I Like Looking Like A Boy

I like looking like a boy.
Those massive locks
That locked in looks
From boys and men –
Well, that was then
And now is now.

I’ve thrown out needs
And taken in
Convenience, suitability
Which looks as nice - e’en twice as nice
To those bystanders’ gawking shoulders
(Appeal’s molder in the eyes
Of the beholder),

Now it’s time for short and neat,
Just as cute
When coexisting with a sweet,
Kind, loving nature;
Character,
Persona’s self charisma
Which as hypnotic, gives off honey’s own melisma,
Charm’s attraction which,
If used correctly
Does more good
Than all the ringlets ever could.
a group of notes sung to one syllable of text.

I Like Looking Like A Boy 11.24.2016
Circling Round Aging; Circling Round Wrinkles; Circling Round Vanities II;Circling Round Woman II;
Arlene Corwin

Our Tractor Man

Our tractor man is doing
What he really likes to do:
Clearing snow.                  
He suits my mental man-with-plow.
Trading pig and cow
For gear he likes to sit inside;
The tractor hut;
Tranquil woods to clear and saw,
Chop and cut;
Tractor wheel, forest smell,
Alone deciding what to fell.
Muddy potholes in the spring,
Flood and crud his tractor´s thing.
Nicely chubby,
Slightly tubby;
Sixty odd,
His tractor and the woods his God.

I esteem this earthy man
Dharma bound to seasoned stars
That fix the farmer life and plan
Unchangeable and stable.

Our Tractor Man passed away 2016.
                                                      
Our Tractor Man 3.4.2003 (revised 11.19.2016)
Circling Round Nature; Circling Round Time; Special People, Special Occasions; Birth. Death & In Between II;
Arlene Corwin


                                                      

our devoted tractor man who plowed our road in the winter.

The Cold

A prophet’s never known
Among her own –
Especially by one she’s wed to.
He’s abed.
He’s got a cold.
She’s got hold of techniques potent:
Pressure on those points oblique,
Baths and steam,
And as I speak,
Gone phlegmy pangs
And reams of snot  
From sinuses and nose and throat.
Alas,
Alack,
He’s stuck
On sofa prone,
He and his cold,
Alone.

Words in the air
Don’t reach his ear
Or mind, and certainly not intellect.
He doesn’t want neglect
But can’t accept
The profit of the prophet.
So he coughs and sputters,
Spews and suffers.
She, not known
Among her own
No matter how ‘spot on’ the common
Sense

The Cold 11.15.2016
A Sense Of The Ridiculous; Love Relationships II;
Arlene Corwin

For Those Who Can’t Believe

For those who can’t believe
I leave you with: God is just word
To gird up life and lessen pain;
Intended to encompass unexplainables
That science or psychology can’t clarify:
The ecstasy of insights
Helplessness of death,
Mystery philosophies
Of paths that lead to happiness;
With logic all their own to laud,
Reality reduced to primal cause
That some call God.

Problems of belief lie in
The gene or flair; the character
Or IQ that x factors cannot cover.

There, in entity invisible, in force likewise,
Books, systems aim to clarify
In symbol, parable and story;
Threads for some, nonsense for others
Who prefer to live by ethics; other codes
To take a hold of.

“God” is odd,
And hard;
A word,
A shortcut, like the Sanskrit Om -
To something real, a waterwheel
To rain down onto neuron’s brain.

That’s almost all that I can say
Leaving those who can’t believe
Until some other insight comes its way
Some Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday
Friday, Saturday or Sunday.

For Those Who Can’t Believe 11.13.2016
To The Child Mystic II; God Book II;
Arlene Corwin

The Day Trump Tr-i-ump-hed

Trumpeting, he ******* and triumphed…
Did he, has he?
Thumping his way forward,
Jumping through the hoops of word and phrase,
Razing those that blocked his ways,
He dazed the lot.
Crazed, ablaze – or not.  But hot,
He took a stand,
But didn’t seem to understand (and may not still)
That energy attracts a gangland:
Thinking not that crowds could form,
Become a throbbing, clobbering or bombing mob:
A swarming army.

Young we heard,
You can’t take back the caustic word
Once in the air it’s there!
So rather than lie down
Crowds gather,
Drawing to themselves an anger,
War uncivil,
Civil war
                  once more,
And monies that he’s vowed to earn
Will burn in costs for crowd control, police patrol.  

The day that Trump was voted in
May not, in fact become a win -
For reasons manifold and sundry.

The Day Trump Tr-i-ump-hed 11.11.2016
Our Times, Our Culture II: Special People, Special Occasions,
Arlene Corwin

Symptoms Of Development: After An Election

One would hope that thoughts,
Their hiddenness, their essence
Are transformed into behavioral
And verbal evidence.

Take the election on this day, two thousand sixteen;
Candidates with different pasts,
Different posts,
Different paths and values:
What they chose
And what they choose.

Flawed by dint of being human,
‘Being human’, having reason, character
That makes them what they are,
The symptoms gradual, invisible, but there,
And one so hopes that they, you, I,
All turn towards openness, transparency;
Truthfulness to one and every. i.e.
Growth through an infinity
Of ways,

Symptoms Of Development: After An Election 11.9.2016
Our Times, Our Culture II;
Arlene Corwin

Sitting here watching a science program about the next biggest telescope ever built.  To come out in 2018, it's called the James Webb telescope.  Reminded about a poem I wrote in 2001 called Mister Red Shift, when I was captivated by by the most distant light then available: the red shift.
And now we're planning to see even further.

            Mister Red Shift

The core relationship I have
Is with you, Mister Shift –
Mister Red beyond the skies
At heaven’s end,
Beyond the stars and galaxies,
The disembodied substances
Whose silence is a dearest friend,
And furthest, cosmic-nearest friend
Whose essence never shifts.

Mister Red Shift 6.5.2001
Circling Round Nature; Nature In & Of Reality; To The Child Mystic; Revelations Big & Small; Circling Round Science;
Arlene Corwin

Through Poetry I Try

Through poetry I try.
I try through poe-try
To throw some light,
Unscrambling actuality
Through beauty, teaching/
Beauty, reaching for reality -
Though trying not to sound banal,
Repeating thought through channeling
Words, phrases canned.
Traditions show themselves, of course.
I’ve no excuse,
No one to blame if you see through me, for
My passion is to waken focus, senses, balance,
Tolerance and breadth, aware
That all’s projection and interpretation;
Codes there to be broken through
To kernel truth
Long couched in years from youth
And long before.
Through poetry I try.
I try through poetry.

Through Poetry I Try 11.6.2016
The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Circling Round Reality;
Arlene Corwin

The Most Subtle of All: Intention

The start of neurological connection
And the start of action is: intention.  
To add a word and subtle too, is motivation.

Brain knows all.
Its protocol, a transfer at the speed of light,
A puzzle, riddle chased by all, and oh, a miracle
We take for granted all the while
We’re living: doing, with no thought as to intention,
How it comes about as action,
Never thinking that
We ought to, need to meditate -
Not change, but meditate,
Ask, state, repeat and watch.
Not speculate,
But be.  And do.  
And find out who
You are, may be,
And hopefully,
What your intentions are.

The Most Subtle Of All: Intention 11.2.2016
Circling Round Reality;’ Definitely Didactic;
Arlene Corwin

What Is Faith, Really?

The Pope is coming here today, ‘here’ being Sweden.
Sweden has around a hundred fifty thousand Catholics;
Loyal bricks
In a religion with its world mystique;
Jesus the pivot, One-theistic.
Kind of him.  Kind and broad-minded.
Plans to meet with not just Catholic,
But Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Lutheran -
A sojourn
Ecumenical.

So what is faith?
It’s expectation, trust, conviction, hopefulness and confidence
In something that can only just be sensed,
For instance,
If you’ve faith in money, you can touch the money,
But the green can never guarantee the thing,
The happiness that it will bring,
And for how long.

Imperceptible, invisible, an energy
With wish inbuilt;
A wish and hope.

I understand the atheist.
To him the whole unjust-ifiable and –fied;
Unwarranted:
He can’t believe in God.
But what he doesn’t understand
Is that he too has faith –
Perhaps in love, his father, mother, one
Or other institution:
Faith in something -
All of it a veiled mostly unnoticed hint;
A blended tint linking the man to one thing
Or another.

of course when I say man, I mean both, all and every gender.

What Is Faith, Really? 10.31.2016
Our Times, Our Culture II; To The Child Mystic II; God Book II;
Arlene Corwin

Cosmic Coordination

The moment of now can never come again,
Never to be repeated:
A double-sided coin -
Now and not.

To be used, it must be used for what it is –
An irreplaceable
To use up to the hilt;
An instant problem to be solved –
Just then.
A life improvisation.

As for influences,
You don’t need to take them,
You can give from what you are
For you are synchronized with universes -
Yes you are.

And so it is.

Cosmic Coordination 10.30.2016
Nature Of & In Reality;
Arlene Corwin

A Day Of Thinking or
This Is The Way My Brain May Work On Any Given Day

           Breakfast In Bed
No one in this world
Makes thinner toast,
Better toast, winner toast.
You do not boast.
How have you learned to slice
This near-transparent, indisputably crunchy piece of bliss!
What skill!  And modest too!
No one can make such toast as you.

                Going In To Thank
Going into different segments of the brain
I thank for life in any of the synapses.
Is there a gratitude partition
Or a separate, section - special one?
An all-inclusive?
I don’t always feel it – just today.
It probably will go away.
I hope it leaves a record.

          Late Afternoon
Deep, deep inside
I’m feeling tired of society.
It’s like, what I imagine to be
What they call depression.
It’s connected to reality; civilization.
There’s the problem -
It’s not me, it’s them!
I ought to put away the TV (I’ve no phone)
Things electronic, dailies, monthlies,
All things histrionic;
The destructive, scandalous and shocking;
All things not-to-be: illusory.
Noel Coward wrote “World Weary” –
A light, song for something serious.
Perhaps that’s it!
There still exist fall hues phantasmagorical:
Food tastes, sweet music, friends amusing, loyal,
Beauty, animals…and still I feel
Despite the goodness,
Deep, deep sadness at the mess.

A Day Of Thinking 10.28.2016
Circling Round Reality;
Arlene Corwin

The Tendency In All Of Us

There is a tendency in all of us
To be extreme: inherent and in situ;
Likely to appear when time is ripe.
The husband had a kidney stone.
He cut out spinach.
Not one leaf, one atom – that, despite its iron
Reached his lips, his tongue, his throat.
Because of its remote connection to a stone.

One can imagine what becomes of one
Whose tendency is greater than
The kidney man
Who soon or later,
Prone to act on notions
Which have conquered reason
Does.

The Tendency In All Of Us 10.25.2016
Nature Of & In Reality; Our Times, Our Culture II;
Arlene Corwin

Gerontology

Sitting in the car
Mulling over near and far,
There, and what is definitely here:

Youth cannot envision eighty-two.  
Doctors too. They cannot ‘feel’ eighty-two:
Your doctor, my…
So many symptoms pass them by.
‘Tis pity, for ‘tis I who suffer,
I, who faced with ebb and tide analyze,
Use the self through trial and t-error;
I, who ponder, for I must,
There being no one I dare trust -
(Except for deity unseen
Who has the charge of body mine)

Geron (Greek for old man) –ology (the study of)
Is what is needed, given that
The young can never feel out
Time’s dealing out.

Apprentice doctors in their prime
Should get to know the facts of age,
The pages, wages of real life,
For theory is theory
Until you get there by yourself.

With visits by appointment only,
This is the die that disappoints
(The lie that also disappoints) when I,
Life’s force in slow decline
Am looking for relief.

Gerontology 10.18.2016
Circling Round Aging;
Arlene Corwin

Non-Sequiturs – Or Are They?

Silly me!
Quelle luxury!
I turn the tap for water      
Hot!
Royalty not long ago
Did not, could not
Have had it better!
All that labor they went through
Just to get to water!
Then a tap of radiator
And the room is warm as toast.
If wanted, I could roast
A towel, but who’d want to?
Wow,
And swell!
Quelle luxury!

          Watching A Fly

Watching a fly.
Have I matured -
Grown more compassionate?
He walks around my empty plate
On nano- crumbs I’ve eaten/ate.
He looks so cute, endearing, pretty.
What the deuce is wrong with me?
Or right with me?
Is that what happens when one’s reached
Maturity?
Cool!

Non-Sequiturs 10.22.2016
A Sense Of The Ridiculous II;
Arlene Corwin

Watch The Mind

Watch the mind, it’s really quirky.
Let it go and watch it work,
For when you see what it creates
(I don’t see how ‘cause that’s a secret:
‘How’ and ‘why’ the hidden states),
You may discover what a neat trick
To stand back, let go and watch.
Letting go, a chance to ******
At fantasy creative:
Courage by encouragement.

Fantasy invents by fancy
Giving order to what’s left.
Creativity can steal from nature’s bank
And it’s not theft,
The dancing arts all mind expanding -
Honey way to jar the door
Of quintessential being -
Just by watching what goes on
And doing what needs to be done.

Watch The Mind 7.8.1994
The Processes: Creative. Thinking, Meditative; To The Child Mystic;
Arlene Corwin

(Yet Another) Portrait Of A Friend

I have a friend
Who has a perfect memory.
You might think it’s a perfect gift.
We have to sift through thoughts –
That is, you, I – but he,
He pictures everything,
Recalls it all: dates, times, the history
Complete.  What could be wrong
With knowing all the lyrics to each song
You hear?  
Draw near, I’ll tell you:

He retains the good and bad.
He’s filtered nothing. Think if you should
Shoulder all the woes of life?
The sad, the mad, the wars, the strife?
Besides the perfect recall,
He sees everything in black and white:
It’s either awe-inspiring or ****.
I’d guess it’s vexing
To remember each and every second
And, on top of which, to have opinions strong,
Be never wrong: one of his ‘strong’ opinions .
Plus, he takes offense, pretends indifference.
Yet, we’re friends.
I always yield, always bend.
You see, I am indifferent
And I’m charmed.

(Yet Another) Portrait Of A Friend 10.19.2016
Love Relationships II; Special People, Special Occasions; Small Stories Book;
Arlene Corwin

Gerontology

Sitting in the car
Mulling over near and far,
There
And what is definitely here:

Youth cannot ‘feel’ eighty-two.  Doctors too.
Your doctor, my…
So many symptoms pass them by.
‘Tis pity, for ‘tis
I who suffer, study,
Face to face with, analyze.
Use self through trial and t-error,
I who ponder, for I must,
There being no one I dare trust
(except for God unseen
who has the charge of body mine).
Nonetheless, geron (Greek for old man)
Plus –ology (the study of)
Is what is needed in our time,
Oxymoron though it sounds, and given that
The young can never feel out
Time’s dealing out,
Apprentice doctors in their prime
Should get to know the facts of age,
The pages, wages of real life,
For theory is theory,
A fact that disappoints me
Visit after visit,
Closeted by slow decline
When I am looking for relief.

Gerontology 10.18.2016
Circling Round Aging;
Arlene Corwin

I’ve Had Many Names

Arlene
Faith
Nover
Corwin,
Palmer,
Council,
Andersson:
All­
Syllables
Two
But the last
Which was the last,
Which is the last.

Still, one is fastened
To the first -
The very first
One got at birth.

Now that this life is all but over,
Though one might rove some twenty more,
(Ending in you-know-what,
Though you do not think about it)
Arlene Faith Nover,
Has had many names.

I’ve Had Many Names 10.16.2016
Pure Nakedness; Love Relationships II; Birth, Death & In Between II; Birthday Book;
Arlene Corwin

I was reading, by some fluke, a book that’s been sitting in the hall waiting to be given away to some charity or other.  On this day, I happened to pick it up on my way out to sit in the October sun.  The name: The Nobel Prize for Literature 1901-1983.  

It’s Always For Others To Interpret

Dylan’s won the Nobel Prize.
You write, you fall, you rise,
Or rise and fall
Pleasing none or all.
You’ve written self…part of…
Round themes of evil, good, dark shadows, love -
All universal;
That, despite the personal,
For I is always you is we
With never objectivity,
But always subjectivity,
Seeing what we need to see.

The ‘prize of prizes’ always questioned
While the choosers are sequestered, and
We never know their standard.

Be yourself!  That’s a command!
You’ll never will, unanimously,
Be a star (though shining brightly),
Idolized by all the masses
(Think of Jesus).

You can just write for self alone,
Not cloning some source you admire.
Others will attire you
With clothes of their imagining,
Projecting who and what they are.
Your star will always be you
Till you die and after.

It’s Always For Others To Interpret 10.14.2016
Special People, Special Occasions; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II;
Arlene Corwin

A Few Short Years Of Grace

Looking at my sagging face,
And thinking about what I saw –
The cheeks, eyelids and sagging jaw,
And postulating what would be
If I had plastic surgery
With what I’ve seen of movie stars,
The tight, creamed skin,
The scars without, the scars within
The thousands spent during and after,
Smoothed out skin deprived of laughter;

Then I see my sagging face,
Know that I’d have some years of grace
Before the sagging showed again.

Folk who know would shrug and say,
“She looks okay!”
Folk who do not know me:
When they meet me would accept me as I am
‘Cause frankly, they don’t give a ****!

What does some years of smooth-skinned grace
Mean to an aging face
That’s changing every second of each minute every day?
I cannot get away from that.  
I’ve tried to hide, slide, glide from aging, lesions, prides illusions.
In conclusion, and for reasons written;
Leaving out the surgery and thoughts of temporary beauty
This old jaw will have to be
Left as it is (a little disappointingly)
And as it is becoming.

A Few Short Years Of Grace 10.13.2016
Circling Round Aging; Circling Round Wrinkles; Circling Round Vanities II;
Arlene Corwin

Catch That Thought
  
Catch that thought.  It closes down.
Paul Tillich once said to my friend,
There are those thoughts that never come again.
I don’t agree.  Not wholly, but
Within the moment that flies by,
It vaporizes.  I,
A Pooh of Little Brain,
Not very focused  
Need to trap the moment
Or it’s gone, and I must wait
Until some friendly fate
Brings back the catalyst
That brought
The then-what-felt
World shaking thought
And write it down
Perhaps to get it out
Into a world I think about
Spontaneously.

Catch That Thought 10.12.2016
The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II;
Arlene Corwin

Reflection On A Self-Destruction

Gifts past belief,
Perfect pitch, honed technique,
Undoing self from morn till eve -
It grieves those who no longer seek him.
Sitting all the day,
A once sought artist,
Solo instrumentalist,
Never lifting up his *****,
With his all upon the telly,
Living on old memory,
One waits for a communiqué,
“Dead!” - from fears collected
Long self-neglected years,
Long self-rejected years
Laced with the chaos of self-based abuse.
[He was] once handsome-faced,
But hooked on spirits, wine and ciggies,
Thinking on the Long Ago,
Not letting go,
Years spent, tears spent,
Its ****** happening
As of this typing,
Lessons still unlearned.

Yiddish for buttocks
British informal term for television
cigarettes

A Reflection On Self-Destruction 10.6.2016
Small Stories Book;
Arlene Corwin

Bedfellows

One’s had friends in bed and foes in bed.
How do you tell the difference?
A friend can wait, showing no heat,
No urgency.
The friend acts with simplicity,
Intuitively taking in each movement:
Packing it away as knowledge.

Enemies may never learn.
Don’t know the game.
Full of sexuality,
But ***** if encouraged.  
Something’s missing in this bedfellow,
This fellow is a foe.
Soft, rough,
His bit of fluff will never feel enough.
In some way he’s the enemy.

The friend will stop when he intuits.
Never grouchy, even-tempered, ever civil,
Showing love in darling ways,  -
Almost asking for permission,
*** not the priority –
Except when it is, really.  
It is sweet and turns one on.

Friends in bed, and foes in bed -
The difference subtle.
Friends produce a long-term trust,
Long-term acceptance;
Enmity defined by just
Its opposite:
Relation that starts out with love
And loses it.

Bedfellows 11.6.2012/ discovered on a scrap 6.4.2014 and re-worked.
Love Relationships II; Circling Round Eros II;
Arlene Corwin

Another Boding Sign

The smultron* bush outside the door
Is still producing; a barometer.
Sweden in October;
Theoretically it should be over.
(not the month, but bush)  I wish
It could and would remain all winter,
But of course, it won’t
And shouldn’t.
Another sign
That all’s not fine –
But there it is!
And exclamation points galore
Can’t halt the boding danger.
It’s called climate change.
Let’s hope it isn’t primate change…and more.

*smultron; wild strawberry

Another Boding Sign 10.4.2016
Circling Round Nature II; Our Times, Our Culture II;
Arlene Corwin

November 8th, 2016

November eight; election date;
New president, old Arlene Faith
Who, on that date, doth celebrate
29,930 days, 718,320 hours since birth:
A non-elected eighty-two.                              
Who wants to vote for 82 or -3 or -4,
And doesn’t want to ask for more,
Four more…and more?
For nothing’s better
Than the pancake batter
That is life & breath & health & strength,
And solving unsolved human wrath:
Wars, filth, child-death with all
That forms the aftermath.
And where and what is soul and truth!

It must be synchronicity
That Trump and Hilary
(chump/champ) compete
The day old grumpy me
Heads into grumpy eighty-three,
Hurling memories unpleasant
Into green and pleasant pastures,
Saying anything that pleases
With the breezy ease of Sophocles,
Eighty-two can’t be all bad.

Eight, November: situations:
(Discord outside, inside nations)
Eight, November, compensations.

Are there ever real changes,
Or just temporary re-arrangements –
Everything no more than fad?

November 8th, 2016 10.2.2016
A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Our Times, Our Culture II; Birth, Death &n; Between II: Birthday Book II
Arlene Corwin

It Could Happen To You And Probably Has

Step one:
You meet or met;
The Internet.
Not  long ago.
You from somewhere in Kokomo, (that’s Indiana),
Or in Goa, India.
Or goodness knows - it happened anyhow.
Warmth turned to passion,
Fashioned from that crossing passage
Into one another’s lives.
Pair-tners waxing like the moon.

Step two:
The snoring, interruptions,
Mannerisms, quirks, needs, those discussions,
Frame of mind.
You find
Its whole attire tiring.
Time scale of no import,
Both or one
Work out, discover, come to grips :
Passion gone,
And too, the pair-tnership.

Step three:
You fire him or her,
Or he or she fires you
From love that turned into a job.
Although you sob you’ve not been robbed.
It’s fair to say
And not deride
The faults, blemishes on either side,
For condemnation’s not the way.
The plot and play’s scenario
Are all too
Recognizable.

It Could Happen To You And Probably Has 9.26.2016
Love Relationships II;
Arlene Corwin

The Book

It’s something to put out into the world,
And maybe everyone should do it.
Well, not everyone would do it,
But at least one book is in us all.
Oh, yes,
We all have one book in us.,
Thoughts at bottom ageless,
Basic, universal,
Willing reading level
Out there
Somewhere.
All that is required is –
And there’s the catch:
Stamina, stick-to-it-ness and ready cash.
That said,
It is no guarantee of being read.
The bonuses are breakthroughs,
Insights into self and style,
Inner jokes that make you smile,
Self distance
And, God willing, fans.
Yes,
Something to put out into the world;
To dare and do with flag unfurled
At least just once.


The Book 9.22.2016
The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II;
Arlene Corwin

Can’t Keep Up

Overwhelmed, well nigh.
Stuck, in any case.
Habit, certainly;
Dependency, it’s possible.
Too cowardly to hit delete, unsubscribe,
Headline drawing, leading,
Wooing into worlds of guidance -
There I am,
Adding one more site,
Email list so long
I’m sensing danger.

Yet, and yet,
I’m in the pit of knowledge, help;
Seduced
By eagerness and curiosity,
Induced, I click.
I fall,
A toy so miniscule,
I’m putty in their hands.

Motives suspect, motives pure - it’s in our times.
Motives all - natural.
But how can I create
When time is drained?
Promoting’s pace accelerating,
I’m just me, a Pooh of little brain.
It sounds so negative, but then
It’s all a double-sided coin.

Can’t Keep Up 2.24.2016
Out Times, Our Culture II; Definitely Didactic;
Arlene Corwin

Thinking About …Jealousy

I don’t sense envy in me -
But sense jealousy
Given the right (or always wrong) occasion
Why?
The past disloyalties?
A guilt? The lies?
A deep and hidden narcissism?
Is it them that I surmise?

A sickly need to own –
To call someone my own
When I, in fact have known
That no one, nothing is my own?

Does it begin in fantasy?
One asks the question
Wherefrom, why from
Comes that special gallery
Of idle fancy?

If the simile is ‘green’ with envy,
What then color jealousy?
Red, brown, orange, pink or blue?
Perhaps there is no hue
In color’s range
To chronicle that landscape and its danger!

Thus adding one more deadly sin
To slot into the other seven:
Is it…could they be akin
To chilling, killing, love destroying jealousy?

Thinking About…Jealousy 9.18.2016
Pure Nakedness;
Arlene Corwin

Ambitious People


The author:

Unfulfilled,

Reaching,

Stretching,

Ninety-thousand words the goal.



The singer:

Memorize,

Expand the range,

Prepare and train,

An entertaining, pleasant presence

Liking for the audience.



The painter and photographer:

Eyes that see,

Composition, color shades,

Nuances of every grade.



Who is important -

What and who’s

Significant to only you.



The lawyer, doctor, engineer,

The lab technician, cook, and waiter,

Business man, entrepreneur:



And all:

What’s honest, ethical,

What’s brave and bold,

What’s true for you

And what you think will hold

Forever.

Even when you know it won’t.



Ambitious People 6.4.2016

Our Times, Our Culture II;

Arlene Corwin

Sitting Up In Bed Building A Career

A million do it everyday:
In every posture and position,
Hour of day or night,
Town, city, country, state;
Of any age or mental stage,
Staring at a screen –
A mini- seven inch
Or fifty-seven inch,
Tapping with the fingers of a four year old,
Or ten, or thirty, even eighty five and cold -
Lives learning, lives for earning, and for
Building a career - folk world around
Looking for their dharma
As the proper way to use their karma,
Finding out just who they are
And what will make them gratified,
Glad, and at ease and peace.

Right now, I’m sitting up in bed
Enjoying writing like a cow chewing the cud,
As well one does
When taking pleasure in the word.

Sitting Up In Bed Building A Career 9.12.2016
Our Times, Our Culture II;
Arlene Corwin

Still 9/11

Still 9/11
With not seven minutes more to go
Before it turns to twelve
When I cease staring at my conscience,
And stop being conscious
Of the shameful tragedy,
The change of policy and policies
That had the tendency
To police our activities
And make, have made, are making us suspicious
Of a world become malicious
As we go from trust to mistrust
‘Cause we think we must.
You must agree,
THAT is the tragedy!


Still 9/11 9.11.2016
Our Times, Our Culture II;
Arlene Corwin

The Trick Is To Stay Fresh

I heard a band four decades old.
“Good God, I thought, what a good band!”
How do they do it? Forty years?
What do they think night after night
When each man steps up to the stand –
Night after night his horn in hand,
Old licks, clichés
Takes his solos even on the days
His wife is sick?
And still they’re slick and stick it out
Night after night, year after year,
Internal tensions always there.
It must be like a factory job,
To entertain the drinking mob.
Or maybe not.
Maybe jobs have been a ball,
A chance to leave four walls,
Create, maintain a freshness,
Make some music on the spot,
Feelings tapped, without pretence;
Spontaneous, and proud of what
The dents he’s chalked up on his horn
All signify.
Perhaps, instead of blasé scorn
He manages to like the crowd –
The drunks, the dancers raw and loud.
Maybe the leader has charisma -
Makes each guy feel that he’s good;
Shows respect for solos
Drummer, sax or trumpet blows;
Drumming, blasting, bellowing.
By hook or crook, the trick’s eternal:
Keep the kernel of renewal growing,
Tapped and showing;
Ever crowing.
The trick is to stay fresh.

The Trick Is To Stay Fresh 11.30.1994
Vaguely About Music; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative;
Arlene Corwin

Each On His Level

They say it all –
Each on his level
To his level.
Coming out each second -
Truths
To ears and eyes
Meant for/attracted to…

Exactly right
For the occasion,
Creatures ready find themselves
There listening, hearing, doing
At their level
Drawn to taste
By not one wasted atom.

Laws in action
Never ceasing,
Always acting,
Causing acting,
Causing end without a single motor.

It on every level
Reaching those who listen out of needs
Wholly intangible.

Prophets must be the most boring
In the world,
Pushing forward,
Never knowing when to stop.

Then, according to the law
We’re prophets all – to someone.

Each On His Level 5.19.2007
Nature of & In Reality; Definitely Didactic; To The Child Mystic;
Arlene Corwin

Older By The Minute  

In print,
In ink,
In body’s wrinkle              
Every atom – infinite in movement,
Older by the minute but for dogged re-arrangement,
Fortune’s plight and luck indefinite.

What then, then what?  
Some permanence within,
In atoms’ never ending movement?
Some emergent state
To start the thing all over;
Aging once again, but to initiate
Each minute-varied-minute?
Pin your hopes on it.
Monarchs, minions
And some other millions
Do.

Older By The Minute 11.8.2015/revised 9.7.2016
Circling Round Aging; Birth, Death & In Between II; Circling Round Time II; Circling Round Reality;
Arlene Corwin

Worth seeing if only for the startling, sometimes shocking but perfect illustrations!
http://duanespoetree.blogspot.se/search/label/Arlene%20Corwin

Do You Feel Loved?

It may be the essential – feeling loved:
The need that breeds endeavor.
Genes count, nature/nurture too,
Of course they do.  
But you?
How are you shaped on other fronts?
On every inner front that counts?

Upward-striving, brave, risk-taking?
Anti- any thought of faking?
Thin-skinned, concrete or faith based?
Seeing all as interfaced?

There is no shield to life or love,
Each quality a chance, an option;
Course of action,
Possibility if let.

Meeting, greeting all you get,
And every action a solution;
Taking love, rebuff – it all,
Direction never faltering.

In each action there exists
A universe of rules to choose from.
You suffused with
Feelings of
Concern and tenderness and feeling love(d).

Do You Feel Loved?  9.3.2016
I Is Always You Is We;
Arlene Corwin

Last Of The Season

So trifling –
Going out and berry-picking.
Then at once your eyes pick out
What mind does not.
Fruits few, and you’ve
A doubled effort,
Legs now filled with lactic acid
For the berries are so separate, so far apart
And so far spread that you’ve a stretch
To pick one cluster
And an equal mental strength
To muster.

Berries big but water-filled,
You fill your pail with ease and skill
Glad that you own much ground
And have such land to walk around.
You know that you have filed your last
Holes, hills and hindrances regardless.

Stumbling – but it’s spongy,
Falling – but it’s mossy,
You’ve succeeded,
Your success half-litered and not needed;
You’ve already liters lidded.

Temperature about to drop
Already showing signs of dipping,
Wind is up
And there is no conclusive feeling;
Berries that are season’s last!

You hope you’ll be alive and kicking
Next year when it’s time for picking,
Now that picking time seems past.

Last Of The Season 9.2.2016
Circling Round Nature II; Birth, Death & In Between II;
Arlene Corwin

The Land Of Make Believe

The land of make believe
Is all around and we’re ****** in.
TV, films, vampire and villain –
We are sold and they’ve got hold;
Female and male, young and old.

Our dreams are mares of night and fright
And flight we cannot take.
The make believe tears at our inners,
Thoughts and feelings not expressed
Confirming our worst fears.

No rhyme or meter,
Beat or pulse can make it better.
Make believe cannot relieve
The state of jitters fettered by
Illusion.

The Land Of Make Believe 9.1.2016
Our Times, Our Culture II;
Arlene Corwin

On Meditation

A gateway to the brain,
Doorway to You,
You and your brain in essence one:
Encephalon: a part to focus on
And concentrate.
This only a suggestee-on,
You and your brain halves one.

He said, “Me and [my] God are one”
(a paraphrase, a rendering)
What did he mean?
What could he mean?

The only you is body/brain.
Ergo, a god in origin.
Not easy to experience when
You’re the type
Who needs the hype of separation.  Then
It’s near impossible, and certainly hard work to think on
You and God as being one.

That said, it’s worthwhile and rewarding
To initiate, train, and pursue
A life of meditation
For its sake alone.

On Meditation 9.1.2016
The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II;
Arlene Corwin

The Way of Things

Things start out simple, plain,
Get more complex.
All things start out minus blame,
Get more corrupt:
[It is] the way of things.

Non-beings, beings,
Gases, minerals, to stones
To seas become-an-earth
With complex life forms:

Trilobite,
Shells carbonate and calcium;
The oldest animal
That swam, then crawled,
That walked, then talked → become-the-us!

Take note and make a list:
Life, rocks so meshed, entwisted
They transformed the whole: this planet.
**** to hut to trade and product;
Industry and change of climate
(As we’re doing now, this minute)

Down to up and down again!
A long way either way. But then,
It is the way of things.

The Way Of Things 8.29.2016
Our Times, Our Culture II; Nature Of & In Reality;
Arlene Corwin

And The World Gets Through Its Day

And the world goes on without me.
And the world gets through its day.
And you never start a sentence with an‘and’.
As I contemplate the boil on my gum,
The germ that could remove me in a night,
I take offense, collected sum
Of steam a dissipating stream
Which no one would so much as modify
One nano-second’s schedule for.
Earth without an Arlene in it
Without one self-adjusted minute.
Ants don’t change their habit-dance
Corroborating colleague ants
Who pass away, heads bitten off.
Gigantic are the forces
Pushing onward, forward,
Only nodding towards mortality.
This very day
My childhood friend rings up to say
His chemo- has been discontinued – insufficient.
Chemicals were not enough.
Stupid crab has gotten tougher,
Shifting upwards towards the head.
And the world gets through its day.
And the world goes on without one.
And you never start a sentence with an ‘and’.

And The World Gets Through Its Day 10.20.2006 (a little addition line 11 8.30.2016)
A Sense Of The Ridiculous; Birth, Death & In Between; Nature In & Of Reality;
Arlene Corwin

Never Finished – Always On The Way

How can anything
Be ever finished?
In its way nonsensical
That nothing’s final;
Always subject to revision, change.
You-name-it:
Habit concrete, thought abstract -
Changed and changing;
Going on, evolving, processed.
Discontented and/or vexed:
A sign that’s fixed:
You’re moving on, non-judge-
                                 or sentiment-al.
Flexibly,
You willingly
Go with it.
(As they say, ‘the flow’).
Your poems your art, your language too.

Throughout your days,
Through all your years -
And losing fears you stay refreshed
Because you know you ne’er diminish,
Always sure you will replenish, be replenished.
Squeamish never,
Deeds and exploits never finished,
Still you end this life light-hearted,
Satisfied and fully furnished,
That too, no doubt, never finished.

Never Finished – Always On The Way 8.28.2016
Definitely Didactic; Birth, Death & In Between II;
Arlene Corwin

Yoga, James Bond & The Bad Guys

Sitting on the floor
Watching James bond overpower foes.
A complicated character with
A subtle ethic, ice-chilled wrath –
Most of all, a yogic path
Of duty and detachment;
Yogic while the villain,
Mega-bombs his own routinely -
Ligaments and muscles blown,
Royal houses overthrown!
And yet we have so much in common.

Villain cool, detached but mean,
Followers his **** machine.
Bond the Lancelot,
Jaw-dropping stunts his lot,
Fencing, boxing, crashing cars;
Fights and scars his calling cards –
And when in need of surgery
He heals quickly.

Evil lurks, Bond never shirks, and still
His life is filled with perks:
Hotel suites, girls en suite,
Dry martinis, Aston Martins (note the plural)
Sure of all
And unequivocal
Bond’s megastar, ideal and idol.

This poet rather fond of Bond,
Both yogis of a different kind:
He the running, driving soldier,
I, the yogi on the floor,
Each connected to a power.
Grinding skills the Bond-dynamic,
Mine the tranquil skill-iambic.

I give in to un-excitement’s
Ordinary daily yoga;
Bond the knight with right to ****
(Nice guy James with license, aimed at
Ordinary evil ogres -
There you see the box of riddles:
Bond the paradox in middle
Fighting off the oh, so evil bad guys!


Yoga, James Bond & The Bad Guys 2.10.2015/revised 8.28.2016
Circling Round Yoga II; A Sense Of The Ridiculous II;
Arlene Corwin

Gardening The Forest:  A Work In Progress


I garden the forest.

Walking everywhere – like Johnny Appleseed –

I keep my excellent Swedish clippers at my side,

And when I eye a roadside tree

With branch too low, so’s I can see,

I make the lower branches go,

Prune and clear selectively,

Clip high as I can reach,

Which,

Being five foot one

And using muscle of the female kind,

Is always kind to undergrowth,

Seduced by ‘further’,

Blazing paths that never were,

So light can filter through.

It wants for sun. It makes for light.

The woods and I are one;

But I can’t tell a soul.

Wandering on until de-celeration

Starts to take me over,

Signs I’ve learned to recognize

When fervor starts to waver

And observer me says “Rest!”


Works in progress never cease.

It is a forest,

After all.

Work In Progress: Gardening The Forest 11.28.2006 revised 1.18.2014/again 4.20.2015

Circling Round Nature; Circling Round Nature II:

Trying Out Ideas In Form
          
Accepting some, rejecting others
You think thoughts (of course, what else?)
With mind that thinks in rhyme,
That sings internally in pulse or meter,
With the trying out idea
In one shape, length or other form,
A form poetic, form its norm.

It cannot help it,  choosing not to,
Its intrinsic motto “Write!” into
The dead of night, the morning’s bait,
Some inward freight shipped in by nature,
Makes it make ideas clear – and that alone on matt blank paper.
Talking dissipates in air
While written piece is always there,
If only to be found in some museum cellar
Two damp hundred dry years later,
Made mature
By simile and metaphor-become-reality,
Affecting mankind’s then and future
Through the slow, low burn of poetry.

Trying Out Ideas In Form 8.15.2016
The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II;
Arlene Corwin

Trying Out Ideas In Form
          
Accepting some, rejecting others
You think thoughts (of course, what else?)
With mind that thinks in rhyme,
That sings internally in pulse or meter,
With the trying out idea
In one shape, length or other form,
A form poetic, form its norm.

It cannot help it,  choosing not to,
Its intrinsic motto “Write!” into
The dead of night, the morning’s bait,
Some inward freight shipped in by nature,
Makes it make ideas clear – and that alone on matt blank paper.
Talking dissipates in air
While written piece is always there,
If only to be found in some museum cellar
Two damp hundred dry years later,
Made mature
By simile and metaphor-become-reality,
Affecting mankind’s then and future
Through the slow, low burn of poetry.

Trying Out Ideas In Form 8.15.2016
The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II;
Arlene Corwin

Was Wordsworth worth his words
When first I read the Ode To Immortality,
Heard from his inner being?
I, whose custom is to call a ***** a *****,
Dare say the word ‘mortality’
For it is death I sense, come closer daily.
Yet we have a bond, Wordsworth and I,
For hopeful of a kernel die
That cannot die,
But timeless, never was
And is always,
I wish to look on heart that’s inner,
Atoms of the saint and sinner
Coming back re-formed and re-acquiring
Shape and name:
A game of soul rebirth eternal,
Hints of strange foreverness –
Its paradox forever mortal,
Yet immortal.

Playing With Your Self

One’s mantra ought to be,
‘No people, things; no things, no people’;(italics)
Energy that’s wasted swishing
Thoughts around illusionary realms
That kindle wish and drive desires
Rooted in the mind, and of the kind
That should be cast into a fire -
Wish/desire that sways, that leads astray.

You ask, “What’s left when one’s bereft
Of thoughts of things and world?”
Two words:
Your self(italics), its traits.
All other thoughts flung out to space,
Mind’s tissue
Focused on the one essential issue: you(italic),
You!(italic) To face the real deal you(italic)
To play with self’s true
                                       nature.
So remember,
Slow eradication of the need to talk,
Think worldly thought
Is to awaken from the slumber
Of illusion’s juggernaut.

Playing With Your Self 8.19.2016
Circling Round Reality; Circling Round Yoga II; to The Child Mystic II;
Arlene Corwin