[There Are] Things You Can Never Change

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

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

On Meditation

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

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

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

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

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

(Yet Another) Portrait Of A Friend

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

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

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

The Night Is Almost Over

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

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

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

The Night Is Almost Over 9.2.2017
Pure Nakedness;
Arlene Corwin

Nature Takes Its Toll
               (A Wisdom In The Nuances)

The funniest – not ‘ha’ - of all is toll.
A charge, a payment, tax, a levy.
Then it’s said,
“The toll of injured and the dead”…
Toll, for number, count, list, tally,
Finally,
“The toll on the environment… was high”
Toll: harm, or damage, loss, cost, penalty.

Toll résumé of all life’s businesses,
The processes of is-ing;
Summary encapsulating
The inevitable, unavoidable,  
Fixed, fated, destined
And uncertain.
          
Nature Takes Its Toll 3.6.2017
Birth, Death & In Between II;
Arlene Corwin

Pain Of Place

We were happy or we weren’t.
Blended feelings formed the most;
College, restaurant, bookshop, church,
Street, park, architecture host
To chunks and bits of searching,
Forming eyes of yesterday.
Covered market, cups of tea,
Open market on a Wednesday,
Stalls of veggies, jewelry;
Child to school and child picked up,
The walking to, the walking back,
The elder tree we plucked, hands cupped,
While counted blocks betrayed a lack
Of some fulfillment.  What the target?
Surely not the streets and market.
Not the people either, nor
The daily passing through home’s door.
Gone.  But pictures still remain.
And with the pictures tints of pain.
Of place that’s not the face,
Not company.
The place acts independently,
Its energy “the spirit of…”
Its colors move.
Algos: pain.
Nostos: going home again.
Sweet nostalgia’s pull is ‘bull’.
Place may frame the pre-ordained;
Memory’s the game pre-pained.
Twists and lists: a dream.
Place and act, smell and sound:
Mind boundaries.
Mostly, we were happy or we weren’t.

Reflection On A Self-Destruction

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

Yiddish for buttocks
British informal term for television
cigarettes

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

You Never Know

You never know
What phrase will take you
To a place – what shall we call it:
Your mentality,
The frontal lobe,
The hippocampus,
Heart or soul?
It’s hard to say in words & sentences
Conventionally milked, been said,
And you don’t want to be a part of it:
The hackneyed, trite, cliché, banal -
Repeating news old hat and stale.
You have the need to speak anew,
Speak up in ways that freshen,
And you never know what sparks a notion,
Crumb, soupçon, a healing potion
(oxymoron opportune).

What matters is that it,
It comforts by the letting out,
The routing out
Concealed crypts of knowledge.

You Never Know 8.20.2017
The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Revelations Big & Small;
Arlene Corwin

Through Poetry I Try

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

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

Days Of Distraction: The List

What can they be?
They seem to go on endlessly.
Helping out a friend in need;
Finding ways to heed the need(s)
Of several needy friends in need.
Ignoring things that might be done,
Might be some fun
And useful monetarily.
Ignoring requisites of I, myself and me.
Structure: that’s one key.
Thinking practically; harmony.
Priority to me, myself and I.

Life is simple.
Roof, warmth, food -
Summed up sample of the simple,
Which gives ample time
To carry out the other,
'Other' meaning tools which further
Happiness and satisfaction.

Paying bills and buying,
Days of duty and temptation;
Stress and tension:
‘Stressed out’ grown to idiom.

What to do about this ‘dream’,
For dream it is.
This is a list and not a scheme;
Not a plan nor stratagem.
Read and think, find out!
The answer lies in nought but thee.
(That’s you and me).
You’ll see
               what works.

Days Of Distraction 10.21.2017
Definitely Didactic; I Is Always You Is Me;
Arlene Corwin

Chatted with my 'English rose' of a daughter (raised in Oxford, England now residing in Oregon, USA.) who complained of distractions which keep her from other, perhaps more practical or and/or rewarding things.  It inspired these little reflections.
It will go into my collections: Definitely Didactic and I Is Always We Is You.  By the way, my 16th book Birth, Death & In Between II went into publication today!

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

Funny Autobiographic Thoughts

In 1966 I burned my bra –
Haven’t worn one since,
Content with what God gave me once;
No plastic *****, no silly-cone nonsense
Standing up when l lie down -
A thought I find amusing
To be added to when musing;
Funny mem’ries such as these
Will carry on as they occur –
Which they will I’m sure.
Bubbling up unceasingly.
(to be continued in the future).

Funny Autobiographic Thoughts 12.4.2016
Pure Nakedness; Circling Round Woman II; A Sense Of The Ridiculous II;
Arlene Corwin

Rescued Cat
(To Veronica, his rescuer)

This very eve
A cat retrieved
From execution -
(Known as ‘putting it to sleep’
In worlds polite.)

I am relieved.
Others too -
Others who were grieved
At contemplating Mickey’s plight.
(We’ve named him Mickey.
It seems right.)

Every living thing loves life.
Who’d take the life of such a creature?
Harmless, causing not one other creature
Strife?  Well, mice of course:
A course he takes out in the wood,
Hunting out there as he should.

Saved by the bell.
Saved from the hell of being killed
By skilled hands, skilled injections:
“Put to sleep” a healthy, pretty cat rejected.  

Time to cheer.
A darling, eager friend
Consulting friends,
And friends of friends
Until she reached the blessèd end
Of finding little **** a home.

Cat Rescued 2.15.2017
Cat Book II;
Arlene Corwin

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

   Death Is Always In My Mind

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

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

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

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

I'm editing my next book "Definitely Didactic"  and in coming across this one, I decided - this must go out long before the book. Listening to and about other's woes,  I just fell in love with it.

        You Never Know The Clout You Have



You never know the clout you have,

Clout a blow or target;

Most of all effect or power

You exert by being you.



Take care! Be careful, scared! Be wary!

Everything you say, you do -

Each word, each vow, an influence.

In circumstance an ambience

You pray will be benevolent.



You, you, you in all you do;

And you have impact.

Make a pact with mental you

To be a kind and gentle you,

Giving out rewarding vibes,

Enriching, beneficial, fruitful.

You, yourself a scribe imbibing

Influences from abroad,

From world untoward – in discord!



Take some in and turn them ‘round.

You abound in power.

You can be man* of the hour

Just by being who you are.

You can be the lucky star

Of every person you encounter.

So remember!

You ne’er know the clout you have

To save what ever may occur.

* of course woman too!

You Never Know The Clout You Have 4.29.2017 Definitely Didactic; Coffee Book II; Arlene Corwin

How Are You: The Unpredictability

They almost always start the conversation
With “How are you?”
You say “Fine”.
It is the norm.
Time-honored, automatic, form expected.
        
Yet, you reach an age
Where you no longer fit the norm accepted,
And you hesitate,
Waiting just a little bit
                            ‘fore voicing back.
Unpredictable tomorrow:
Routine ailments, triumphs, sorrow;
Unpredictable around-the-clock.

Is it wrong to linger?
Wait to answer?
I think not.
To blur convention, slur cliché,  
You spur [real] candor
For the day.

When they ask you how you are,
Think of instability
And take a second to reply.

How Are You: The Unpredictability 8.9.2017
Circling Round Reality; Definitely Didactic;
Arlene Corwin

Outside And Inside

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

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

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

In A Cloud Of God

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

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

Limited Vocabulary

With my limited vocabulary,
Back pain, tendency to sloth and other frailties,
I still have much to say
And say it,
It arriving daily
As a post from nowhere, sender
Totally unknown,
No stamp or postmark on it.
Limit:
One can only work within it,
Trust that what’s within
Is valid, potent and convincing.

Limited Vocabulary 6.6.2016
The Processes: Creative, thinking Meditative II;
Arlene Corwin

Who Would’a Thunk It?


Who would’a thunk it?

Fifteen books

Sliding piecemeal into six…

Other’s bibliographies

Whose credit lists go on and on

In pages worn

By use unceasing.


Here sit I

Noon sun high,

Ablaze with phrase

That turns into (most likely will)

Ideas instilled

With rhyme and substance,

Probing, pressing cortex’ lobe

Gushing, pushing out the job.


Who would’a thunk, in any case,

That it would form the base of hours

Spent each day as child’s play?

(Except that I’m grown up!)

Who would’a thunk it?


Who Would’a Thunk It? 8.16.2017
A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II;
Arlene Corwin

Thunk; informal or humorous past a

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

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

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

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

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

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

Building Walls

To build a wall beside your neighbor,
(though he be not dearest neighbor) -
Build a wall to hide your neighbor
And to hide yourself,
Is wrong as wrong can be.
Don’t you agree?

What neighbor has no overflow?
Is not magnifico?
Has not a folk to which we owe
Our history:  our languages, our citizenry, heroes and mythology;
Poverty an un-destroy-able
“The poor are always with us” still, will always be.

What neighbor doesn’t ebb and flow,
Fail then grow?
He next store or ‘cross the border.
Not our job to build a fort  
Against a fancied enemy.

Building Walls 5.22.2017
War Book II; Our Times, Our Culture II;
Arlene Corwin;

Coming home, turning on the Mac, tuning in the radio, expecting to see, hear the installation of the President-elect, I read instead “Miguel Ferrer Is Dead”.  Priority is clear.  Dear Mr Ferrer takes precedence.

        
          God Bless You Mr. Ferrer

God bless you Mr. Ferrer
Where’er you are.
‘My Father’s house – many a mansion’:
That you’re somewhere I am certain.
One remembers José, powerful as Cyrano.
Now we shall remember you;
Compelling, formidable in all your roles,
You unintentionally stole the roles
Becoming one with each.
And one is sad!   Nigh inconsolable!
Sixty-one!  So young these days!
No phrase of admiration, value and esteem can reach you,
Few can match you, rate you high enough.
And I, engulfed in loss,
No grading high enough
Shall miss you.


Coming home, turning on the Mac, tuning in the radio, expecting to see, hear the installation of the President-elect, I read instead “Miguel Ferrer is dead”.  Priority is clear.  Dear Mr Ferrer takes precedence.

God Bless You Mr. Ferrer 1.20.2017
Special People, Special Occasions; Birth, Death & In Between II;
Arlene Corwin

Just Peachy

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

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

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

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

Teflon Trump?

The news today: Donald Trump
Has skipped some taxes.
We’re not talking hundreds, thousands.
(speculate for poem’s sake)
We are talking millions – money millions.

Now we know that each of us
Wants money we can christen ours,
Most of us not prone to share
Or give away.  But let’s be clear –
These millions can help many poor:
Many, many, many poor!
There he sits with nothing more
Than sites aimed at more, more and more:
Expand! Collect! – focus lost;
A blindered horse on blindered course,
Priorities askew and wrong.
(observation and opinion)
Yet he seems to skip away, slip away, a Teflon Trump
That no one seem to strip away
Whose gotten far - so far…
One’s hope is that with aims made pure,
And as he storms, norms queer, unclear –
His love for folk (which he declares)
Will force – at least induce – reform.
And if I find that this is so,
I’ll change my mind and just might go
In his direction.

Teflon Trump 3.15.2017
Our Times, Our Culture II;
Arlene Corwin

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

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

            Mister Red Shift

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

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

Starting Out Of Time Again

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

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

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

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

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

to be continued… (not or maybe)

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

To Write For Whom

You reach an age when friends, your generation
Dying off like flies.
And you, full of ideas
Alive and kicking,  
Finger licking fresh in mind
Trying to find
One out there,
To read your wares.
Your teeming thoughts,
Aware and deep with meaning
Warranting a reader,
Radar to its most intense.
Looking, writing, hoping for an audience,
Shakespeare felt the selfsame yearning -
Handel, Beethoven, each earning by conducting,
Not to mention poor Van Gogh
Who went the way of painters who sell nothing go.

To write, paint, sculpt, dance, sing, compose:
Any noise that oozes art.  
For whom?
That is the theme, the problem
And the question.

To Write For Whom12 27.2016
The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II;
Arlene 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

Seventy And Eight

Seventy and eight:
You’ve set aside some vanity.
What was it but priority?
And some priorities have changed.
Acceptance of some disappearance;
Change of balance, skin that’s run the distance,
Re-arrangement of the substances inherent -
                                                       or you thought..

When you’re nearing birthdays
Each and every twelfth ****** month,
You shun
The cant if you’re observant.
‘Happy Birthday’ not so plain.
This has that… and that’s a pain.
Marriages have come and gone,
You’ve eaten everything on offer.
Gone the need to empty coffer entertaining.

Suffering more neutralized;
So many friends and kin have died.
You’ve channeled drives
That used to thrive on pleasure.

With a birthday coming up
You’re going down each second’s unit
So immeasurably tiny you can’t count it.

Here is where it gets didactic:
Birthdays coming up – don’t hope but have it.
As for vanity, retract it.
That’s it.

Seventy & Eight 10.28.2012/revised 8.27.2017
Birthday Book; Circling Round Vanities II; Birth, Death & In Between II;
Arlene Corwin

Bedfellows

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

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

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

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

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

This Strange Thing Happening

What is this strange thing happening?
An opening, acceptance broader than before,
Love as  chaperone.
Sights, ideas, sounds,
A seeing to the core of things –
Gradual, ongoing; every morning fresh.

Things foreign, new and unfamiliar,
Things outside my mental door:
The whole as if I’d had a drug of one or
                                                       other kind,
So new one thinks about one’s state of mind.

Mad?
A chemistry?
Not bonkers, loopy, cuckoo, batty.
No!
Perception changed:
A little bolder, unafraid –
New thoughts sprung from the hubbub of the old;
New sympathy - rich empathy,
And there’s the rub -
Unused to, as it were, to stand up for…so openly,
Articulately, stating what one thinks is true.
One wonders if the people round have noticed too.

One thinks of Huxley*
Will it stay?
Settle down or go away?
Does it have a meaning?
A broadening, one hopes – but frightening -
A bit.
One’s entering an untouched land.
One hopes one lands just right.

The Strange Thing Happening 7.2.2016
To The Child Mystic II; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative; Pure Nakedness; Revelations Big & Small;
Arlene Corwin

*Aldous Huxley (see The Doors Of Perception)

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

Gustav The Cat

Gustav’s had  
To be put down.
The day was lovely, light, pristine.
Gustav Cat, gregarious and household king
Gone wandering -
Disappeared the past few days,
Back sick, no visible, familiar cause.
And then the news:
A chronic and/or fatal illness
Common among felines.

Put down - an awful phrase –
One would prefer
Sent up to ***** paradise: a cat-adise.

Tuesday’s diary:
Part beauty and part tragedy.
Gustav Cat, well taken care of,
Loved,
A gorgeous little red-haired boy-cat
With a destiny unknown,
And, it seems
A destiny he did not own.
Do any of us?
So we mourn,
The mourning will not be postponed!
We mourn.

Gustav The Cat 7.6.2016
Cat Book II; Birth, Death & In Between;
Arlene Corwin

Who Would Want To Be World Famous?

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

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

The Facebook asks "What's on your mind, Arlene?"  My answer today is:

It Comes In The Form Of A Phrase✍️

Basic Kindness To Bugs Imprisoned On Window Pane

Planting glass on window pane,
Sliding it to tiring bug -
A creepy-crawly stuck inside.
You slide it forward
Delicately inching toward
The anthropod.
Lifting glass you slip a card
To gather fly or bee or bug
Safe under glass,
Protected from a dire passing.
Lifting whole so carefully
So as to not crush head or wing
While bearing thing
To door and freedom.
It, a test, trial, task - a problem
Of the kind that gets you points in heaven
And, of which you feel well pleased
When finally you do succeed.

Basic Kindness To Bugs Imprisoned 8.11.2016
Circling Round Nature II;
Arlene Corwin

5778, So That I Remember

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

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

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

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

People Smoke A Joint Because…

People smoke a joint because
It calms them down,
It makes them laugh.
The symmetry
Of mediocrity’s conventions flee.
It also makes them hungry.

Answers come,
And often laughter is the payoff.
Nineteen sixty
Groups ingested LSD
To see more beauty,
Dig into the new,
Change patterns that were old in mind,
Find truths that were not there to find,
Break down, build up,
Sip from the cup of everything there is to sip.
So people drink because they are
More able to shift gears,
Take risks, lose fears.

The problem is to lay off, stay off.
That would be a real payoff.  
Get it? Layoff, stay off, payoff?
I liked that.

People Smoke A Joint Because… 5.25.2010 revised 8.8.2010
Circling Round Energy; Revelations Big & Small;
Arlene Corwin

Started 2008

The Meaning Of Life, What?

Peace, love and happiness.
Three words we miss
In every sense.
a) fail to hit it, fail to get it,
Even though it is the tar-get.
b) We miss it as we’d miss a bus,
The muss of ego messing up, missing us.
c) We miss it as in pine for, yearn for:
Miss in every aspect.

Peace.  We don’t e’en know its meaning;  
Shunning, running fast away from…
Yet we want it.

Love.  And that?
The ***?  Caress? Compassion and philanthropy?
Who cares for me and only me?  
Love, what?  All that?
Yes, probably.

Last, happiness.
Contentment without need for rapture;
Focused in the niceness of the now
No matter how
The outer world appears.
No matter what
Emerges as and from your lonely lot.

The meaning? Socrates:
He knew that he knew nothing.
But his nothing had the ring
Of truth.  Though youth
Can’t know it doesn’t know,
The issue stays the same,
Theme worthy of its  noble aim:
Life: What? The meaning of?
Peace, happiness and lovely love.
The meaning of its process,
More, patently not less.

The Meaning Of Life, What? 8.24.2017
Circling Round Reality; Definitely Didactic;
Arlene Corwin

Symptoms Of Development: After An Election

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

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

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

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

I'm always trying to figure out why I go back time and again to writing poetry.  It's such a strange phenomenon.  Sometimes, like now, I'm allowed a glint.

      Poetry Is My Means

Poetry is my means:
To thinking out a thought;
To finding more about myself;
To analyzing good and bad:
To making tail or head
Of circumstance.



Poetry helps me define,
Refine,
Become a finer person,                
Binding my persona.



So many things I did not know
Of which I had not one iota
Of ability to see:
The ****, silly, plus the *****-nilly
Miracle of mind,
Its mysteries revealing hints
And hinting at the revelations
Which belong to geniuses
And saints:
Everything I ain’t.

In learning and forgiving            
Poetry is everything a giving gift
Can give.

Poetry Is My Means 4.15.2018 The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative III; Revelations Big & Small; Arlene Corwin

Once I Write ‘Em

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Birthday, Daddy Dear

Happy birthday once again,
Daddy dear.  April fifteen,
And you’re not here to share it
For you died so many years ago.
(the year before we reached two thousand).
But the fifteenth rolls around
And somehow sounds a chord inside me.
This year happens to be
                                      Pesach, Easter;
Easy to remind myself.
You would have been one hundred nine –
Not unattainable          
As age today.
But still you went celestially.
I hope you’re happy
As I wish you happy birthday anyway.
So with a happy memory,
I’ll say happy goodbye
And start
A hopeful, happy day.

Happy Birthday, Daddy Dear 4.15.2017
Birthday Book; Love Relationships II;
Arlene Corwin

Pull The Plastic From The Sea

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

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

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

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

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

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

My Killing Machine #2

Abstinence

Not pain exactly
But a longing, plain for me to see;
A need that has no outward symptom -
None.  Not one.
Brain tristesse invisible and humdrum.
What to do? Is one a freak?
That hour, that day, that week one speaks,
One acts, attends to facts;
A seeking through an abstract dance -
Dependence through aloneness.

Publicity? More company?
Eternity perpetuated through some poetry?
Anyway and somehow, one puts pen to paper.
One, two, three, four hours later,
Crossings out, Webster shouting all the time,
Searching for meaning,
Meaning’s teaching, fetching rhyme:
Through growing phrase and sentence.
Abstinence finds absence.

Writing in that playful way,
One knows one’s had a lot to say.
The silence that gave abstinence;
Was abstinence from muteness.
Abstinence 12.18.2020 The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Sitting Up In Bed Building A Career

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

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

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