The Funniest Word: Sesquipedalian: Long-Winded

I just learned the strangest word:
An adjective ne’er seen or heard.
Sesquipedalian.
Sesqui-pedal-ian:
Are we the aliens depicted?
Is it us the word has painted?
Latin for a foot plus half**
Which makes me laugh.
“Polysyllabic or long-winded”.
If there ever was a winding
Longish ended word, it is sesquipedalian.
You have to laugh
At something that’s a ‘foot plus half’
That uses fourteen signs to say it.
‘Sesquipedalian names, or prose’
God only knows how long is wrong,
And even, what is wrong with ‘long’!
Eighteen inches, fourteen letters.
Something in the letters fetters.

Words are born from situations:
Every nuance. each emotion.
How they come about’s the question.
Are we so observant, we,
Disposed to live linguistically?
I’ve no idea,
But it sure is
****** funny.
18 inches or 45.72 centimeters.
The Funniest Word: Sesquipedalian 9.27.2020 A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

sesquipedalian | ˌsɛskwɪpɪˈdeɪlɪən |
adjective formal
(of a word) polysyllabic; long: sesquipedalian surnames.
• characterized by long words; long-winded: the sesquipedalian prose of scientific journals.
ORIGIN
mid 17th century: from Latin sesquipedalis ‘a foot and a half long’, from sesqui- (see sesqui-) + pes, ped- ‘foot’.

Summarizing Something Nice💞

I’m so happy when you ‘get it’;
That you get its subtleness -
The latent and the unexpressed.

Happy that there’s one who takes on board
The theme, the art, both intertwined
In effort’s mind.
Just happy - nothing more
With not a jot of longing for the glory
Or the possibility of money.

As the jazzer makes the song her own,
The notes and chords and lyric one,
The improv, playing, unified,
Theme, technique grown,  
Thus, sweat and fuss,
The sugared press of muse and genius,
Poet builds on stuff and nonsense,
Common sense, the mystical, ,
The mundane-******-metaphysical-potential endless.
It’s all nice:
Expression giving peace to practice,
Practice peace.
With you the object of release.

Summarizing Something Nice 9.26.2020 The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Vaguely About Music II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Vanities Again, Again

I watched a well known TV show.
The guest was nobody I know.
A young girl whose main aim was fame:
Through daily photoed Instagram.
Spending thousands on the shifting sand
Of makeup, bags, clothes, shoes
For “Followers” from each or any land;
Misguided and delusory!
Pathetic and illusory!.
Poor unskilled child!
Convinced that getting ‘Like’ and ‘Followed’
Have some hallowed worth.
As if a button had inherent love.
Self-starved, she struggled with her girth
Yet drank on weekends for her mirth.
Felt gratified when people called her ‘hot’.
Had not a jot of self insight,
Of who she was, should be, should do
To make a contribution to…
She read no books;
Her prime concern brand names and looks.

For happiness of real success,
She must unlearn those false ideas,
Gain insight into fruitlessness
Self-admiration, haughtiness,
For vanity is profitless,
Its origin the Latin vanus/vanitas:
Pointless, useless
                            ‘emptiness’.  

Vanities Again, Again 9.24.2020 Circling Round Vanities II; Circling Round Experience; Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Only As Old As You Feel, True, Untrue?

Platitudinous and overused,
Imposing truths on types
Receptive to the cliche myths
Of age and youth.

I look inside myself,
That self intrinsic to the child I was
Since my first  powers of recall.
The same as when i was a child:
Tendencies, reactions,
Sensitivities and inclinations.

Though I’ve learned,
Values waxed and deepened,
Body aged unhurriedly, steeped  
Continually in time.
This is sage:
Do not think in age,
Absorbing adages!
It is not sage.
Life’s stage consists of phases.

You are quantity
Exposed to change
You are quality:
A gene unvarying, enduring;
Altogether darling.

You are you life through.
Not young, not old,
But gold which stays as is
Forever.

Only As Old As You Feel, True, Untrue? 9.21.2020 Circling Round Ageing; Birth, Death & In Between III; Circling Round Wrnkes; Arlene Nover Corwin

Words To Love: Emoji

Pictograph of sadness, cheer…
Every feeling, object, there
To show, enhance, inflate, draw near,
Define, make clear -
Oh, those Japanese - so clever!
E, a picture; Moji, character.

And I, mature, articulate,
Controlled, restrained,
Using it and them more often
When the brain’s refrain
Needs just that little extra bit
To sign and supplement
Whatever’s been expressed already
Boosting, heading
Written chunks of art (or junk)..
Emoji: hidden *****  behind it all -
A detail for the people.

Words To Love: Emoji 9.19.2020 The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin.    

whoever wants to add his or her pwn personal emoji is welcome to do so.

Rosh Hashanah
(Jewish New Year celebrating 5781)

To honor Jewish New Year
I put this here:

Year, fifty seven eighty-one.
Five thousand seven hundred
Eighty-one: a time for self-renewal,
Self-reflection.

Self renewal:
Jewel
In a holiday
Which only stays
Two happy days.

A Yiddish standard wish could read;
“Have a good and blessed year!”
In Hebrew one could plead,
“Shanah Tovah!”:  “Sweet’ and happy year!”
No fear but sweet good wishes from the heart
For this year’s date
Sealed by good fate.

And so, in blowing the shofar
I pose the question:
Who could ask for more,
For duties simply put,
Lie there.

shofar; a ram’s horn used in the Jewish High holidays to awaken the soul.

Rosh Hashanah 9.18.2020 Our Times, Our Culture II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Mid- Night Nonsense

It’s good to start from nowhere
In  particular,
Let it grow,
Intuition’s urging knowing.
The trick is to keep going -
That’s the hard part.

4 a.m. husband asleep,
And like a twelve year old, I creep
Under the quilt.
With minor guilt, pad, pen in hand,
Keyring flashlight, writing,
Fighting hard to stay awake
For art’s sake.

There’s no other explanation,
So amusing is the situation.
There will be continuation -
Or, as Arnold coined,
“I’ll be back”… joined to you
Post breakfast, and as promised.
Not just brain but body too,
Then we’ll see if this needs closure
On exposure to the light.
As for now, goodnight, goodnight!

Mid- Night Nonsense 9.16.2020 Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Tired of..

Housewives tire repeatedly
Of empty answers,
Inattention, the cliché
She must live with day to day.

Oft, one has a sneaky feeling
That a partnership stops growing
When the moments turn to echoing.
Repetitious, detrimental,
Present and habitual,
Diluting conversation’s scope:
Buddy stripped to muddy-ship.

What to do to stave off ruin?
Patience? Duty?  Contribution?
Temperament or character
Of either and/or partner
With the union a rehearsal
Without thought of a reversal?

Can one remedy a situation
Without simulating stimulation?
How,
       when there is love, a vow?

Self-understanding standing under self?

Perhaps we’re counsellors to each other.
Therapists with kindness very like a brother.
Therapists who do not smother,
But who warmly listen,
A considerate, receptive cushion.
“Tired of’s…” a mean exclusion.
Certainly the wrong conclusion.

Tired Of 9.14.2020 Circling Round Experience; Love Relationships II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Whenever I can't think of anything to write, I turn to nature.  I've done it dozens of times: not an idea and suddenly, then gradually a charming poem comes forth.  An idea, then the work; title, words, rhymes, meter, meaning - all meshes and co-relates.  The word "orange" is a challenge, believe me.

            Turning Orange

In regions where it’s turning autumn,
Leaves red, yellow.
In our garden, they’re not yellow,
Oddly, loudly, orange yelling.

Old New Yorker I,
Used to multicoloured Falls,
I have fallen for this gaudy and remarkably
High-color, almost supernatural year phase.

In appearance, almost artificial.
What one sees is inspirational,
Which brings to mind,
Springs to mind
(It cannot ‘spring’ because it’s autumn coming soon)  
An August moon.

In the meantime, if  September
Gives  a smooth transition -
Sunny days into October,  summer
Melting into autumn:
Foxes foraging, squirrels storage-ing;
Porridge on the stove encouraging;
Summing up for coming winter:
Rhododendron green turned orange.

Turning Orange 9.11.2020 Circling Round Nature II; Arlene Nover Corwin

I  just came across this, a poem which I had completely forgotten, having rather recently written another poem about beards (as well as tattoos). And even one before that in yet another year.  Gosh!  I guess I must have stronger anti-beard feelings than I am aware of.
Anyway, it's quite good, so I'm re-presenting it.  Comments of all kinds are welcome!😍🙋‍♀️🤩
       The Men In Sweden…🤔
The men in Sweden and elsewhere
Are looking older than they are
With whiskers, stubble, ****** hair
Of every kind.
Beards, moustaches find their place
On almost every male face
These days.
I’ve bet you’ve never heard
Of pogonophobia. A funny word
That means a fear of beards and beard!
Yes, there are such mental health conditions.
So I ask, why hide the manly jaw or chin.
A chin that’s manly out and in.
I fancy ego based on fear,
Vanity that’s always there.
Affectation, ostentation, airs and show -
All the traits that go along
With fear of judgment and rejection.
Don’t they know it’s all illusion,
And the only thing that matters
Is completion of the heart and mind
That shatters all?
Finding out who, what you are
And working to complete it.
If you’re twenty-one or two,
What can beat it?
If you’ve got a double, triple chin or none,
An open face is wonderfully
To be preferred.
Lose the beard
And keep the face.
You are a much loved member of the race -
The human…
Besides, a naked face is best to kiss!
What person would not favour this?
Shaved and clean is what I mean!
I mean a face that’s smooth and clean.
Dear men, don’t hide
The face inside.
Nature’s pride is there to share
With those who at the moment stare
And wish that there was someone daring ‘nough
To face the world un-twirled, un-curled,
And wholly, perfectly unfurled.
The Men In Sweden 9.8.2018 A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Circling Round Vanities II; Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Nover Corwin

The River Of Poetry

The giver of poetry
Shows the river of life.
The poet - a self
Who expresses the lot,
Who has got to address motley thought,
Oughts and will,
Who can never sit still
Until writing is done
For a verse routed out
From the roots of inquiry,
Theory,
Doubt and much more to impart
In a river of eloquent art.

The River Of Poetry 8.31.2020 The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

She Was A Hippy

She never smoked, never drank,
Never joined a cult or sect.
Her hippiness, her happiness
Found itself in waist length hair,
Patterned tights,
Bra dismissed
And short, short skirts:
Her expression of new freedom.

Fifties beatniks never reached her,
But the sixties found a new awareness
Which addressed her heart,
Unleashed a part she only guessed at;
One which dressed her mind.
Convention could not bind her
As behavior took a shape unstudied,
Natural - hardly touched before.

Maturity without hashish, Rajneesh,
The itch of spirit bringing in a shift in old priorities.
A little bolder, somewhat older;
Hippy of a different sort.
Mother, wife, musician, poet
All and each each supportive
And escorting her some steps to standing,
Understanding and continuance.

She Was A Hippy 3.13.2020 Pure Nakedness II;  Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Signs Of Maturation
   (Or, You Don’t Need A High IQ)

I notice time and time again
I’m not the smartest on the block.
And yet, and yet,  
My art is smarter than the poppycock
Set down by others.

Trying to avoid cliches, banalities;
Striving to go deep; concrete
As every Brooklyn street I walked,
I still fall into traps of slickness,
Fear revealing cowardice.

Then pluck returns, turning
Weakling into un-concealing
Rhyme & meter, candor, frankness,
Frightened youth turned madame Truth:
Nakedness, no underwear, aware, yet baring all:

I try to use a thoughtful wording:
Criticize an oversized dictator;
Cruelty, unfairness, ******,
Herding reader into paths that further,
To the murkiness which lurks in secret.

Paradoxically, and never knowing what to say
Until I’ve said it, concepts, insights coming out
From God-knows-where, I let it shout.
Draft by draft, refining, re-defining,
A conclusion whispers, “That’s enough!”
It isn’t tough.  I stop.
And hope
           I’ve reached you.

Signs Of Maturation 9.5.2020 Pure Nakedness; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Mandy Mercer-Neder, friend, daughter of composer Johnny Mercer for whom he wrote the hit “ "Mandy Is Two”  in 1941, died Sunday August 30, 2020, age 81.      
    
      Honoring Mandy

Deep inside
I sighed, I cried;
Internal sighing, crying
So, so hidden and unbidden,
Bringing life's death to the forefront.
With an unexpressed
Heartbrokenness.

Mandy dear, unwell for years,
Brave and perky,
Generous to kin and peers,
Using what low strength she had
To cheer on others.

A state from fate we all shall share.
We were not there.
We will be there one dated day,
One way or t'other.

In the foremost corner of my mind
I honor Mandy.
Innermost, I find regard
I saw no hint of,
But by dint of her departing
With intention, mind and heart,
An unexpected urge,
A surge of empathy stirs, spurs me on
To honor Mandy.

Honoring Mandy 9.1.2020 Birth, Death & In Between II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Inspired by the story of Petra Kormos.

   One Of Forty Thousand

It’s Sweden, 2020.
Population:
A shade over ten million,
Ranking country’s population
By percent of Europe’s calculation
Sweden ranks as ninety-one.

Not many people one might think,
And they’d be right,
                              and yet,
Forty thousand humans yearly,
Life corrupted by a sepsis,
Interrupted  by a virus,
Death an outcome or a nearly…
Limbs that blackened;
Life force slackened:
Source unknown;
And amputation!

I, one of the forty-thousand.
Coma housed, un-rouseable,
Hand  defaced,
Erased forever, their profession.
No appeal or cry for pity.  No confession
Only fact; a plain statistic:
Unemotional, un-egoistic,
‘Forty thousand’ makes it prime;
Time to make the virus traceable,
Follow up the un-erasable,
Taking sepsis off the table.

A task that’s not too much to ask,
As one sits fingerless
At the piano.

One Of Forty Thousand 9.3.2020 Circling Round Experience; Pure Nakedness II; Arlene Nover Corwin
*sepsis| noun [mass noun] Medicine
the presence in tissues of harmful bacteria and their toxins, typically through infection of a wound.

This could have been written with different pronouns (you, one, we etc.) but I have no hesitation in using the confessional I, since I’m pretty sure that I is you is we all.


          The Older I Become #3

The older I become
The more I need to meditate,
The date with death come into sight.
Not all people have, feel, need this need,
The quandary multi-sided:

Disliking the idea of ceasing,
Vanishing, not knowing
If we go nowhere, somewhere or anywhere.
And as perplexing:
Loving living,
Loving what each breath is giving
Even though the world’s in downfall,
Twisted egos big and small;
Endless ills and kills banal.
Saddest and regrettable,
Gifts that die, disposable.

The basic problem may be fear:
Deep and cold as one grows old;
An angst and anger at no longer being;
Feuds between the bad and good;
The sense of global threat and danger;
Scared of losing what comes closer…
God knows what…

And so I meditate.

The Older I Become #3 8.3.2020 Birth, Death & In Between; Circling Round Experience; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II;  Circling Round Ageing; Arlene Nover Corwin

A quick look at the world around and you understand the theme.      

    Issue: Change

How can one progress
From feeling ****** to slaphappy,
Sourpuss to silly goose.
Powerless, to one empowered
In a second or an hour,
Humdrum life humming along
Where nothing can go wrong,
Cause/effect singing its song.

The laws of life inscrutable.
The only thing assurable is change.
Its mysteries whose histories
Can, one day to the next,
Both enter, exit,
Borders touching or contiguous.
So strange!

As planets move in rings of space,
Galaxies and stars their place,
All you need’s a straight kept face,
Knowing that you absolutely can't erase
An earthly thing.

Change will happen as it will.
It’s just for you to act with inner stillness,
Taking in and on what happens,
To convert it all to happiness.

Issue: Change 2.23.2020; Circling Round Experience; Circling Round Reality; Nature Of & In Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin

When I’ve nothing to write about, I look at nature and I’m there!  Somewhere the mind binds to this observation which then turns into a meditation or a contemplation.  Below is one such occasion which turned into an opportunity.

       Picking Lingon In The Sun

Sitting on a heather-filled and rugged hill.
Ground abounding in a million lingonberries,
(Simply called in Sweden, lingon)
Weather still, some breeze and sun,
If pleasure is a word for fun,
This is a perfect definition.
Who could want more?
This is Nature in its glory.

Oak standing near
With tiny birches there like weeds.
And I, on knees squeeze in between
To separate the fruit from green
To find  the bitter/sour berry
Growing most prodigiously
Five and six per stem.

Mindful and relaxed,
A wee bit taxing,
Climbing in, out, up
Focussed on each future cup
Of jam-to-be
I cheerily fill up my oblong plastic cup
Short of the top
For fear of dropping my collection.

Once at home
This sweet reflection
Will end up a poem.

Picking Lingon In The Sun 8.24.2020 Circling Round Nature II; Arlene Nover Corwin

This is the 2nd poem I’ve come upon written in 1999, so woefully up to date I feel I must send it out.  Called Gone In A Minute.

                    Gone In A Minute

An avalanche, a mud slide ,
Every meter drenched and plastered,
Gliding and colliding, guided
By terrain alone,
And crash, boom, clang,
The whole shebang is gone.

People!  Yes, of course!
Their words and art;
The future’s start.
Centuries of minds,
Mines of thinking gone:  
In a non-thinking wink.

How long then, family name?
The worked for fame?
Volcanic ash, a lava stream,
Centuries of verse, and worse,
Memory all creamed away.

Fire, flood, the drowned, the charred:
Things no longer anything;
The best and worst on equal footing.

Wars: the scarred, disfigured, marred
And all the future Bachs, Picassos,
Jenny Linds, Carusos,
Shakespeares, Einsteins,
(not to mention Arlene Corwins)
Never to expand a wing,
Create a thing,

The crux is, what we bring to mind
How easy and complete,
How fast defeat
Comes to a globe
Once calamity’s in orbit.
And we wonder what is worth it, what is not,
Ask what lasts when pasts wiped out
Leave nothing.

Gone In A Minute 8 22.2020/improved from1.2.1999 Our Times, Our Culture II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Strangely, “After Coffee" was written after I’d woken and written “Bored with Myself”, which simply confirms my theory that we are more chemically driven than we think.
     I’d had a pneumonia vaccine shot yesterday afternoon, and during the night experienced symptoms I’d never had before - all during a night’s intended sleep: hip or sciatic pain, sharp and nagging, 2 bouts of dizziness, general joint pain.  Nag, nag, nag1. Awful.  And when I woke from this ‘awful’ night’s sleep, I was unmotivated, unable to connect with my inner self.  Awful.
     I could suddenly sympathise with the poor souls who take drugs or those who have chronic depression.  
     :
    After Coffee

After coffee energy!
Phenomenal!
A marvel, really!
Creativity, originality come forth
From south and north,
East and west,
As if the brain knew best
What stretches under.
What a wonder!

After coffee clarity!
A sharpness present
Where transparency is formed
And shown by honesty, directness,
Plain outspokenness,
A kind of innocence and guilessness.

After coffee: not for all.
For those who benefit -
Well, have a ball!
It might release a core essential.
Finer than you ever knew.

After Coffee 8.20.2020 Pure Nakedness II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin  

       Bored With Myself

Thoughts, ideas repetitive:
They all feel done and writ;
Not un-creative, yet,
Should one continue writing
Poetry or prose-try, the same old set-up,
Corwin’s format?

It feels as if I’ve said it all,
Ahead of all,
The tragedy and beauty
Side by side,
Observing changes far and wide
Outside, inside this body, brain.
I feel drained.
Yet now, this minute and this moment,
Are what is, one has (“one” being me).

I wait and see,
Functioning as seconds tick,
For tucked away is optimism.
What an oxymoron!

Nothing to say,
But writing anyway

Bored With Myself 8.20.2020 Pure Nakedness II; Circling Round Experience; (new collection) Circling Round The Universal; Arlene Nover Corwin

NonsensePoetry á la Corwin
  
    There is a legitimate genre called Nonsense Verse, a form of nonsense literature usually employing strong prosodic elements like rhythm and rhyme. It is whimsical and humorous in tone and employs some of the techniques of nonsense literature.
     Among writers in English noted for nonsense verse are Edward Lear[, Lewis Carroll, Mervyn Peake, Sukumar Ray, Edward Gorey, Colin West, Dr. Seuss, and Spike Milligan.
     I myself seldom write nonsense poetry, but a friend sent me an email with this phrase:
“Each little bench
Is amazingly French….
     I had no idea why he sent it, but was instantly engaged and inspired to write this back to him:

However, each *****
Who sits on that bench
Has a stench
That could drench
Every river and trench
But not quench
Any watery branch
Or prevent any mulching
By belching.
If you agree much,
Have an itch to get hitched*
Keep in touch!

*get hitched; marry.
Nonsense Poetry á la Corwin 8.16.2020 A Senses Of The Ridiculous II;  Arlene Nover Corwin

It's the' little plastic brain' that keeps coming up with endless ideas, inspiring and producing. In fact, it seems to me that it is becoming deeper, more creative and bolder. Everything inspires me!

Everything Inspires
Everything a source;
Every little thing an inspiration.
Got a compliment today.
Mind raced, computer handy -
Boom, I’m here
Scribbling away.
(well typing anyway).
Now I must go away,
The day still light,
To use this body for its sake.
Pushing age, delaying ache
Until my tired hands come back
To what, I do not know -
Not yet.
You bet it will be something.
Everything Inspires 8.15.2020 The Processes: Creative,Thinking, Meditative II; Circling round Everything II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Keeping Up

You’ve heard the phrase
“to keep up with the Jones”,
But have you not yet heard of
‘Keeping up with new smart phones’?

Every time I see an ad
There seems to be another fad,
Another model, new technique.
You take a peek.
There’s more finesse, more flourishes,
The whole thing polished…gosh, oh gosh!

Technology, the things I see
Are running way ahead of me
Completely and confusingly.
One’s hazy in the fog of it,
Queasy at the sight of it,
The height of keeping up’’ a drain
On the most brainy of consumers -
For there’s coin involved,
Revolved around.  Who knows?
Consumers - that is us,
Gobbling up and keeping up.

Technology is self-propelling.
Experts telling, sales folk selling.
Where the dickens is this heading?
How far up can ‘up’ go up?
Electronics smaller, stronger,
Slimmed until the skin
Contains the smart phone fitted in,
One more component in the whole.
Will computers gain a soul?

Just a pup
Who can’t keep up.
That’s me.  

Keep up: keep pace, keep abreast, be aware (of developments).

Keeping Up 8.13.2020 Our Times, Our Culture II; A Sense Of The Ridiculous ll; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

This, in response to someone who thinks I have a propensity for the negative:

    Accentuate The Positive*

In nineteen hundred forty-five
When jive was ‘it’,
Johnny Mercer wrote the hit,
“(You Gotta) Accentuate The Positive”.

It can be positive to see the negative,
Then go back to real living.
What does living really mean?
Accepting that life can seem mean,
For all life ends, which seems demeaning:
‘Seeming’ which may or not be.

One sees that we live greatly
Through both fear and vanity:
Fear of dying, fear of change,
Dependent on the trendy image;
Forging paths that lead us nowhere.
Seeking knowledge yet in *******;
We changes places, paces,
Lessen bulges, alter faces,
Binge on fashions, jumping in as if it’s best:
Adaptation at its worst.

We thirst for eternality
With no kernel of an insight
That the real answer is acceptance!

Life is not the latest style, technique or fancy.
Style and mode are but a trance, a passing fancy.
The true dance of life: acceptance!
Genuine, true, an unfeigned YES!
In compliance with the destined and the tested.

Minutes after seeing you
Folk forget you.
Knowing this, forget the ego.
Take these pointers: See what’s real.
Accept, adapt and steal away
From vanity and fear,
Attending to what’s nearest, dearest -
You in Now.  And loving Wow!
*See Youtube

Accentuate the Positive 8.12.2020 Birth, Death & In Between III; Circling Round Experience; Circling Round Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin

Having written “Things I Cannot Do”  and gotten so many spontaneously positive comments “Things I Cannot Stop” popped into my head  as a natural follow-up a week or two later.

     (Some)Things I Cannot Stop

Skin satiny and pigment-free
Withut a a freckled speck,
Creased, dry, wrinkly -
Or becoming so,
So unbecomingly..

Diet good, wholesome food
Eaten in a happy mood,
And still, a flab where muscle should
And used to be.  Rude
Mother Nature in her stature
Augur of maturing age.

Other things I cannot stop:
Hubby’s snoring from the deep,
Broken sleep,
The stiffened vocal cord that hides
The youthful voice once both our pride;
The sleep, the snore, the youthful voice
Are things that cannot be denied.
And though one tries, cannot avoid.

One might translate it all as unalloyed damnation.
One adjusts - without a bit of condemnation.
It’s acceptance all the way;
Living for the day
With phases come what may,
And living with each day
As stages in our destiny.

(Some) Things I Cannot Stop 8.7.2020 A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Circling Round Ageing; Birth, Death & In Between III; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Seeing all the photos that we put on Facebook. I found myself wondering why we do it.  Yes, why we do it!  I suppose the primary motive is good old vanity with all its implications.  But more.

     Updated To The Updates

The updates on the you-man race
Are not on Facebook
But on everyday’s experience.
I suspect the stuff we put on Facebook
Is the fluff of vanity,
The stuffing of an ego’s voice,
An ego’s voice which shouts
“Remember me!  I’m here for all to see,
So look!. It’s me on Facebook!

One way or the other,
Here to brook the only-ness of loneliness;
Give solace too,
To other you’s whose anonymity,
Like yours, is reaching out,

Updating, (which I do as well)
Is microscopic in the walls
Of our existence, when
Resistance low,
It needs to show the sides it needs to show,
Albeit photo and/or poetry.

That’s it!  So, know
That it’s attention
To ease solitude and tension,
Reveal the art of us, in us, for us.
The part of us that sits at home;
Updating not just fact but artifact,
A partial of the parcel
That is you.

Updated To The Updates 8.8.2020 Our Times, Our Culture II; Pure Nakedness II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Bombarded📡🔭☮️♨️‼️
(a little reflection on our times, our culture)

We’re so bombarded,
We’ve been hardened,
Brains diluted,  convoluted.
What of us? The focussing?
You ask, “What is this focus thing?”  It is:

To isolate, to single out,
To deeply delve,
Steeping the self into a matter,
Inner chatter quietened,
The scattering restrained, frustrated.
You, the goalie concentrated.

Deluged by the information’s
Huge amount of information
Taken in each night, each day
From which we never get away.,
It is in every sense a blitz
Common sense’s road to denseness.

Even with this idiocy
One cannot leave society.
Are there solutions?
Meditations? Isolation?
Exploration of the self by watching, snatching
With an inner eye the ‘I’ inside?  
Yes.

To ride out the assault that baits you
Is to learn what translates into
Independence and detachment,
Kindness to your fellow man,
Knowledge of what’s really real:
A heart of gold and mind like steel.

These are just proposals sent
To free you from this time’s bombardment.
Hints and tips to steer your star -
That’s all they are.

Because you suffer,
Seldom knowing what you’re after,
From not knowing that you suffer.
Yes, not knowing just how much you suffer
From not knowing what you’re after.

Bombarded 8.1.2020 Our Times, Our Culture II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

You’re All You’ve Got

You’re all you’ve got.
You’ve not ’got’ anyone
Or anything,
The ring of ‘ones’ and ‘things’
A passing, fleeting,
In that meaning,
An illusion.

The truth of this when realised,
The ‘borrow-ness’ is seized,
Reduces sorrow.

Things disappear.
Relations too,
Those closest to you die
And you, you cry
At loss.
The cost of disappearance broken-heartedness.

But when you understand deep in your heart
That you’re a part and they’re a part,
Like slices of an apple ****;
That they’re not yours and you’re not theirs,
Just pieces of the larger unit,

You’re the ‘real’ of all you are,
The other things the satellites around your star
Of which you must take care while there.
Thought provoking, isn’t it,
That ‘you’ is all you’ve really got!

You’re All You’ve Got 8.4.2020 Circling Round Reality; Circling Round Experience; Pure Nakedness II; Nature Of & InReality; Arlene Nover Corwin

I cannot say what was my motive in writing this, believing all the time that I  was through with talk of amputation.  And then I saw and heard a splendid performance on TV and as one does in moments of exuberance, even while sitting in one’s living room, I was moved to euphoric applause.  The result? No sound, just blunt and muffled ache.

   Things I Cannot Do* (see bottom note)

I can no longer play a chord.
Cannot applaud,
Stand on my head,
(Joints stiffening, weak and one-sided).
Unattainable: the open can or zipped up pants
The coffee cup that’s minus handles.

Cannot roll up a left sleeve,
The right hand being less effective…
Buttoned blouses flatten me
Daunting, wearying and taunting me
While I, one-handed, work to fill
A much-too-narrow buttonhole.

Every day the list goes, growing
Markedly, perceptibly, unreasonably.
Turning up when breaching laws
An ordinary man ignores:

Reaching, stretching… temperatures:
The hot, the cold,
The simple, slippery things to hold:
All those courses now on hold
Until some bright, prostheticist
Comes up with some adroit device;
New, useful for this jazz pianist.

With not a soul to sue,
The things I can and cannot do
Continue to run neck and neck,
Tied for first place, stroking,
Karma, nature, God’s good grace,
The ever racing Time
Take trophies back to each their homes.

* August 3, 2020 will be one year since I collapsed with sepsis and had 7 fingers amputated.

Things I Cannot Do 7.30.2020 Nature Of & In Reality; Circling Round Experience; Pure Nakedness II; Arlene Nover Corwin

This was sparked off by watching a documentary last night on Leonard Cohen & Marianne both of whom I knew wall when I lived in Hydra.      

    The Goal

There are those who can’t
And those who can
Become what’s called ‘a family man’.
Those who must live solitary.
Those who must have friends a-plenty:
Women, chums, amusements, ***;
Many current, many -ex.

There are those who roam the earth
Without a faith,
Looking, looking, never finding,..
Never binding self to one:
Finding none.

Those who run and those who search;
World-weary urchins*
Existentially un-gladdened, burdened,
Mightily or slightly saddened.

No one thing that’s best for all,
No inner voice, choice, norm of form;
Then, waking one day to a call,
It settles all.

Rising, falling with a grin,
Settling in to nature’s cycles,
Sizing up the grand delusion,
Each day’s challenging illusion.

Inner joy reflecting off a shining face
Now well defined and more refined,
They help without a conscious motive,
Simply by a way of living.

In order to find inner peace,
“Know yourself”, said Socrates.
Where under decrease hides increase
Which then in turn feeds happiness -
The ultimate in goals that please.

The happiness infectiousness,
Is  virus kissed and truly blessed.
Conclusion from this authoress:
“They’re not all baddies I would guess.”

A Reference to Noel Coward’s song “World-Weary” (1928)
The Goal 2.29.2020 Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Found On Backs of Envelopes

Talent helps, but at the end
A chain of forces gives intent
Its form whose links
Are luck and karma,
Perseverance as its armour.

Pushing doggedly against the odds:
Time’s cycles, ups and downs,
Fenced in or pushing back or at
Rejection, vanity, the blocks
Of dailyness-es, laziness-es,
Each a hindrance stealing time.
Yet talent is the ground
Fed by the virtues which turn destinies around.

I’ve had this scrap since twenty four: two thousand four,
Which means it’s been
A household tenant fourteen years,
(I date my scribblings),
Its poetic siblings coming after
Several thousand crafted rhymes.

A lesson here somewhere:
Save bits of paper,
Be they toilet, pamphlet, poster, letter…
Keep each ballpoint you collect -
Guidelines you will not regret
But laud, applaud one day
When someone reads the stuff you’ve had to say
And says “Hurray”!
All from not tossing out the scrap
Or throwing crap away!

Found On Backs Of Envelopes 12.17.2018/revised7.27.2020 A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; The Processes: Creativity, Thinking, Meditative II; Arlene Nover Corwin

This is a long one!  But it’s an answer.  Yes?  

      Do More Research

“Do more research!”
That’s what I told my doctor
When he said, “I have no answer”,
I responded, “Do research!”
To which he answered,
Nether jokingly nor mocking me.
"I’ve got all these patients… masses… “

I said, “Then it’s up to you to do some more!
It helps the rich, it helps the poor.
If I am helped, it will help all,
The big, the small.”
He’d  put me on the spot.
He said, “Perhaps you’s like to change your doc?”
It shocked, of course.
My only course was to reply,
-Oh me, oh my! Of course I don’t!
And then I left.

Reliant on a Google font,
On Wiki- this, or Wiki- that!
My only course, of course,
Was to search on my own.
Research my illness up and down,
A clown in search of a solution.

If I may, a not-too-nice person
Offering advice to a profession,
Indispensable to all and each,
Not besmirching and/or preaching,
I say this: Do more research!

We, but wretches without knowledge,
You, eight stretched out years at college!
With your know-how, you know how to fetch the facts.
So act! We’re waiting for a salve
To work on our finite behalf.
March straight right to the books you have,
And do research. It’s us you save!

You and we are all betrothed.
Do not leave us in the lurch.
It’s in your oath.
You with all your education.
Medicine, its limitation.
Do more research!

Do More Research 7.27.2020 Our Times, Our Culture II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Ideas Are Always There

In the bubbling babble, clamber, scramble
For ascendancy and clarity,
Ideas of every kind
Are forming pictures, wishes, plans and fancies,
Goals and targets; theories.
In the chaos of the mind,
Suppressed, surpassed you find
Surprises ne’er expected.

For those who write,
Who claim a ‘writer’s block’
I say “Knock, knock!”
Ideas are there.
You cannot stop ‘em.  

There to joke with, poke around, soak up
Trusting in instinct without fear,
This writer does declare
You can, whenever, fix things later.

Writing is not made of marble, though
I have a feeling Michelangelo
Could do it, ideas flowing, never ending,
Sending signals of association
And creation
To the hands which held hammer or pen.

So, friend,
When you awake, have breakfasted,
Be sure your ideation-mind is interested.
And here’s the thing:
Pure and simple interesting!

Ideas Are Always There 7.26.2020 The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Circling Round  Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

I’m sending this out to my jazz musician and jazz loving  friends.   It’s not a finished product by any means, but a spontaneous tribute to Annie Ross, who died yesterday.
Arlene

       Annie Ross

The loss of Annie Ross
Is loss indeed.
I was a teen in ’53.
Mom owned along with Slim Gaillard
The first jazz club in all Long Island.

There stood a Juke Box.
On the box
Were Hendricks, Lambert, Annie Ross!

There was I, a blossoming young, singing teen,
Young, listening, music major;
There were they, two hims and her,
Scatting kings and scatting queen.

Oh, how I learned!
How much I earned
From Lambert, Hendricks, Annie Ross!
They were my boss!
Not mom, not Slim,
Not Chet or Stan or Mulligan.
No, it was them!

And Annie!
Ultimately forming me
With E above high C.
Her ‘Twisted’, ‘Doodlin’, ‘Airegin’.

Eventually,
Lambert died (too, too,i too early)
John became a valued friend.
But Annie, who I never met
Whose influence I’d later get,
Has met her end.
And I regret not meeting her
And telling her how great
She was.
Annie Ross!
I hope it’s not too late to say it
To her listening spirit.

Annie Ross 7.23.2020 Vaguely About Music Ii; Circling round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

You’re welcome to share this usually ignored truth with the world.  And for those spiritually oriented people who think I’ve left out ‘soul - even soul has to take a body before it can function. Otherwise, it’s just up there somewhere in the skies.

Arlene

             Body  

Everybody is a body:
Underneath it all, a body total.
Big or small, broad and ample,
Slight, but never trivial,
Arrival on this planet
Nothing short of miracle;

We’re meant to love it, but without
The pride of vanity,
For we know, vanities
Are valueless,
The body, paradoxically,
A  transiency;  
One could just say,
A moment’s instability.

We’re born to care
And not be fooled by armpit hair,
**** and cheek.
Soon or late all parts are weakened.

Tooled to grow, unroll, unfold:
It is a body, after all.
A million, zillion cells
That only ever wish us well.
Dimply, pimply, faintly smelly.
When each jolly quirk is tallied,
Everybody but a body.

Torsos weak and torsos strong
See us through the whole lifelong;
All of you and all of me.
This solely one and only body.

Body 7.22.2020 Circling Round Nature II; Nature Of & In Reality; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

A Reader Commented

“it can get repetitious
When you write about the brain.
The same refrain again, again.”
I answered:
“Variations on a theme, that’s all it is.
Not repetitious, but delicious."

With so many things that need attention.
Variations in an endless fund,
The emphasis on fun and essence…
But just now I am in body mode,
Brain unfolding
Undercurrents sensed and flowing
In a stream of consciousness
That feel almost blessed
Because I don’t know where they're coming from,
Not really.

What I do know is, there is a train:
Ideas starting in the brain
And through the hand,
Their end a piece of paper,
As if life was cutting some sweet caper,
In the art of understanding.

A Reader Commented 7.20.2020 The Processes: Creative,Thinking, Mediative II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Detachment

I only wish that I were smarter.
Smarter is a starter
That can help in dealing with a matter;
Bring awareness to the whole.
(be it bowl or foal or jowl or vowel).

Yet I’m smart enough to roll  
Around inside my head
Things read, things said -
And without knowing where I‘m going,
Using synthesis and heart,
Get to some conclusion
I’d no inkling at the start.

With detachment
But not distant or aloof,
It becomes a state where mind dictates
With fairness, and then, ****!
Seeing sides that I’d not guessed were there,
There they are, staring me right in the face,
The space filled with but one desire:
To write an excellent poem!

Using homely word formation,
Something in me tackling issues
From the street talk of my childhood station.
To cues taken the abstruseness.

With the first idea a preconception,
And a gift for self-reflection.
It’s a doubly living counterpart:
One not-really-smart facade  
Echoing the outside bard,
And one that always  looks inside
And finds a chord
That’s fresh and new (or one or two).
A movement of improvement.

Being cool is part
Of being smart.
A clue
To an innate IQ
That doesn’t always show
Until you grow into it.

Detachment 7.19.2020 Definitely Didactic II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Perfect

I thought for years t’was no such thing,
Believing in the ongoing of everything.
I now believe quite differently.
Fast or slow, the mind in Now.
Testing my discovery.

Details count, perhaps the most.
Every detail is its moment.
Thoughtful practice - years, perhaps.
It all becomes a lapse-less care
Combined with skilled improvisation.

Like the movement in a symphony,
The stanza in a poem:
Complete within itself,
Each segment but a leading
To the next and next
Until the text and form
Feel finished, polished: done.

To do it is the privilege,
To carry on the duty
To reach it is the satisfaction.
(perfectio; the Latin for completion.)

Perfect 7.19.2020 The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Mediative II; Definitely Didactic II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Old Is Old

One phenomenon weighs me down:
Humans killing humans -
It a thing that never ages,
Being at the top of sinful wages.

Ebb and tide does not die out,
But we too soon glide from this planet
When we ought to all live out our days
Until the very final phase  
Of nature’s meaning
As was meant in Eden.

Oblivion, as Shakespeare says,
Arrives anon.  In any case,
Soon or late, fate has its voice,
The thing we call free choice erased.

Old is old.
We cannot scold the unpreventable,
Determined and unshakeable,
Regimented by laws born
In every momentary bubble.

Old is simply to observe.
Old is simply to accept.
The script all tightly written.

Old Is Old 5.24.2020/7.18.2020 Birth, Death & In Between III; Circling Round Aging; Circling Round Wrinkles; Nature Of & In Reality; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Helping Attitudes With Platitudes

You do not have to be
Anyone but who you are.
Refining character
To help define your aura
Is the only thing you need acquire.

To experiment,
Pretend you are a foreigner,
A highborn neighbour
Or a stranger.

Be yourself and you will help the globe
As well as every microbe;
Setting off the chain reaction
Near and far
Encapsulating who you are.

Helping Attitudes With Platitudes 7.17.2020 A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Simply following the flow of thought.    

            Curiosity

Curiosity!  
So admirable and so worthwhile.
It never ‘killed a cat.’
It’s so much more than that.
in one who has it,
It may seem idiosyncratic.

But a treasure trove potential,
Of the jewelled and ideal,
Experiential and essential,
Meant to be a quality of more than ‘simple’,
Curiosity which makes you strong,
Through broadened knowledge,
Every living thing and not, a college,
It is spirit:  spirit of enquiry -
For none deny
It is a spirit.
Oddity  but spirit always is;
All have, few use,
The masses leaning on old views.

One thinks a thought and wonders why
And where and how and who
And so on till the thought is through.
These days it’s only to pursue
And follow through: so easy
With technology.

A universal literacy is all that’s needed.
Freedom helps.  
Once seeded, curiosity might gain nobility,
Respectability.
Both well deserved
And In the end, serve self
And all humanity.

Curiosity 7.15.2020 The Processes: Creative, thinking, Meditative II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Body: A Chemical Factory

Fascinatingly exciting and perplexing,
Process wondrous:
Neurons, synapses
To shoot off sparkling energy the eye can’t see:
Electricity!  And we,
So lucky there existed a Galvani
And his twitching frogs..

We can measure states of consciousness,
Assess the contents,
Name the highs and lows,
With means to influence
Or understand surprising Wows!
The brain so layered,
Bodies calibrated
For a life of capabilities:

Jokes to coax a smile,
Brawn to run a mile,
Lusts to make a child,
Strength enough to lift a car,
Brains enough to get to Mars.

Body! Such a factory
Of complex, interacting chemistry;
The greatest and the  subtlest mystery
Of species Man.

Body: A Chemical Factory 7.12.2020 Nature Of & In Reality; Circling Round Reality; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Words To Love: Burgeoning🐝🌲🌿🍃🍄

It is July, year twenty twenty.
Summer sky has not been great.
One often wants what one can’t get.
There has been thunder, lightening,  storm, wimd, rain -
Even hale!  Yet,
Garden and the forest burgeon:
Rhododendrons broadened,
Sprouting unfamiliarly on roadside margins;
Upward, outward, inward, downward;
Grasses verdant, vari-colored,  
All hail to the weather god!

Fruits and bees, the reckoned with, the seasonal
Thinned out, not come as usual;
Normal berries, for example  -
Disappointing!  Very!
Fewer berries.  N’eer a berry.

Yet,
One must admit
This burgeoning is overwhelming;
Branch, bough, shoot, each flabbergasting.
Burgeoning is such a warming, loving, word.
Nature’s silent, secret growing. going on unheard,
Spectacularly self-effacing.

Words to Love: Burgeoning 7.10.2020 Circling Round Nature II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Each Trick On Mac

I wish I knew each trick on Mac
To send and track;
Each new technique
A winning streak in cyber-speak.

Trying hard to not be piqued
By an ineptitude
That lies within the DNA
(or am I justifying being lazy).
Anyway, I’m way behind in keeping up.
In sending through my things to do,
Like all the books I’ve left to publish,
Then when published, to divulge.  

Indulge me:
Am I doomed to be unknown/ anon
Until the kids of kids of kids have grown?
Was it some centuries before Johan Sebastian Bach prevailed?
What’s-his long-forgotten name unveiled?
Lost for ages Raphael (or some same fellow)…
You know what I mean.
And all because I never worked
To learn this darned Machine!

Each Trick On Mac 6.14.2020 To The Child Mystic II; A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

* You’ll never believe it, but this sieve of a brain who tried for hours to recall ‘what’s-his-name’, abandoning it entirely, suddenly came up with, first, “Centuries of Meditations” then minutes later Traherne, then minutes more Thomas.  My God, this has never happened before!  That some figure I’d not referred to, given a thought to or even read since university days, should 65 years later suddenly explode with it.   I’m in shock!  
I have some re-writing to do, for sure.  If not here, elsewhere. But first I ought to do   little reading.

Waking at 7am, my mind went to peace, power, purity, knowledge love and bliss - qualities I’ve been told make up the origin of origins, its machinery, innards and insides.  Having thought deeply about the first five qualities, writing about them in sundry ways, finding numerous images to use, I have never been able to understand and certainly write about the last.

Somehow, I was and am inspired to give it a go.

                          Bliss

What does bliss consist of,
Or, to put it properly,
Of what does bliss consist?
One has been told
The properties of godliness
Are power, peace and purity,
Knowledge, love and bliss.
An easily dismissed and hard-defined
Form of continued happiness.
One so refined
And sifted through a sieve so fine,
There’s no impurity of sadness left,
The deftest hand designing it.

We human beings never quit
In walking roads, bearing loads,
Experimenting with all sorts of modes
To get to, feel it.

A unit with no parts,
Mind, heart dissolved and blended
In a homogeneous and splendid fire,
Sparkling in it’s colourless, see-through attire.

He or she in whom it’s sired
Has aspired eons.
Then, as if by accident
It’s sent!
A burst, a still, a calm,
Perhaps the ultimate of balm.

Who knows of what this bliss consists?
Does he or she go on existing?
Or is this state out of which
One never is the same?
Is it the final aim?
God knows.

Bliss 7.7.2020 To The Child Mystic II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

All the years before the Corona pandemic, my Swedish neighbours from across the lake used to celebrate the 4th of July with a party,  having themselves spent 32 years in the United States.  To them I dedicate this poem.

  July 4th, 2020 🇺🇸

It is the fourth of July.
A day we usually
Fill with joy:
Fireworks, parades and games
Its names:
Fourth of July:
Independence Day.

United, free;
No more a colony;
A formal declaration
Made of five brave men
And Thomas Jefferson,
Making history, and
The beginnings of a USA.

So, Americans,
My dear, dear Swedish friends
And any there may be elsewhere,
Let us wear the day
In camaraderie and play.
Most all in harmony.
Happy, Happy 4th July! 🇺🇸

July 4th, 2020 Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Nover Corwin

We use ‘my’ without a thought.  My goodness! Oh my!  We use it affectionately, sympathetically; my dear boy; my poor baby!  Also belonging to or associated with the speaker: my name is Arlene; my friend.
And yet, and yet…my is possessive.

         Examining ‘My’

My, means belonging to…
Does anything belong to you?
I don’t  think so.
My face, body, cat or house.
Worse,
My child, my wife and coin possessed?
Preposterous and pointless.
Mine to own?
Fallacious and  illusion;
All’s a loan.
Each object, person, situation
Not the tiniest bit mine.

It is better that you say:
“I go, you go, he goes, she goes”.
Goodness knows, each object goes:
Nothing’s mine and nothing’s yours;
Each thing seen, touched, held; a guise..

The range of verbs you choose to use
Should be reviewed to understand reality.
Everyone and everything but temporary.

Try to take a day or two
Getting used to finding out what, how and who
Relates to you.
Rotation, alternation, staying in our lives a day
But never staying always.

Examining ‘My’ 6.20.2020 Circling Round Reality; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Two Looks At The First Reality
       (or What or Who creates it all)

Depending on one’s leanings,
And assuming one is interested,
I, myself am all-enthralled
By themes self-vested in.

One view is that Reality, the Primary
Is really One, without a sun - just one Entirety.
The second is the same Supreme
With arms, legs, body, plus an aim;
One which we address by name.
Who often spotlights sin and blame
But calls on us to love our neighbour -
Finely tuned through daily labor.

I find I prefer the former:
One which says that causes good in motive, act
Result in good-ness as a fact;
And causes whose intents are wrong
Though mind is rational and sharp
Will end in ends that taint and warp.

Each theory is complementary.
Depending on how you are born
(with preferences pre-natally ‘learned’)
You can arrive one early morn
At one with It-The-Energy,
Free from all impurity.

These little stanzas simplify
A lifelong try
At transformation.
Drawing on our *******-up best
At wrestling with the gifts and mess
We’re born to guest.

Two Looks At The First Reality 6.7.2020 Circling Round Reality; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Things Come & Go

Things come and go:
Lightening bright and sudden
Over in a nano-second.
Dew, its job completed,
Lost in air, evaporated.

Forms diverse;
A shared non-substance: emptiness.
A single thing the ring of truth is that we are illusory.
Still paradoxically,
But for a shape, look, name
We are the permanently same inside;                                    
The rest a mutable ephemeral,
And seldom in the know
That things come and they go
As quickly as they do.
Things Come & Go 6.4.2020 Birth, Death & In Between III; Arlene Nover Corwin

To Only Deal With What You’ve Got

To only deal with what you’ve got,
Not what you had,
And seldom think one step ahead,
That is the art.

To start each day
With not a hope that it will stay,
But use each sense of consciousness
With might and care:
Sight, smell, touch, taste, aware
As second authorises.

Seconds shrink to nano-points,
Muscles, joints awaken
For the sake of mind and spirit.
To give in to mind lets spirit grow,
For mind knows that you’re doing right;
Doing what you’re meant to,
Sure of what you’re meant to
Nano-hour by nano-hour;
Pure and purer, power by power.

To only deal with what you’ve got,
With what’s been handed
Where you’ve landed
Is the license of consent
To the whole science
Of existence.

To Only Deal With What You’ve Got 6.30.2020 Circling Round Experience;  Circling Round Existence II; Arlene Nover Corwin