved digestion.

Break the silence, the taboos.
Make the ‘boo boos’.
Keep on going
In the imperceptibility of growing.
Cook the feast.
Release the moment’s best
And once you write ‘em,
Leave ‘em.

Once I Write ‘Em 9.13.2017
A Sense Of The Ridiculous; Vaguely About Music II; The Processes: Creative, Thinking Meditative II;
Arlene Corwin

I woke up thinking about this.

         A Thought About Loyalty

I’ve been thinking about loyalty:
A many-sided world of nuances,
The subtle differences.
We all know it means faithfulness,
A sticking-to devotedly.
Unfurled it shows its nasty sides,
The negatives that worry me:
Allegiance and adherence -
-Ism’s steel prepared to go to war
Against all criticizers,
-Isms’ others
Carving up the brotherhood
Of man.
Not for nothing
That a missile system drawn
To sense and intercept an enemy:
Is named the Patriot:
A system to annihilate.

I worry ‘bout obedience,
Compliance and submissiveness.
I like reliability, dependability,
Dedication if it’s not perverted
Duty, if it leads to thought,
A moral sense,
An ethic that agrees with life;
Loyalty without the strife.
Loyalty to think about.

A Thought About Loyalty 9.10.2017
Nature In & Of Reality; Out Times, Out Culture II;
Arlene Corwin

The Simplest Of Poems

Everyone is born
With their own
Destiny.
Don’t mourn,
Forlorn and shorn
Of trust.
Inheritance and circumstance
Does what it must,
There being no coincidence.
Stay on the fence
Of faith;
Youth’s health and breath,
Wealth’s stealth and death
Will have its ways.
There being almost nothing more to say:
Let intuition guide your days –
It is the easiest of ways.

The Simplest Of Poems 9.9.2017
Definitely Didactic; Revelations Big & Small;
Arlene Corwin

Irma

I wish I were a sorceress.
I’m surely not a scientist.
Just a reader
Of the leaders in the news.
North Korea, Harvey, rockets
Boston Red Sox in the dockets
Charged with using Apple watches to steal signs.
Violence, hurricanes,
Cheating: Why?
This is too, too crazy.
Are these phases
Showing us,
Going towards
A monster breakdown?
Skirmishes
To Irma!

Flesh will go.  
Insect, bird, yes, every minnow.
Families child-less, widowed;
Dis-endowed the moneyed crowd,
Castle, mansion, slum will go.
Marshes all will overflow.
(and we thought Bangladesh was low)
The planet’s being bashed,
Yet there are people who cash in on it.

Prayer will never be the answer.
Cancer from our own behavior.
Karma’s germ:
Now it’s Irma.

Irma 9.6.2017
Our Times, Out Culture II; Circling Round Nature II;
Arlene Corwin

Outside And Inside

Outside a pigeon eats my crumbs.
We call him Walter
Inside hairy news continues.
Warm and numb,
I rustle up the casserole
To fill this hungry tummy hole:
Seoul, the polls…
Shall we succumb?
Shall they?
He wants to have it his way.  Is he playing?
You may ask, “Which he?”
There are so many he’s,
So many ****** he’s.
Walter pigeon loves his crumbs.
The lovely pecking beak becomes him.
He, so carefree, eating of necessity,
Unaware of death or of his iridescent beauty.
Me?
I carry on with poetry
While radio debates the possibility
Of war, annihilation,
Which or any winning nation,
Madly grinning dictators,
Bad, head spinning leaders…
Glad I’m cooking,
Looking out the window
At my Walter
Eating crumbs.

Walter Pidgeon (September 23, 1897 – September 25, 1984) was a Hollywood actor who starred in many films.

Outside And Inside 9.5.2017
Our Times, Our Culture II;
Arlene Corwin

Does He Still Deny A Climate Change?
    (asked by the least political of observers)

Is he denying still,
Or is he stalling, stone(y)walling
Wailing about other things,
Like Mexicans and walls while slinging
Maddening, outrageous barbs
About the so-called loss of jobs
To South Korea while a North Korean
TV lady sobs with joy
About a bomb to be employed
(You all know which I mean)
That starts a chain
That takes out half a planet.

Does he still encourage fossil fuel production
Leading in the wrong direction?
Does he not see rising seas
And floods and famines and disease
Around and as potential?
Heats and droughts and quakes to come?
Or does he see the states as humming?
Self-deception quintessential:
Lies.
Who can call it otherwise?

What is a lie?
And how does one get by with lying
And denying, falsifying, flying
In the face of truth
As often as he tries – no, does.
With head, mind, pen, hand buzzing
I shall stop! But you, my friend
May make a noise, examine cause, while empathizing
Till an end.
This being written off the cuff,
Now it is time to send this off
Into the world of cyber.  

Does He Still Deny A Climate Change 9.3.2017
Our Times, Our Culture II;
Arlene Corwin

What Is There To Gain?
      (apropos the morning news)

What is there to gain
By killing six or seven million people,
Insects, plant life, animals and soil?
Bomb of hydrogen
A hundred times more potent
Than the bomb that foiled Hiroshima.
.
What is there to gain
Except a laughing Kim Jong-un –
In front of cameras that
Will televise to almost no one
Anymore? Not to mention
Money?  Trade?
Nearly or completely gone:
At least out of the question.

Of course,
Now that I think of it
What’s there to gain by killing?
Sadly, all the scriptures have it, do it, yet,
Beneath it all is peacefulness
And yes, non-violence.

It’s amazing what one thinks about
While watching news that’s sprouting.

What is there to gain by murdering
A fast becoming hopeless people
Living on a fast becoming heap of scrap
In nature fast becoming put to sleep
For what will probably be
Quite a long, long, long, long time.

to be continued… (not or maybe)

What Is There To Gain? 9.3.2017
Our Times, Our Culture II: Circling Round Reality;
Arlene Corwin

The Night Is Almost Over

The night is almost over,
During which I’ve been awake
Unquantifiable wee hours.
It’s been a challenge to placate
Unrest in ***’ and soul,
Think things to do without a wrestle with my all,
Discover parts to focus on,
Breathe out and in,
Shepherding bad thought away from sin.

A challenge to make time rewarding,
Night un-worrying with means
Intuitively gleaned.
By three or four,
Night nearly over,
One is sure
There have been dreams -
A second’s worth of night-worked themes.
(Perhaps two minutes, maybe three.
I’ve patently no memory
Unawake, unaware,
All simple cognizance not there)

I’ll be ok when morning comes,
Stomach craving nutriments.
There will be toast, cheese, milky coffee
Brought in by hubby
With me glad the light took over.

The Night Is Almost Over 9.2.2017
Pure Nakedness;
Arlene Corwin

One More Wrinkle On The Upper Lip

Yup,
One more wrinkle on the upper lip!
I quip you not.
It came this morning
Like a ship on the horizon, showing up
A shapeless form from out the blue.
What shall I do?
I’m much too old and used to lines
To be the type that whines;
Too old and worldly wise
To be one who modifies a truth.
“You have no longer youth - the truth.
You can’t expect a skin youth-smooth.
Be glad that you can see reflections
Looking back at you
                                 at all.”
I left the mirror on the wall
And went to yoga.

Be thankful that you can see it, said my friend".

One More Wrinkle On The Upper Lip 9.1.2017
Circling Round Wrinkles; Circling Round Aging; Circling Round Woman II;
Arlene Corwin

You & I Are Meditating

I go into my brain,
Imagining that I and Father my
Are one the same:
One and the same.

Today it’s fun
To think
That You and I are meditating:
Two in one.

Aim always the same:
Restoration of a state of mind
Of kindness,
Peacefulness
And focus.

I’m going now
Back to my TV show,
With minutes spent seconds ago,
Productive.

You & I Are Meditating 9.1.2017
To The Child Mystic II; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II;
Arlene Corwin