Got this idea the other day- but only as a title.  Worked on it the past two days. (That was 2017)  
     See if you appreciate its point of view.  Notice that i place it in the collection called Circling Round Egos.
              Giving In
We fight against…
We feel it’s brave.
No matter what the cause
The will to save is strong.
We go along with crowds
Who think alike and think aloud.

The self may or may not be gone;
We like to think in unison,
Fighting for the right 'gainst wrongs.
We even sing fight songs
In the name of right and wrong.

To yield is a second way.
Is it weakness to give in, give way?
It’s often clever - often never.
War means to attack, fight back,
But even Bonaparte gave up his part,
Threw in the towel; weak move but smart.

Giving in to giving way to bowing down to...
Stepping back to take a breather…
Easier, less time-consuming,
Hours left for ruminating.

Friends gossip sipping something sweet.
They’ve all known loss, they've known defeat.
Yet it’s sweet to criticize.
We are a crazy [human] race.

Summed up: the best stress buster
Giving back to life its luster,
And the plan that musters true,  
Is yes in lieu of no: a giving in
To cover most conditions.

Giving In 4.27.2017revised 6.15.2018 Circling Round Egos; Arlene 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

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

A bit schmaltz-illy didactic, but so what! It’s what occurred to me this morning and I worked many an hour on it - believe it or not.

   Corruption Of The Heart

The 'I' Form

Some like it, some do not.
Some avoid it, voiding it
Into the well of meekness, weakness;
Too confessional to speak.
I was one of them,
Sometimes still am.
The ego’s always there with shame.

If the theme is terribly self-biographic,
Graphic, ******…
Then ‘’i’ becomes ’one’, ‘he’ or ‘she’.
Usually, I don’t need privacy
But like to share a message
Writ as poetry,
Assumption being ‘we’
Is always you and me -
Same experiences,
Feelings, senses…
All that differs is the tongue.
Behind it all, one song that’s sung,
Pearls of life strung on one string,
The common gong of simply being.
Let us share the ‘I’ form bravely!
I is always you is we.

The ‘I’ Form 4.4.2021 I Is Always You Is We; Arlene Nover Corwin

There is part of a system of thought that says every time you dwell on the thought of people or things you lose sight of your self.  It makes sense because thought, its being an ephemeral, comes in and goes on to another at the speed of lightening. Where is the you in that moment? A you that is essential, the you you want to find out about, go into at will and stay for longer than that lightening.  

     The habit of thinking about people and things disallows that, discourages that, waters down the ability.  Result?   One is spending hours of the day reaching out to an illusion, a passing evaluation, an ever changing object.  Time wasted.

As I appreciate the small inner utterances that make for poetry, some may (I hope) appreciate this amusing little poetic speculation.
Fondly, on the second day of 2021
Arlene
PS
If there are words you don’t know the meaning of, just write me.  I know there are many out there for whom English is not a first language.  It’s always good to keep a dictionary handy.
         The ****** Self
Is it in
The eyes, the skin,
The hormones, mind, the veiled nerves,
The attitude or aptitude’s genetic drives?
What is it most that serves
To makes it good, bad;
Person super duper glad?
Do dreams reveal what days congeal,
Conceal with facets still in store
To show you clearly what you are?
Without a doubt
Freud’s ‘outing’ of his insight,
Onslaught on an uptight world,
Was right.  
Perhaps not wholly, but more than a bit.
Postscript:
These small verses,
But a dabbler’s analyses,
Came this caffeinated morning  
Without warning
Like the magic elf that is our ***’s self.
The mornings lift not deft
But even so,
Its gift.

The ****** Self 1.2.2021 A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Circling Round Exerience; Arlene Nover

Just in the middle of editing my next book Definitely Didactic and thought I'd present this thought here.

           Half-Full Glass

My Barometers Are…

That no matter how it looks,
Everything expands till it contracts:
Beings, universes, forms, e’en ‘facts’;
That everything that lives loves life
Through one or other framed belief;
That human beings love themselves,
Have egos, inborn tendencies
Inherited from endless chains
Of genes that either hinder,
Getting in the way
Or manifesting advantageously
In the mind and body;
That energy, regardless of - the good, the bad,
The sane, the mad, the shown, un-shown
Contains within
The opposite and equal influence.
Untold measures to describe the treasure islands
Which reflect the ways to judge existence,
Put to use in everyday experience.

My Barometers Are 3.13.2021 Circling Round Reality; 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

Always writing, these two followed one another in sequence, mind working from places that surprised and tickled.

   Finding Goodness In The Most Unlikely Places

“Finding goodness in the most unlikely places”
Read this phrase and had to face
The fact that friends whose characters I took for granted
Showed and have bestowed the unexpected
Love, respect and qualities unknown and unsuspected
In the most unlikely situations,
Causing my relations with the whole darned world
To tears unfurled
                            the first time in my life.

Changed forever, never to return to sheer
Indifference, judgement or ill will,
Never more to stand aloof,
Just tears of gratitude to verify its proof.

Finding Goodness… 11.29.2019
Love Relationships II; Definitely Didactic; Arlene Nover Corwin


      I Stopped Being Envious

I killed my envy-filled green eye
When I beheld the day to day
Recasting of both face and a_s.
That each one changes not just
Year by future year but now and here.
So, on that day, that very minute
Envy went away to stay.

Smallest waistline, glowing skin,
Intelligence so high it whitens out the sky,
The stars and universe:
Blessings all and also curse:
Best to worse the sadly likeliest.

Round twenty-ish
I was no longer jealous -
Drew each atom to a close.
IQ middling, talents too,
Each one pondered, I felt rosy,
Grati-satsfied and well-to-do.

Lost all envy when I'd learned
That all things change.
I had discerned
Release from chain.
That’s what freedom’s meant to be
For you, for me, for everybody.

There is no competition,
Only similarity and contrast.
No one else is you, and you
Will never be a someone else.
Soothed by sharing, (mostly caring),
Shutting out the envious,
It’s obvious, that you are matchless, unsurpassed -
A one and only without need to be another cast.

I Stopped Being Envious 11.30.2019
Circling Round Reality; Definitely Didactic; Arlene Nover Corwin

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’

Putting on my lipstick and feeling silly.

Extract from a letter answering a friend about my productivity:
     “I have neither habit nor stamina - at least not consciously.  It’s more from laziness - the writing, that is.  I see, hear or read a phrase or reportage and I’m off!  That’s it!  And  because repetition creates habit, be it smoking, biting your nails, or quilting - then if you have a particular talent, well, there it is - the automatic stamina and habit..”


           A Poet’s Rationalisation

She writes daytime and night.
She’s neither stamina nor habit.
It’s because she’s lazy.
When she’s complimented (as she’s been at times)
The only word that has occurred’s tenacity.

Reading, seeing reportage, message hitting the right the spot,
And lo, she’s hot!
Computer open, blank page there
And she is where she ought to be,
Comfy, lazy, some ability
Wakened for the sake of…
Nothing!

Prolific - she’s aware of it.
Gazillion ideas make her sit.
And when she sits and pushed to write,
She writes because it’s what
She’s pushed to from within, without,
Stimulation like a clout from heaven -
Happy as sandboy,
Seventh heaven’s brand new toy,

Theory, philosophy, hypothesis,
This, her only explanation
For the many extant stanzas
Published and unpublished
With no purpose whatsoever.

Thank you to whomever
Pays a tribute or has praised
Or lauded and applauded reveries,
The fantasies that intellect can cover.
What more can one ask for?

A Poet’s Rationalisation 12.6.2019
The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Arlene Nover Corwin

I re-discovered this a day or two ago and, I must unashamedly admit was altogether and immodestly charmed by it.  So here it is - again.      

            Tipsy

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

Don’t Copy Or, Have I Said This One Before?

Writing From The Place You’re At

If you’re living in the Now,
Defining and refining
With a sense of movement-in-the-present,
Then your writing will become
A mirror of that present,
You a better writing woman/man - yes, person.
That’s a a gift!  A real present!

Moment’s thought may feel too trifling
To put out into the world, but listen!
No thought is so meaningless
As not to hurl into the swirl of word
Poetic brainwaves others have not also shared.

That is why the “I is always you is we.”
The marvel being ‘you’ is always you,
Your writing yours and no one else’s:
You, the content, style, form.
Catch the moment: carpe diem!
As the hundred zillion galaxies do this second,
You’ll expand,
A guarantee long earned, confirmed!

Writing From the Place You’re At 4.13.2021 Definitely Didactic II; I Is Always You Is Me; The Processes: Creative, thinking, Meditative II; Arlene Nover Corwin

“I Is Always You Is We.” the title of a one of my collections and coming book.

I was surprised when this poem showed up this morning, chosen as 'front page picks' on AllPoetry.com, (most popular poetry site in the world? the universe? - I don't know, but who cares). I'd even forgotten I'd written it. But reading it over, it's good! Good and even informative. Have a read. ✍️

"Who ever thought of it as the peninsula it is. Inhabited by native Americans and called Narrioch, a ” land without shadows”, “always in the light”, its beaches facing south and ‘always in the light; a “point” or “corner of the land”. Come 1600’s and it’s Dutch bought for a gun, a blanket and a kettle. Also called Coninen Island, then Coney Hook, then maybe Conyn Eylandt. Maybe even Konah, even Colman after John Coleman, slain by the natives 1609."
Wikipedia
CONEY ISLAND

The Illumined Poet

Who is he?
Does he exist?
Is he consistent?
What does he see others don’t?
Does he know what others don’t?
Is he he, or can he also be a she?
In these days you have to ask,
For it is ‘in’ to be defender
Of the genders one and all.

Poets stand, some sit in chairs;
While sitting up in bed some stare
Into an inner or an outer space
While letting, waiting, waiting, letting
Ideas come with no thought as to future comings,
Future poem-ings,

Afterwards he/she is empty.
Emptied of all relevance
To theme that took poetic stance,
Metered dance,
Seemed to be an endless well.

A well, it wells up from below.
What does it do?
Flows upward, outward,
Shooting, spewing, spurting, spouting,
Summer-springs that sprout
Ideas, conceptions, thought.

No one knows where all this comes from;
Poet-sage without intention,
Living on without ambition,
Driven by no aspiration,
Only the illumination
Bringing into birth a poem
That some
Will grasp, appreciate,
Others miss or misinterpret:
Know it!
This rare member of the planet:
The illuminated poet!

The Illumined Poet 9.28.2018 Revelations Big & Small; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Arlene Nover Corwin

An Entire Slowing Down

The phrase came through at a sleepless 3am.  Couldn’t resist, of course.

A Swedish Midsummer 2020

Geography the usual;
The place on planet just the same;
The night light full till after midnight,
Daylight’s dawn at one or two
With so few hours in between.

This year then,
A little different.
Last year when
A crowd would meet
To dance and sing and drink and eat
On park or lawn or balconies,
Families and friends to hoopla til a dark
Which almost never comes
Makes the ending for them.

This a deviating year;
Debating and departing from
The customary dancing, prancing,
History may chronicle as Distancing,
Fiascos, blunders, six-feet-unders.
Romance from six feet of space

This midsummer in the North
Coming forth with likenesses
Has, by the laws of nature
Put the  emphasis on differences
Which we, survivors aa a race
Will surely neutralise and chase away
One future day.

A Swedish Midsummer 2020 6.16.2020 Nature 0f & Nature In Reality; 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

Teaching Yoga

Handicaps

Handicaps: we have them, each and every one of us.
Too busy with the busy-ness to notice,
Till one day life catches up;
Former choices do no longer;
Slurping, supping, sipping wine and caviar.
What you’ve been, no longer are.
Leg, finger, hand-icap:  
Pand-epi-demi-cap.
Imprisoned and aware
In new surprising ways, forced to adapt:  
Perhaps pace slowed, head bowed,
The lapse of time interpreted anew.

Doings take on an insistence you
Ignored all through the years before;
A not-so-secret cue to more-than-woo a state
Wherein resistance is effete,
Clues lord, you servant.

Yes, we have them in the karma.
They may harm.  They have no charm.
They are the permanent new feature,
You, prisoner and creature
Left to farm this new terrain,
Use its fertility to seed again
A life of happiness;
Fruitfulness no less than it was once:
A handicap turned Ponce de Leon.

Handicaps 4.26.2020 Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Although it may look as if I’m carrying on a one-woman campaign, writing poetry about amputation as I occasionally do, I just want to say that as a recent amputee, having gotten a mysterious sepsis (blood poisoning) and going from a ten fingered person to a three whole, three half fingered person, certain situations that I find myself in set off quirky observations which, as a poet I simply cannot resist setting to meter and rhyme.  

            Shampooing

To those of you who’ve never known
An amputee of any sort -
A few bones short,
Shampooing is, well, interesting,
Challenging, to say the least!
The warming bath with bended knees
The bottle squeezed, the soaping in,
The tender skin on scalp and crown,
Just sitting down!
Each step to get those darned hairs clean.

It takes awhile to go that mile,
But afterwards it’s worth it;
A warming and uplifting gift,
The escapade engaging brain:
A training on a very basic yogic plane.  

Shampooing 11.20.2020 A Sense Of the Ridiculous II;

[There Are] Things You Can Never Change

Happy Easter

There is no master holy day
That beats the Easter holiday.
No fiesta with its vista of eternal life:
The basis of an Easter.

Sister to Passover,
Depth more than a four leaf clover
Where no fluff can dwarf its notion
And no proof but a convention
Grown from Biblical tradition
It is history worth telling;
Worth the celebrating,
Pondering;
Astonishing, confounding:
Jesus’ fall and rise
The most bewildering surprise.

So let us spend a day
To think about eternity
And then be happy
At the possibility
Of love that lives immortally
Happy Easter!

Happy Easter 4.2.2021 Our Times, Our Culture Ii; Arlene Never 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

Hello world! Though written in 1997, how I love this one (Happen to find it while editing “Swedish Book”).

.          Collapsing In On Itself
  
A week-dead pike on local stone wall,
Placed there or dropped by some passing seagull
And ignored; once fresh and full now meagre and dull,
Is almost the same as the day that it came,
But entrails have started to go.
(Are they ‘entrails’? I don’t really know.)
Of course it has innards; the roe, liver gall,
And I’d guess there’s a stomach.
It think it’s a pike - maybe perch, not a haddock!
The thing that’s essential, its cardinal what-ness
Is something that shows now whenever I to pass it.
Everything rotten or heading that way,
Falls in on itself in its terminal rot-ness.

Collapsing In On Itself 8.16.1997/revised and amended 5.13.2019 Swedish Book; Circling Round Nature; Birth, Death & In Between; Nature Of & In Itself; Arlene Nover Corwin

The Word Is So Inspiring #2

The word is so inspiring ‘cause
The world is so…inspiring, yes!
So connected word and world, that
Whether reading, hearing, speaking,
One cannot hold out against,
So hard resisted -
World/word every inch insistent.

Adjectives are what it needs:
All kinds of namings and descriptions.
Verbs to give the state an action,
One’s reaction heightened, strengthened.

What would mortal being be,
Idea too - without a word
To give a world to;
Love or hate, brake, dominate…
The catalyst to cause a chain
Without sustaining change itself; yet mate
We cannot do without.

World and word.  Add or drop the letter L
And you make a hell of heaven, heaven hell:
Reach the soul of being’s kernel.

Don’t we all adore the word,
Forming terms to upgrade, downgrade, add to, shade;
inescapable, a tool
To make us stronger, nicer, if you will
For we are partly in control.

In other words, don’t hesitate
To spread the word, but waste no words
And keep your word;
Express yourself in ways untiring,
Heart and head both unified
In spoken or the written word inspired
And inspiring.

The Word Is So Inspiring #2 1.19.2020  Definitely Didactic #2;  Circling Round Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin

The title was a phrase I was attracted to and thought to write a song to.  My poetic self took over and ‘conceived in Paris’ became this instead. A poem dedicated to the person who first used the phrase, Marc Myers, creator of the site Jazz Wax, who was conceived in Paris but born in New York.

Ooh, I can be  brazen, sometimes...

Anything can inspire, for example, sitting in bed this morning.

Mysteries That Never Cease

There are mysteries that never cease,
Will always be:
Because of, not in spite of.
Look at progress:
Despite progress, we are more at risk than ever.
I fear, not ‘in spite of’, but ‘because of’, progress never
What it seems,
All the reams of information,
New advances, dancing in our eyes and ears
Dependant on who sees or hears,
Every positive a dormant negativeDependent on whose hands it’s in.

Then the secrets of infinity:
What, where, how, why and when;
A mystery most definitely.
And music, art
The part that improvises and creates
Out of a place inscrutable,
Wondrous, wonderful.

To never understand?
Dependant on whose hand it’s in,
Whose talent, aptitude, inborn mind
Is interested at all to find
The answers.

Mysteries That Never Cease 11.21.2019
Nature Of & In Reality; Circling Round Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin

We Who Keep Writing

I listen, read and look,
The world around a book.
This simple observation
Stimulation.
To one linguistically inclined,
As Swedes say,
“It lies ‘in the spine” *
Another way of saying,
In the gene or DNA.

This Facebook thing,
The many, many sites that ring,
Communicating, reaching out
To those of us who think and write
In words
Are worlds of benefit and benediction.
So-so intellect and talent
Notwithstanding.

We who carry on,
Persist, keep on
By virtue of some motivation
Indivisible, invisible,
Yet Siamese twin
Are blessed without, blessed from within.
This tiny verse took 15 minutes.

We who Keep Writing 3.28.2021 The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin
* (for I live in Sweden)

Sometimes it’s great fun to write nothing.    

  The Great Debate: Shower Vs Bath
(or 15 minutes with the, worth the pen & paper)

She:
Nothing can compare with
Bathtub filled with
Water’s warmth of H20
A-top an un-warapped body
Draped moistened luxury.
He:
Ah, the freshness of the ******!
It’s too, too much!
Standing under such a pressure pleasure:
So difficult to measure the enjoyment!
She:
But employment of an arm or both
Seems such a waste, the taste of water in the mouth
Unnecessary and uncouth,
You either have to swallow or you spit.
What is the sense of it?
He:
Ah, but freshness has its own
And special feeling and sensation.
Hard to put your finger on.

So it goes…
The great debate is never closed.
No conclusion, no one swayed
Each walks away, their water spray
The one and only means to get self clean -
And that’s okay.

The Great Debate: Shower Vs Bath 4.18.2021 A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Once again, sitting in the bathtub cogitating

I’m taking the liberty of sending you something just finished,  Motivated first by the thought of Co-vid people (stuck down or not) living in small apartments, forced by necessity to be alone and perhaps going bonkers.  Then, of course, I knew I was speaking to any- everyone - period.
Hot off the press:
     How To Tackle Loneliness

Tackle: such a funny word,
A lovely word, an active word.
Loneliness: a sad, inactive, ‘only’ word
Which smells of isolation,
Friendlessness, abandonment, rejection.
Unalloyed projection
Of a mind not seeing rightly.

All it needs is rectifying;
Taking thoughts from out the air
Or in the head where thoughts are spread.
Rejecting systematically the whirling round,
And casting out their ugly sound;
Lifting hand or leg or ‘***’
To something new albeit ‘dumb’.
It does not matter what you do.
It’s just to shift the thought somehow;
Shake the body, use the eye, eyebrow;
Limbs too are there to help you stay
New focussed, endlessly creative.

You’re not alone when you’re alone.
Make your thoughts a telephone.
Ideas are constant.
Change the coin
With which to launch the motivation -
And the whole becomes a boon
To get your ‘happy’ hormones working.
Happiness is always lurking -
There to make you comfortable.

Loneliness, the thief of solace,
A grief giver, full of malice
Leaves when you create in mind,
Find and form and shape some kind
Of Anything.

Use your senses - all of them:
Eyes, nose, ears, tongue, touch: each limb.
You’ve got a toolbox built within.
You have and are your best companion.
There!  A sound and practical solution
Lies at hand.
How To Tackle Loneliness 6.22.2020 The Processes:Creative,Thinking, Meditative; Definitely Didactic II;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

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

How Much We take For Granted

There’s more I can’t do than I can.
With seven fingers amputated,
The only thing I find that’s bettered
Is creative mind, un-fettered
And un-shattered by the principle: mind over matter.
For it’s matter/mind
Refining, re-aligning
By  some all-surpassing intellect.
It’s odd that forces we call God
Set courses new;
Courses brewing in the quiet
While the body riots
In complaint.

So many things to learn to handle:
Twisting, turning, grabbing, holding,
Pushing, pulling, squeezing, folding,
Lifting, mixing, gluing, fixing…
What a list! And what I missed
When there were ten.
How much we take for granted!

How Much We Take For Granted 3.24.2021 Pure Nakedness II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Deciphering Meanings

Passing On Experience

Passing through as in a cloud;
Passing on to all the crowd
By passing out free tickets
Transferred, shared;
Life intention, sentience,
And the Law of - well, Experience.

Passing On Experience 4.6.2021 Life, Death & In Between III; Arlene Nover Corwin

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

Sometimes I write a poem and fully satisfied I print it, send it out to Facebook friends and then, a week later catch a glimpse and see weaknesses I'd never have thought of or recognised as being poetic deficiencies.  This being the case, I offer you my just-now revised version of Euphoria.✍️

          Euphoria

The Word Is So Inspiring #2

The word is so inspiring ‘cause
The world is so…inspiring, yes!
So connected word and world, that
Whether reading, hearing, speaking,
One cannot hold out against,
So hard resisted -
World/word every inch insistent.

Adjectives are what it needs:
All kinds of namings and descriptions.
Verbs to give the state an action,
One’s reaction heightened, strengthened.

What would mortal being be,
Idea too - without a word
To give a world to;
Love or hate, brake, dominate…
The catalyst to cause a chain
Without sustaining change itself; yet mate
We cannot do without.

World and word.  Add or drop the letter L
And you make a hell of heaven, heaven hell:
Reach the soul of being’s kernel.

Don’t we all adore the word,
Forming terms to upgrade, downgrade, add to, shade;
inescapable, a tool
To make us stronger, nicer, if you will
For we are partly in control.

In other words, don’t hesitate
To spread the word, but waste no words
And keep your word;
Express yourself in ways untiring,
Heart and head both unified
In spoken or the written word inspired
And inspiring.

The Word Is So Inspiring #2 1.19.2020  Definitely Didactic #2;  Circling Round Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin

Lumps & Bumps

Wrinkles, lines, ache this, pain that;
And then the lumps, perplexing bumps
From nowhere, showing, growing,
Coming and not going.
Bother!
You think cancer, other
Causes: worry, costs and doctors,
Signs and trends!
Brother!
Will they never end?
These changes downward,
Foul, sour, dour, cowardly?
Unsightly forms informing us
Of beauty’s loss, of songs unsung,
Boss death and wretched other wrongs?
Lumps  and bumps which must mean something;
Nature's drowsing rousing.

Lumps & Bumps 5.29.2016/revised 5.11.2020
Circling Round Ageing; Birth, Death & In Between II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Coping

The lord of boredom is the mind.
If you can’t find
This bond with mind,
You’ll always seek external aid:
Stimulation from outside.
And with no inner guide
One cannot help but slide
Into displeasure which
No pleasure can assuage.

To cope is not to mope
But increase in one’s scope;
Enduring to the -enth degree.
Enthusiastically adapting the whole time
Through silk or slime,
Change bringing hope
If you can only cope.

What type are you?
The basically dissatisfied,
Always looking for a lot, lot more?
Unhappy, filled with pain, aggrieved?
Reaching, searching for the truth,
Your youth again?
Passive, extrovert, submissive?
Angry maybe, and aggressive?
Do you think it’s all a lie, conspiracy and bluff?
The easy explanation not an ‘if’ but ‘is’  - and stiff;

Qualities of character inept,
Or ones to fix or plain accept;
If knowing who you are’s the aim,
Then play the game.
The start:
To know components of the heart.

Coping 3.28.2021 Circling round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Note: “to know is also to know that you don’t know” - Kent Anderson