My Dear Friend: A Response To

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

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

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

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

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

Inner Gifts & Tendencies

We’ve all got ‘em:
Inner gifts and tendencies.
Some are light, some are dark ,
Intelligent and not so smart;
Weaker, stronger,
Showing up or taking longer to appear -
But always there.
What’s the answer?

“Know thyself “, said Sun Zi, Plato, Socrates -
Maxims of philosophers, through history.
Each and every day that goes -
Let it flow.  
It will show what you are made of:
Opposites, like distaste, love…

When asked what he had gained in meditating,
Buddha gave the answer, saying:
“I gained nothing, but I lost the fear of failing, losing, dying…
Fears that keep us shying far away
From knowing who and what we are.
So find your star!
There is no other, better answer.

You’ve got gifts that no one has.
Writing, drawing, farming, selling,
Running, cooking, fortune-telling -
All that jazz and razzmatazz!
Find the ones that ease and please:
Those inner gifts and tendencies.
Inner Gifts & Tendencies 3.10.2021 Pure Nakedness II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Words Are ‘In’

When I was young I lacked the means
To speak my thoughts, ideas or longings.
(though aware of rights and gladnesses and wrongings).
I lacked words: shades of utterance and indication.
Reactions, yes, linguistic thinking - I think not.

Around the age of twenty,
University degree behind me,
Marriage, baby,
Books, experience exposures new,
Movements calling for articulation:
Music, writing, word expression:
Understanding! Wow!  
A very non-linguistic Wow!

Now it’s now
And I expect, respect
Each precious aspect
Only word contains;
Retains through thick and thin.
Words are ‘in’.
Words Are’In’ 3.9.2021 The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Planet Tellus
(to be continued – always)

With principles and measurements,
Apportioned out by nature’s senses,
Balanced and divided, its intent
To boost and serve,
Its animating force give verve
To planet X we know as Earth
Its birth, its ageing, death and worth.

Planet Tellus, Tellus Mater
Molten iron at its core;
Years in zillions boring
Toward a multi-verse of multi-stars
Solar systems, massive quasars.
All around, exo-planets not yet found,
Members of their own sun’s orbit,
Grasp of numbers too profound
(Which we speculate’s four thousand.
Doubtless, forty-thousand more).
Super telescopes
That probe with mirrored hope,
Piercing the sky-filled stuff:
The gaseous dusts that fluff the ‘skies’ –
(‘sky’ a word to pluralise)

Celestial bodies shoot, reboot
With loyalty to nature’s rules,
Its seen effects, its unseen cause.
Mysterious black & floor-less holes
Imploding and devouring…
Scouring ageing, failing stars for flaws.
Gallant planets Them and Us:
Existence by persistence!
Persistence for existence!
PS:
I’ve a theory:
Black holes open endlessly
To start a new infinity –
(Oxymoron- ic-ally).

Planet TellUs 1.6.2021 Circling Round Reality; Nature Of & In Reality; Circling Round Nature II;
*Mother Earth

Hallelujah For The Older Woman

Hallelujah for the older woman,
She’s a prize for the world to see.
Hallelujah older women!
Age spots, wrinkles – deeply lovely!
Sure, there may be much to cure –
She has the cure.
Gone the ****** appetites,
Luring hormones God ignites,
Tiring drives the world invites.
The cosmos is her paramour.

No more of this world - just in it
And the world a thing - her plaything;
Something only age can bring,
Minute by each ageing minute.

Hallelujah For The Older Woman12.15.1999revised 3.4.2021 Circling RoundWomanII; Circling Round Ageing;Arlene Nover Corwin

Make Jazz!

When I perform I don’t get nervous,
But regard the audience
As friends;
That even if I fall off the piano stool,
I can get up, or play the fool,
Start again, begin
And no one there will lose their patience;
That a fault, mistake,
With note that’s flat, forgotten lyric,
May well be misunderstood.
But hey, I’m good!
I’m talented, I sing, I swing,
And I’m a giver!
Just as dust will always gather
On a mirror,
So too,
I, we, you
Will go wrong sometime in our song.
Therefore, it’s wise
To learn to improvise
And make the day
A chance to play.
In other words, make jazz!

Make Jazz! 3.3.2021 Vaguely About Music II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Sublime But Subtle

Truths that seem most obvious,
Like being kind and generous
Are more demanding than you’d think: androgynous
As any double sided thing can be.
The most divine suggestions
Simplest in theory, hardest to employ.
Virtues and their energy:
Goodness as integrity, nobility and purity -
So easy to define, the list goes on
With honesty of spirit the essential function.

‘Sublimity’ means such a high degree of excellence
It cannot be surpassed,
The question being, how does one
Get the sublime once reached, to last?
Or how does one identify sublimity at all?
How not be a puppet at another being’s call?
Lies and infidelity, intrigue, hanky-panky:
Also easy to define and place
But signs as veiled and as delicate as lace.

Life’s facets, their intentions subtle, fragile, clever:
Truths which often sidestep mind of doer and observer.
The question of existence
Boils down to more than happiness -
Its happenings confused in ways,
With no advice but laws whose source
Is cause/effect, pauses that pass on
To more and more of same.
“so subtle are the signs”,
“so subtle are the signs” - Corwin:To The Child Mystic 2010  Arlene Corwin

Sublime But Subtle 2.28.2021 Circling Round Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin

Involved in Self

No one is more involved in self than
Self, for self is everyman  
And every self a constancy,
The constancy ubiquitous.
Once you have a grasp of this  
And use it thus,
You know all that there is to know
About this large and growing human race.

Some dispute the truth that is.
Ergo, the key — one of the keys
Is letting go the ego to please
Ego’s needs,
Which ego feeds self-interest,
(Not always the best of interests.)  
Nonetheless,  
No one is more concerned with self
Than self - oneself.
If one can land in understanding
By the  broadest of acceptances,  
One’s earned and learned the keys
To standing inside happiness
Outside of loneliness.

Involved In Self 2.27.2021 Circling Round  Experience; Pure Nakedness II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Universe’s Interplay

How I love, wondering about
And pondering over
All the interplay and how
                           it happens —
That it happens overall!
“Over all”… short words
Encompassing the worlds all over.

Startling, terrifying;
All about life forms & dying  
But awakening enquiry as well.
Awe is that.
Hence, the suffix -some and -ful.

When something takes your breath away -
So stunning and spectacular
You cannot get a sound out —
When something is phenomenal,
Its primal rhyme the word ‘sublime’,
Its sight suggestive of cohesiveness
The prefix aw-
Becomes and Aww!

One plays with “interplay”;
The way in which things have effect
On each and other.
Maybe Hubble will, one day
See magic cables able to connect it all;
Strings and cords that lead
Where all is joined in one big ball
Of energy, so powerful but small
It is invisible.

Universe’s Interplay 2.27.2021 Nature Of & In Reality; Circling Round Nature II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Everyone Must Do What They Were Born To Do

Everyone must do what they were born to do,
Obeying inner tendencies.
Laws of good and bad in mind,
The chore will always be
To go beneath the impulse
To beyond the false
To true —
Perhaps the new
Inside of you.

The doctor who
Was born to be a farmer,
Who through courses of
Bad choices
Chooses what he does not love
Will always feel dissatisfied
And not know why.

Vocation notwithstanding,
Rules of karma and pure luck,
Without the will to chuck the choice,
The small, small voice that tells you
Who and what you love to do — well, you
Had better listen.
The essential you lies there.

Everyone Must Do What They Were Born To Do 2.25.2021 Revelations Big & Small Arlene Nover Corwin

Today I Was Accused…

Today I was accused
Of using too much rhyme;

Of bruising Keats and Shelley…

Is it that my rhymes are smelly - 

Pressed by some unconscious vanity?

Straightforwardly the way I think,
My rhyme in sync-
With evolution and enlargement of unformed idea,
My rhyme an incubus
In *******
With lover genius?
Nover’s genie?

Taking no offense
I had no other license,
Than to search my mind,
Which is like using wind
To cook a meal.

All that I want’s the real deal.
With rhyme my not-so-secret weapon,
One I lean on,
So be it!
There’’ll be no rhyme cremation
Of this norm and form creation.

Today I Was Accused…11.15.2019/revised 2.24.2021 The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative; Arlene Nover Corwin

Function of rhyming words:  I don’t remember where I read this, but I surely read it somewhere and took the thought to heart.

“Rhyme partly seems to be enjoyed simply as a repeating pattern that is pleasant to hear. It also serves as a powerful mnemonic device, facilitating memorization. The regular use of tail rhyme helps to mark off the ends of lines, thus clarifying the metrical structure for the listener. As with other poetic techniques, poets use it to suit their own purposes; for example William Shakespeare often used a rhyming couplet to mark off the end of a scene in a play.”

Can It Be?

Can it be
That when you die
Your atoms go into eternity,
Come back collectively,
Attracted by
A law of magnetism and attraction -
A cycle and a miracle;
After all,
They’ve always been
A You since time began.

Can It Be? 2.24.2021Nature Of & In Reality; Circling Round Reality; Birth, Death & In Between III; Arlene Nover Corwin

The things I wonder about are things I write about.  The things I write about I wind up by exploring, for one does not know how much one knows until one starts to write.

              Ambition

I’m never certain
How I feel about ambition.
I suspect a ‘pro and con’
Existing one inside the other;

A doubtful aim,
Passive as a dream that may be
Based on what’s illusory.
Or like a hurricane
That drives though friendships, kith and kin -
Anything that blocks the way
To his or her supremacy.

A triumph or a trump?
Does it falsify what ought to be
In inner you and inner me:
Peaceful and in harmony?

Ambition’s song feels somehow wrong;
The canvas of acceptance torn.
One's always read
One should be lead
By what goes on right now;
The loving of the here and now
The road that leads where you should go.

Ambition spends its time on what can be;
Wasted energies too in a rush
To reach objectives preached eons long gone
Standing  for patience, modesty and reason.
I’m not certain how I feel about ambition.

Ambition 2.23.2021 Circling Round Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin
  
.trump: a verb which means: outshine, outclass, eclipse, surpass, leave standing, concoct, fake, falsify…”
2..ambition: “from the Latin/French ‘ambire’ to go round soliciting, drumming up…A

You may have to use a dictionary for this one.
      
                Word

What is the word?
Sound, vocalisation to be read,
Seen, heard;
Give meaning to intention?
One might guess
The first invention of creation
Carried forth - an innovation
Was the utterance of word -
Coming from a throat.
To ask, command, demand, emote
Shades of devotion;
No threat of drought or running out,
Expressing in the subtlest ways -
Revealing hidden selves from what
We think we are to what we are
In psyche’s inmost core;
Things sure of and unsure
That may, may not be posturing.
The word is there!
To gird up courage, bind the herd
Of common folk to common world.

If anything can be called sacred;
Venerated and respected,
Even purified and cleansed
By honesty in its intention
It is word; the word;
Well meant and tied
To goodness, curiosity and knowledge.

Word 2.21.2021 Definitely Didactic II;The Processes:Creative,Thinking,Meditative II; arlene Nover Corwin

Sometimes it’s better to look at a writing years after.

     Holding On To Empty Spaces

This body is a scandal.
Hidden clocks we cannot handle:
Agings, dyings out;
Impossible to rise above.
Easy prey for ego-love;
Body, with its rotting ways,
Craving undue notice.

Power-loving beast of burden
Following illusion’s burgeons,
Chasing visions leading nowhere
But to temporary shelters:
Time’s ordeal the ‘real deal’.

Sweltering in breathing shells
That lose their health and too soon fall
From superficial aim & goal
And shrugging off the inner graces,
Chasing after outer-places:
Holding on to empty spaces.

Holding On To Empty Spaces 10.30.2003Birth, Death & In Between; Circling Round Time;
Re-composed 2.20.2021  Circling Round Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin

It Never Lasts

TV ad:
A girl with gorgeous legs
Steps from a gorgeous car,
The gorgeous car the star.

The gorgeous car will rust one day;
The gorgeous leg change, decay,
The shifting muscles waste away.
It never lasts.
The leg, the car.
The gorgeous things we long for.

But bad things too -
They go also, so
Don’t despair.
The hair that falls from top of head
Will start to sprout from parts instead.
The rusty car - the modern-est
Will sadly or indifferently turn into rust,
Crushed, turned into plate,
To use, become a roller-skate.
Jaguar, Rolls, Mercedes Benz,
Converted, crushed, a concentrate
Become the answer to a cancer.

Nothing lasts.  It simply changes
As each atoms strangely dances  
To a different tune.
Loony as it sounds,
To quote a song I’ve often sung,
“It all goes round and round.”

It Never Lasts 2.19.2021A Sense Of The Ridiculous; Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Finger-less Or Finger-free

I’ve met those I’ve called talentless,
Who, with light irony,
I now call talent-free.
Now me?  
Not finger-less but finger-free:
Adaptability
Manifestly
               evident.

Big chords are out,
Arpeggios too.
Monk-like bass and base lines do.
Accompanied by vocal runs of dissonance
And lyricism: touching, new.

Then there are the household duties:
Kitchen, bath- and bedroom -
All rooms needing tending to;
Ways to brush, cut, ***** a cap:
Just plain old *****.

New talents, yessiree,
For those who may be
Talent-free, or finger-free,
The likes of mastering potentiality
That leave us free.

Finger-less Or Finger-free 2.17.2021 Nature Of & In Reality; Vaguely About Music II; Pure Nakedness II;Arlene Nover Corwin

Whenever I have nothing To write about, but feel that I’m playing hooky if I write nothing - skulking, as it were, I often write about nature.  In my bed, surrounded by forest, birds who have established their lives in the  insulation under the rooftop and above all windows, I lay there and watched the thick, fine snow floating mindlessly, windlessly  down.  Voila, a title!  Now to find content:

      It’s Snowing Gently, But A Lot

It’s snowing gently
But a lot.
Persistently and softly.
Is that not a metaphor
For …something…
An insistence
Whose importance
I can’t know but sense.

It’s the gentleness that strikes me:
A force that doesn’t force, but is.
An element and facet
And an aspect of behaviour
That could be a saviour
To a person’s happiness
And peace of mind.

The thing or things get done
Looking like fun
But with an impact on all things around.

An almost silent path
With not a sound of wrath,
But just a bath of H20
We’re calling snow,
Knowing that the whole will go in time.

I guess I’ve found my metaphor in rhyme.
It’s snowing,
But while snowing going.  
If that’s not an emblem
Of life’s semblance
And a trope
For spirit’s power and hope,
I don’t know what is.

It’s Snowing Gently, But a Lot 2.17.2021 Circling Round NatureII; Nature In & Of Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin

It’s Snowing Gently, But A Lot

It’s snowing gently
But a lot.
Persistently and softly.
Is that not a metaphor
For …something…
An insistence
Whose importance
I can’t know but sense.

It’s the gentleness that strikes me:
A force that doesn’t force, but is.
An element and facet
And an aspect of behaviour
That could be a saviour
To a person’s happiness
And peace of mind.

The thing or things get done
Looking like fun
But with an impact on all things around.

An almost silent path
With not a sound of wrath,
But just a bath of H20
We’re calling snow,
Knowing that the whole will go in time.

I guess I’ve found my metaphor in rhyme.
It’s snowing,
But while snowing going.  
If that’s not an emblem
Of life’s semblance
And a trope
For spirit’s power and hope,
I don’t know what is.

It’s Snowing Gently, But a Lot 2.17.2021 Circling Round NatureII; Nature In & Of Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin

Becoming Braver

Turning thought to poetry,
Trusting that it’s worth conveying;
Turning impulse into input;
Turning input into form.
Becoming braver as your norm
Is to be distanced from result:
The very meaning of release;
Of taking on the difficult;
Of being an adult.

Becoming braver does not mean
To throw all caution to the wind.
You still must care.
It means ‘to dare,
Guided by inherent gifts,
Its freedom sifting through
The need for house, home, life: just you -
Risk-takers oft-times gone adrift!

That said, one can come back:
The failed business, loss, love’s bed -
But simple things: a recipe, a book,
Shifting round the furniture to freshen up the look,
Unhesitant and unafraid
Of testing, trying and applying;
You will still have faults.
There in the vaults of gene ad cell,
Heredity, the ancestry, the body shape, the temperament;
Activity, passivity,
The tendencies to act and be,
To always have;
They never leave.

What you have as genesis - your pre-born base,
Becoming braver can’t erase,
With not have a need to hate or praise;
But you can weather, persevere,
Develop better, actions freer:
That is you, unfettered, braver.  

Becoming Braver 2.16.2021 Nature Of & In Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin

The Striving After Truth

I always strive for truth in verse,
Seldom using or ab-using license
Granted to us poets:
Metered rhyme half of the time,
Essences of substance:
Those are  one key.
Non-superficiality, honesty,
Non-weirdness in the here-ness.,
Nearness to the self its pelf:
All these are in the processes.

Striving not that easy -
Not as simple as you think!
No squint or wink can help you think.
No pain, no strain and no technique
Can leak the truth from inside out
From brain to paper, plain A4,
There being some mystique
That tweaks the mind
So that without a whine, it finds
A thought not ever thought about,
A light turned on by some deep wonder,
Some ‘cool’ processes down under.

Does it pay?
I would say
It’s more like play than labor.
Hour by hour one may babble,
Scrape the barrel of ideals,
Using up scraps of ideas…

Processing it endlessly,
Grappling, struggling to apply
One’s theme insistently.
All to get the truth-in-me
Into a form called poetry.

The Striving After Truth 2.14.2021 Pure Nakedness II;  Arlene Nover Corwin

This is for all, any or few who use the computer to give, get or find  some kind of comfort or fulfilment.

     The Penny Dropped

This penny dropped minutes ago:
That those who read the po-
                                      etry I write -
Who take the bite by tapping out
A Like or Heart -
Emoji showing taking part -
That they, or she or he
Is somewhere on this round, round globe
Alone and bound
To isolation’s empty ground -
For some a prism in their prison.

Rewarded with a new respect.
In twenty second’s new reaction;
Realization not to share
For any other reason
Than to know that some are there
Under the most extenuating circumstance:
Pandemic’s viruses,
Computer the main avenue
To reaching him, her,  you
(Which may be all they see
Throughout a lonely day)
Makes motive purified,
The ego minimized.

The Penny Dropped 2.13.2021 Revelations Big & Small; Arlene Nover Corwin
the penny dropped*informal, chiefly British used to indicate that someone has finally realized something: I was about to ask Jack who it was, when the penny suddenly dropped.

Finding Your Style

There is a You that is;
That’s at the center of all that you do.
It’s formed, changed often
By the wind, the season’s whim;
But once you know and let it,
There’s an inner conflict
That no longer is;
No longer there;
It gives and is a freedom free of care.
Restraints held once, dissolve then disappear.
You carry on, the same old you,
Doing what you’re used to doing,
Knowing what you’re born to do;
Doing it throughout the day –
From within your ‘ordinary.
Taking place with every breath
You step into each hour with depth;
The outward inner veil revealed,
You’ve found a style to make you smile,
For it is only you who sees it,
Knowing you don’t have to freeze it,
It’s just there! You –
The flexible and true
To carry on mistakes and flaws,
The inner doors
Consistently ajar.
You are!
Finding Your Style 2.11.2021 Definitely Didactic II; Arlene Nover Corwin

I’d been thinking about this a long, long time.

   Wondering What Would Happen

Not a futurist, apocalyptic pessimist,
But I’ve fantasised,
Imagined what it would be like
If by some fluke, some evil act,
Some karmic sequence of events,
The lights lost power:
Hour when the sky grew dark
We had no lightbulb to turn on,
No stove or oven,
Instant water from a valve
Wired heater there to to solve,
No recourse to the digital:
No things at all
For comfort and convenience  
We’ve grown used to.

Me, I’d have to write in pencil or
What ink or lead was there.
I’d have to learn to grow -
Cultivate and plough to live;
Contrive a greenhouse to survive.
Learn where, how to find the carbs,
The protein, fat…  
What to have  and where they sat.

That’s only me;  No family
To feed with nutrients they’d need.
I have someone who chops the  wood.
For goodness’ sake, I have the woods!
Dependency on things electric
Is approximately half of the world
(hurling out a random number)
Members of the global race
Seem to be laced with ruination…
Nation after ruined nation.

Answers lie not in religion,
Not in -ism,
But in thoughtful and reflective -ation:
Contemplation, meditation;
Intellect and heart and action.
Wondering what would, could happen
But a step.

Wondering What Would Happen 2.10.2021 Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Nover Corwin

My beloved Kent is 83 today. Here's what I wrote to him:

     Saying Goodbye To Eighty-Two
We're lying here. It’s nine p.m.  Nine p.m. exactly!
Three more hours to eighty-three.
Do you feel different?
Much less ignorant than yesterday?
Feel that years have run away?
Or maybe you don’t mind
The wrinkles that you find?
Don’t care that hair is thinner
Or that whether it is there
Or not.
Three more hours.
In the morning I’ll give you a poem I’ve framed.
I’ll let you come and give me breakfast.
Everything will be the same
Except that you are one year older.
Once again, we are
Three years, three months apart.
Dear heart,
A happy wish for years to give
You health and vigour.
Years to live twenty years longer -
Maybe twenty-four years more.
Say goodbye to eighty-two
And I will say, “Sweet dreams” to you.
You’re tired and I’m inspired
So I’ll wait until tomorrow
Till you read this.
Here’s a goodnight kiss:
(****, ****)

*
"****, ****" means kisses in Swedish
  Happy, Happy Eighty-Third
Are you really eighty-three today?
In weighing time, the climb of time
It seems a fancy fantasy.  
As if not many moments past have passed,
And last year I was forty-eight or so,
You forty-four or five, the glow
Of youth still in our faces,
Space of time not closed.
Who knows how long the years are likely?
Time’s been good to you and me:
incredibly, we live like royalty
And lovingly, to boot.
We’ve rooted out the key to what
A  good relationship should be.
You’ve made me happy,
And so, in return, I wish you too,
This final word:
A HAPPY, HAPPY EIGHTY-THIRD!
Happy,Happy Eighty-Third 2.8.2021BirthdayBook; LoveRelationships; ArleneNover Corwi

Joy, Love, Truth

What do you think your brain is doing
When you’re sad, depressed or *******?
Lots!  When sad or in a mood
Amygdala and hippocampus glued
To memory’s emotions tied,
Sensations not forgot!
When you’ve got the hots for someone
And that one is non-responsive
Do not let depression in.
Turn a sadness into gladness
And remember, hippocampus
And amygdala are slingshots into hindrance,
Solving blocks impediments;
A cross to bear you do not want to wear
Life through.

To continue:
Are you full of cheer?
Do you like people
All around whomever and wherever
You come into contact?
Do you strive for truths and stick to fact?

My advice is but to focus!
Deal with body/mind detail.
When you hit resistance, stop
The movement in the middle;
When you hit insistent pain,
Plain sense and yogic counsel
Is to halt smack in the middle of its riddle.
You will soon feel feel well - or well-er
Than the hell before.

When feeling low, illusionary concepts flowing
Going into brain, mind, soul,
Into the feel of wholeness
Is to know the stealing big fat lie:
Illusion passing for reality.

Through the trick of nothing’s nowness
(you could never start with less)
You secure the greatest motivation
To escort you to salvation.

Fortune, fame; misnomer’s lame and empty crown  
Ties you up and ties you down -
When you see the sin of daily longings, basic wrongings,
Throngs with faith in spectre choices,
From profession to the newsy voices,
Know these are not real truths
But grounded themes on schemes and dreams
To lead one far from happiness to emptiness and being fooled.

Let your  ‘down-ness’ be your tool
To push and lead to real seeing,
No more robot in your thinking, but a being
Meant for more.
Joy, Love, Truth 2.6.2019 Circling Round Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin

The Dim Red Light So Far Away

One often wonders what God looks like:
Not a question but a wond’ring
Valid as a thought can be.
For we, mere beings who have hope in something
Not described as thing or non-thing,
But as endless power beyond thinking,
‘Thing-ness so mysterious
Still have within the will to know -
Our senses tell us so.

We want to smell, to see, to hear
The far and near;
We have a visual imagination,
That serves purpose,
Comes from, is,
In fact, the search for truth

And so, from youth to age,
We read the sages, analyse,
Use our eyes - both inner, outer.
All to understand the real, the utter
Real behind the ‘real’.

Mystics, other types who kneel,
Contemplate and meditate -
Of those, some have “beheld’’ a light:
A dim red light
Far from the night
Or universe’s outer sight -
Clear, not near
To those who’ve seen and gleaned from it
Attributes that shine from it.

Idolator or doubter,
Those who call it theatre.
All in search of comforter
May find it someday in the dim red light
So far away from darkened night.

The Dim Red Light So Far Away 2.6.2021 Circling Round Reality; God Book II; To The Child Mystic II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Memory: The Reliable & The Unreliable

Echos of a past that roll around
And called to mind from deepest ground
Behind the mind…  
Ambiguous or accurate -
Can you trust that what you bring to view
Is true?
Age three to eight…early or late?
What how and when do you recall the then?
When does cementing start? ,
How much and what was taking part?
Did you see it because you must?
How much is there, is there to trust?

We know that those who witness
Accidents and tragedies,  
Give testimonies contradictory -
Eyes, brown, no, green,
Height, tall, no teeny,
Fat, round, thin, face.
When and what took place - erased.

Often spoken, joke invoked, the anecdote
Snoringly or boringly jacked up:
Do we know that we repeat?
All the time collecting, re-connecting;
Predilections and renditions
Gathering and bathing; simply put, projecting -
Putting self onto the world -
Of change, of never-stops,
Of dreams, of ‘props’
Which being built to fool are worldly tools.

Memories and memorize.
Words that though alike in size,
Words containing wish and prize,
Faculties essential to our mental health,
The endless wealth of whats and whys.

Final question:
Do you, do you not -
Knowing well that times do rot,
Trust in memory and memories,
Knowing that each one is but
Prioritised interpretation, information?
I do not, but live the knots that days present
Giving each minute to a past.

Memory, The Reliable & The Unreliable 2.5.2021  Nature of & In Reality;Arlene Never Corwin

My Purry, Furry Friend

My purry, furry friend lies at bed’s end.
Dozy, cozily pressed into every bend of owner’s body.
Not tender actually, agenda elementary,
Relationship is cordial and familial,
Amiable, congenial; mostly cheerful
But for times he earns an earful,
Hours unpredictable;
Claws that have peculiar laws -
Mostly in, but sometimes out
Which suddenly can sprout and spout
Unwelcome knives all sharp and venting,
Rending floods of blood and ranting.…  
That aside, they mostly hide,
And Albert Cat (his name is that)
Is quiet, undemanding,
And for Kent and me outstanding
In his feline way;
The finest complement, exemplary
Companion one could wish to have,
Possess, be blessed with.
Albert Cat, our lovely pet!
Not the brightest or the best,
But rusty fur, or dusty fur,
The best for me in all the world.

My Purry, Furry Friend 2.4.2021 Cat Book; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

“Erosion of spiritual values… the underlying cause of the crises that the world is facing today.”
Sister Jayanti

           What We Need

To think, have faith in the material,
The physical, corporeal
Is to believe in things of constant change,
Change which will forever be
Subjected to the ups and downs,
The sprout and rot of growth and death…
Is that a thing we really want?
The body that?  Wishes too?
You get the wish - it comes, it’s through.

Can it be the time’s extremes,
Are the result of dreams
That lead to climaxes, calamities,
Crises and catastrophes,
Crossroads, zero hours
When the powers of destruction are at zenith point,
The ‘thing-steered’ nose all out of joint?

Is this the underlying cause
That fills each soul with nausea?
We know we’re in a dreadful pickle.
Stuck in muck of the all-tangible.
What we need is permanence, the meaningful;
The something, one-thing that can never change.
Something to reverse the de- and disarrangement.
Don’t you think so?
I do.

What We Need 2.2.2021 To The Child Mystic II; Circling Round Reality; Our Times,Our Culture II; Circling Round Everything II; Nature Of & In Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin

Jennifer My Metaphor #2

Jennifer, my metaphor
For daughter love, fidelity from up above;
A model for all wombmanhood:
Clear thinking, understanding and compassionate
Well spoken and all that;
A caretaker of injured cat
And any four-legged creature
In or out the door.
And now her fifty-seventh year is here.
A HAPPY BIRTHDAY Jenny dear!
No person could be nicer
Than a Jennifer,
My metaphor for Good.

JenniferMy Metaphor 2.2.2021 Birthday Book; Arlene Corwin Corwin

Old

Old:  What then?
Nothing you envisioned.
When you still see nothing’s happened.
Brain and head, the genus strain of breed
Inside precisioned:
Supremely known to God alone.

Mirrored image says to one,
Stifled by all kinds of blarney,
“This is me!”
While scolding image old keeps screeching,
“This is really you, you creature!”

Stretching like the rainbow’s arch,
Gold out of reach, perennially out of touch,
More a cockroach than a torch.
The young cannot conceive of it.
You believe, for you perceive it.

Doctors twenty-eight, or so,
Policemen new, firemen too,
Lawyer and aristocrat…updated.
All are babies.
Old is known - and hardly that -
By those who daily flat out own it.
Even when you’ve got it, are it,
Even then, what is it?
Old will ever be a ‘What!’.
 
Old 10.5.2015/re-composed 1.31.2021 Circling Round Ageing; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Only time will tell whether you influenced another human being or not.  Numbers on a computer mean little.  To feel you are ‘an influencer’  means to ask yourself who, how, where and why.    


The New Fad Word: Influencer

The latest fad, the newest word -
A word you’ve heard;
**** for the herd.
A word dreamed up by vanity
And deemed to be an actuality
When its truth is actually
Imaginary -
Not to be taken seriously.

We influence where e’er we go.
We set examples, sway, control.
We guide, we form, we shape the norm,
Is that the ‘influence’ at which you aim?

There’s room for goodness, goodness knows,
For we’ve observed how sorrow grows,
With leaders leading by the nose
Whole groups of hopeful, wishful crowds.
They influence, oh yes!
By pressing pain and lies
Into the sighs and cries and floods
Of men and those who acquiesce.

I submit that you omit the concept ‘influencer’
From your aims.
Life’s no fame game.
Your name has value only when
You’ve lived and helped your fellow men.
To that I add a short Amen.

The New Fad Word: Influencer 1.31.2021 Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Nover Corwin.

A Useful Note

The eyes - they’re seeing what they see,
Which at the moment is to watch tv.
The hand is tapping out this poem
Which at the moment is more pastime
Than a paying job or métier.
Each part is doing its small bit
While ‘I’, the ‘I’ behind the eye
Is there with brother/sister mind
And steering, cheering on
Each object that it finds
For concentration and attention;
Each function filled with unction
One can but applaud.
As for we and me inside this head,
We can and ought to spread the joy
From using what the body lead to,
(What felt true and what felt best)
Leaving all the rest
To it and to the whole of you.

A Useful Note 1.30.2021 Definitely Didactic; Arlene Nover Corwin

Based on an email.

     Things To Do In Times Like These

Enforced by climes,
Potentially creative times
For those indoors; creative hours
Using things of daily use
To make you happier than usual:
Training, both to get and keep
Your strength and flexibility;
Practicing a hobby’s pleasure;
Art of leisure;
Cooking from ideas not tried, new acquired -
Meant to eat and cure at once;
Lance the boil spoiling all the current toil;
‘Things’ each physical and mental,
Incidental and essential.
They but ‘things’ - activities.
Not only there to ‘live’, but please.
No matter what, life’s there to please,
The ease not always easy.

To give to you some things to do
While undergoing a non-boring
Squeezing out of this disease
By seizing on a life of things  
To do small things in times like these.

Things To In Times Like These 1.28.2021 Our Times, Our Culture II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Self-Doubt II

I try to picture you-know-who
Sitting on the ‘john’ or ‘loo’
For really, he is one of us:
Doing what we humans do.
Wondering if he’s ever insecure,
Unsure about what comes to mind,
Understanding that the mind can find
The craziest of thoughts to think.
Myself, I waver,
Do not savour every blink.
And here we watch men of the hour,
Those with power
Giving out their unsound signals,
Posturing from face to fingers;
Accusations, condemnations…
Is there never doubt of thought,
When I, the lowly writing poet
Try to deepen virtues absent, missing parts
While always staying kind at heart,
Well-inclined, well-defined;
Self-understanding melts self-doubt.
To know the two Is good for you,
Of value to the time to come;
By definition, everyone’s.

loo, john; English slang for toilet.
Self-Doubt 10.2.2020/re-composed 1.27.2021 Our Times, Our Culture II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Your Place On This Planet

I’ve asked and asked,
And never could come to the question -
Not the right one anyway.
What was it that I wanted to find out?
I think I know,
The answer come about:
What is my place, what am I meant to do
To know about myself, the space I take?
The answer’s slow in coming, So I wait.
It grows and growing, showing bit by bit
Small flashes of perception;
Pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, nuzzling in collaboration
Ultimately fitting, sitting with perfection.
I, you, all, can only wait:
Wait and act in wholesome ways.
As Buddha says,
“The middle way is always best.”
It is what makes you last the longest.
What you wished and what you wanted
Usually
Turns out to be
A thumping great illusion.
Follow instinct, intuition.  
Each will lead to what you’ve needed
All the while.
There’s a You inside of you. The Real you!
There’s  a Force outside of you
That leads and kneads this real you.
Follow both.
They lead to Truth - the truths for you:
The truths that are the real you,
The you that you can kneel to,
Feeling they are full of right and rightful.

Your Place On this Planet 1.25.2021 Pure Nakedness II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Everything Is Yin & Yang
(another ode to Facebook)


Another ode in anthem mode:
Each using EffBee for his aim;
A simple sharing of a poem;
A needy soul who aims at fame;
A person specialised in something rare
Who seeks to share his passion for
The oldest car well, everywhere.

The negative and positive;
FB draws the best and worst,
The selfish and the selfless those
Who thirst for what is best
And those who may be *******.
(Just a use, perhaps abuse
Of Poet’s license; please excuse
The rather brutal use of word)
Going on: FB invites a bit of fun;
Emoji’s  icon. Quelle invention!  
Quell design!

As for me and mine,
This facebook is divine.
So I’ll be signing off.
I’ve said enough
Even without one cup coffee.
Signing off with love and warmth.
Signing off.  Goodbye.

Everything Is Yin & Yang 1.24.2021 a Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Arlene Nover Corwin

One Hundred Percent Spontaneous

I can feel cell connecting
Self correcting;
Writing righting, righting writing,
Deepening, expanding
The idea, its landing..

Without method or intention.
It’s a wonder when you think about it.
All the rest a slowing down,
This new detail of living
The most giving,
Making outlook, inlook most enlightening:
Lightening a flash of thunder;
Lightening the load from under -
Or at least from going under.

Impetuous, spontaneous,
Unplanned, extemporaneous…
What could be better!
Letter and the law of living
Superseded by an inner craving
For a non-existent caring  
Of the world of judgement and acceptance.
As for instance,
This short flight of insight
Both inciting and igniting,
Written with the speed of lightening
And approved of by its writer
Could have never made her happier.

One Hundred Percent Spontaneous 1.24.2021 A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; The Processes; Creative, Thinking; Meditative II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Rhyme, Meter, Punctuation

Rhyme, meter, punctuation
Help to clarify
The explanation/situation
Sitting in the poet’s eye,
Growing there
To share with unknown others.

Rhyme and meter; punctuation
Put in order the occasion,
Make it easier to question, reason;
To arrive at some conclusion.
An idea kept in seclusion
Is not happy on its own.

We created language
As a telephone.
Rhyme and meter; punctuation
In the  the genome.
Verse in form; verse informed:
A condensation of the all,
Dependent on the mind-sized wall.

Rhyme, Meter, Punctuation 1.22.2021 The Processes; Creative, thinking, Meditative II; Definitely Didactic; Arlene Nover Corwin

To all my friends, American and otherwise:

      Two Days Of Biding One’s Time

One Day Before A New Man Comes Through The Door

I was just  wondering:
Where are the children Trump detained
In nineteen hundred seventeen,
Or eighteen/nineteen...?  
Do they still remain
On floors and mattresses  both here and there?  
Oh, where, oh where, are they today?
Back home in Mexico to live, laugh, play?
Or here alone in ye olde demos- USA?
One Day Before A New Man Comes Through The Door 1.17.2021 Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Nover Corwin

      The Installation

Will and can he knit a nation?
Help to heal a land’s relations?
Power shift has taken place,
Donald Trump has lost the race,
Truly, fairly.
Biden/ Harris -
Such a pair as
Never opened White House door
And sat in duo chairs before
This small voter welcomes them;
Trusting that this ethical and moral team
Has destiny  on both their sides
To override the unsound side
Always found in humankind;
The un-kind sides that hide from fact;
Act in favour of an ego free
Of prejudice and ‘me, me, me’.
Installation/consecration: we will see.
The Installation 1.20.2021Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Nover Corwin

One Day Before A New Man Comes Through The Door

I was just wondering:
Where are the children Trump detained
In nineteen hundred seventeen,
Or eighteen/nineteen...?
Do they still remain
On floors and mattresses both here and there?
Oh, where, oh where, are they today?
Back home in Mexico to live, laugh, play?
Or here alone in ye olde demos- USA?
One Day Before A New Man Comes Through The Door 1.17.2021 Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Examine, Chronicle, Explore, Reflect: Your New Mantra

Four words, my mantra new:
Examine, chronicle, reflect, explore!
To do in no particular or special order.
Exercise of which I am a new supporter.
Imprinted somewhere in the brain,
A symbiotic, soft refrain
Which like all songs you sing and love,
Affect behaviour down, above.

Reflect, explore, examine, chronicle!
Manacle the mind, front and behind
To spaces that you cannot feel,
You cannot measure or reveal.
Seal the words, the concentrated curds
Of new and deeper ways of thinking;
Symbiotic interactions living in such close relation,
Benefiting world and nation,
Each sensation in the psyche,
That they strengthen self’s identity.

Make a mantra of the four.
Or find some more that feel right.
Repetition is the requisite
To reaching what’s been painted as
The Highest Insight.

Examine, Chronicle, Explore, Reflect: Your New Mantra ;1.20.2021 Definitely Didactic; Vaguely About Music II; I Is Always You Is We; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

How Quick It Goes

How quick it goes to eighty-six!
(Excuse the grammar, deviation its deluxe,)
When rhymes delight
Their author in a wakeful night.)
How quick it went, how quickly gone;
The present sent each second on.
Went, sent, lent from heaven
Both to time and human.
Quick is this phenomenon!

How Quick It Goes 1.6.2021 Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Memories Out Of The Blue

Ageing is a funny thing:
You don’t remember what you ate
For breakfast; day or date;
A dozen little things of late…
But classmates from when you were eight,
The teacher’s name and where you sat
As fresh I-don’t-know.
Time used to go so slowly
In the summer holidays.
You, left to roam the streets alone;
The ice cream man, his ice cream van
Jingling melodiously;
Playing ‘potsy’ on the sidewalk,
Marking out the form with chalk;
Trolley cars still rumbling by
Soon to flee, be
Changed for buses, electricity.
There still was coal, an icebox.
I was six.
Wagons rolled, pulled by a horse.
Who would think the time could blink
And nineteen forty-one would sink
Into oblivion: friends gone,
The matinee on Saturday,
Chinese three course lunch a dollar,
Mommy hollering to come inside;
Brooklyn memories that hide till now,
When from the blue, unasked,
Incongruous, an echo and a powder
Banks of memory pour out unmasked.

Memories Out Of The Blue 1.17.2021 Circling Round Experience; Circling Round Ageing; Arlene Nover Corwin

It’s Hard To Carry Gratitude With You All The Time.

A trait that must be trained;
Reminded in the very bottom of the self
To come alive,
We thrive on gratitude,
Its recognition and dynamic,
For it stimulates adaptability
And kindles reciprocity.

Trained to remain, admittedly,
One I’ve ignored: shamefacedly
Indifferent to the kindnesses
Fate’s brought my way:
The very definition of chagrin.
My plan is to begin…today.

It’s Hard To Carry Gratitude With You All The Time 11.16.2021 Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Planet Tellus #2
    (to be continued - always)

With principles and measurements,
Apportioned out by nature’s senses,
Balanced and divided, its intent
To boost and serve,
Its animating force give verve
To planet X we know as Earth
Its birth, its ageing, death and worth.

Planet Tellus, Tellus Mater:
Molten iron at its core;
Years in zillions boring
Toward a multi-verse of multi-stars
Solar systems, massive quasars.
All around, exo-planets not yet found,
Members of their own sun’s orbit,
Grasp of numbers too profound
(Which we speculate’s four thousand.
Doubtless, forty-thousand more).

Super telescopes that probe with hope,
Peering, piercing the sky-stuff:
Gaseous dusts that fluff the ‘skies’ -
(‘sky’ a word to pluralise)
Celestial bodies shoot, reboot
With loyalty to nature’s rules,
Its seen effects, its unseen cause.
Mysterious black, floor-less holes
Imploding and devouring…
Scouring  failing stars for flaws.
Gallant planets Them and Us:
Existence by persistence!
Persistence for existence!
PS:
I’ve a theory:
Black holes open endlessly
To start a new infinity -
(Oxymoron- ic-ally).
Planet Us 1.6.2021/#2 1.13.2021 Circling Round Reality; Nature Of & In Reality; Circling Round Nature II;
Mother Earth .

Planet TellUs
(to be continued - always)

With principles and measurements,
Apportioned out by nature’s senses,
Balanced and divided, its intent
To boost and serve,
Its animating force give verve
To planet X we know as Earth
Its birth, its ageing, death and worth.

Planet Tellus, Tellus Mater:
Molten iron at its core;
Years in zillions boring
Toward a multi-verse of multi-stars
Solar systems, massive quasars.
All around, exo-planets not yet found,
Members of their own sun’s orbit,
Grasp of numbers too profound
(Which we speculate’s four thousand.
Doubtless, forty-thousand more).
Super telescopes
That probe with mirrored hope,
Piercing the sky-filled stuff:
The gaseous dusts that fluff the ‘skies’ -
(‘sky’ a word to pluralise)

Celestial bodies shoot, reboot
With loyalty to nature’s rules,
Its seen effects, its unseen cause.
Mysterious black & floor-less holes  
Imploding and devouring…
Scouring ageing, failing stars for flaws.
Gallant planets Them and Us:
Existence by persistence!
Persistence for existence!
PS:
I’ve a theory:
Black holes open endlessly
To start a new infinity -
(Oxymoron- ic-ally).

Planet TellUs 1.6.2021 Circling Round Reality; Nature Of & In Reality; Circling Round Nature II;
Mother Earth

Crowding my Mac desktop along with more than a hundred others, I’m trying to clean house.  In the process of removing these 'more than a hundred’ I find that some need and will need revamping.  This is revamped number two.

The first, by the way is in my book Circling Round Eros published by Xlibris, 2012.

       Our *** Life Is Changing (re-composed - the original 2005)

Our *** life is changing –
But not for the worse.
Seventy.  Ageing.
There was a first:
Not coming but comfortable;
Chatting, conveying; perfection this staying…
Knowing  the sense not to knock oneself out.
Not interfering, just noticing, touching,
Declaring and whispering;
Passionate, intimate, eros approved.
Our *** life is changing
In tune with the ripening
Gradual move towards the groove
Of senescence.
                                    
Our *** Life Is Changing 11.3.2005/re-composed 1.9.2021
Nature Of & In Reality; Circling Round Woman; Love Relationships; Pure Nakedness II; Circling Round Eros II; Circling Round Ageing; Arlene Nover Corwin

Things One Loves About Facebook

Addictive, non-restrictive;
One can use the pronoun I
In prose or poetry,
Signify love lost, tossed, forced;
Love aflame;
Politics, not use a name,
Just saying  ‘you-know-who’…
A site whose frame is liberal
Without exhorting fibs tall, small.
And most of all,
One gains new friends
From planet’s corners. nation’s ends.  
An always open screen somewhere
Where receptivity awaits to make one cleverer,
Help build the character.
To  FB’s singular transforming site,
A special accolade, salute:
A red pre-Valentines Day heart and tribute!

Things One Loves About Facebook 1.5..2021 The Processes; Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Nover Corwin