I Still Have Ego Left

I still have ego - all its parts.
Is it the ‘smarts’?
Is it the ‘dumbs’?
Something to succumb to?
On the good side ego gives me self-esteem.
On bad, it gives me self-conceit,
Leads me to think sour is sweet,
Leads me on a road that’s wrong:
Vanity, a false self image;
Is that knowledge or mirage?  
Singing a wrong, woeful song?

Do I want to **** it?
Subjugate it?
Maybe, just an itty bit!
Why quash, why squash
Distinctiveness, uniqueness,
And the differentness
That makes us us,

Even when peculiarity,
You are you and I am me.
We do not want to change that, yet
The ego fools us masterfullly.
Wresting honesty from wisdom.

So with ego left, the outcome is:
Learn to distinguish real from false;
Take the pulse of life each day
And play the game of authenticity.
I Still Have Ego Left 8.14.2018 Circling Round Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin

To all my cat loving friends: (I’m sure I’ve left some out - in which case, SORRY!)      

Albert Cat, Eleven!  🐈

Albert Cat will celebrate
Eleven feline years to date:
Eleven years on this good planet,
His food planet,
Perfect for a house cat!

We, his owners, cat food donors
See to it that he is cat-isfied;
Yellow/red, a golden brown,
He cannot smile and cannot frown.
A ****** calm in place the whole day’s time.

Commonest of purry furries,
Albert Cat is still, to us
Unique, well-dressed, e’en glamorous.
Though his purry, furry self is modest
He is famous in our house.
He  never, ever kills a mouse.
He simply watches, sits and stares;
Leaves the birds to eat their seeds.
While they see him. They know his needs,
They know he’s there.
It is his lovely golden hair!

Happy Birthday, Albert Cat!
We’re glad you honour us
With your existence.
Flattered that our residence
Suits you.

Albert Cat, Eleven 5.6.2021 Cat book II; Arlene Nover Corwin

A Big, Big Moment

It was a big, big moment
When I noticed
God and I were one.
I think they call it revelation;
Like an insight only better.

He or It was in my brain,
And that was mind
And it was mine,
And all I had to do
Was not to go somewhere,
Some real place,
But face the thinker in my mind
And it was done.

A down-to-earth
But heavenly
Acquaintanceship:
A quiet pleasure,
Followed by a change in days,
A change in ways,
The ways no longer aiming ‘up’
As if an ‘upwards’ was the target.

I’m not claiming it was angels;
But it wasn’t’ babble either.
It was cool.
There was no rule to follow.
Cool and yet
A big, big moment.

A Big, Big Moment 6.27.2016
Revelations Big & Small; God Book II;  to The Child Mystic II;
Arlene Corwin

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

I Need To Think Of Starts

Everything that starts has sparks of coming into being,
For everything I know through all my senses
Has a life, even the rock.
Tick tock. (its life takes time).
It isn’t hard to think through to a cause primeval; one original,
Pristine: a first!  After all, what hasn’t had a first?
With first comes what will form.
Will form forms from a light.
What doesn’t have a core of light?
Without the light there’d just be night,
Light being first in all the firsts.
Completeness not yet born.
(Oh ****, words are inadequate).

In this entirety it isn’t hard to picture bliss;
But with this bliss unhappiness - qualities with opposites:
Good/bad and something in between.
Light and dark, it’s suffix –ness.
Consciousness.
  
If anything will lead to starts,
It’s knowing that and all its parts -
Or is it one?
Now there’s the fun –
Finding out if it is One,
If you and I and we are one.

It may lie in the memory;
This need may start primarily with me.
I need to think of starts.

I Need To Think Of Starts 8.1.2017
Nature In & Of Reality; Circling Round Reality;
Arlene Corwin

What's on my mind today?✍️

Involved in Self

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

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

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

I’ve Had Many Names

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

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

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

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

Advice About ***: Consciousness

It isn’t ‘nice’
To give advice
About the art of copulating.
There are many ways of fornicating,
Very few to carnal urges,
Carnal surges being what they are.
Double myrrh
Is double pleasure;
Philosophic, not ******.

It is wise to sacrifice,
Pay the price
Of being spat at,
Being got at,
Many living lives in anguish;
The taboo in all - all foolish.

Words of wisdom come to this:
When you touch,
Be cognizant of what you feel
In your person, as your person.
You yourself are sealed onto
All the knowledge in the world.

Always subject/object both,
Know how much
You are the subject though subjecting
Other to a lover’s clutch.
Be betrothed
To him and you, her and you,
Even it, yes, it and you.

One with brain and all the senses,
Make the fences that divide,
Of flexible, transparent goods;
Not barriers but guides
To knowledge, peace and joy –
All upside with no downsides.

Here’s the pool of rule that is the school,
The tool as well as fuel:
Pay attention to sensation in your senses and your limbs.
Do not think too much, evaluating her or him.
Loving is a kind of gym –
A paradigm of health and recreation;
Educational if let:
The entire carnal alphabet.

Advice About ***: Consciousness 9.16.2017
Circling Round Eros II; Definitely Didactic; Defiant Doggerel;
Arlene Corwin

In these days of online conservatism, I dare not publish what-I-think-is a sweet and loving poem.  Of course, I won't hesitate to put it into one of three books (see bottom of poem), since I consider it a good poem in itself and an observation worth the art.  Hope you agree.

       She Dry, He Soft

She dry, he soft.
They hold aloft romance and passion.
Does not passion pass on?
And what stance does romance take
When body fails?  Does one fake?
The keys are there in every action:
Every whispered word, touch, clutch.
Intensity may modify.  
Who needs to reach the sky each twinkling of an eye?
Friendship’s warmth and harmony
Lie at the heart of passion’s key,
And if they go, so will the rest.
At best, what's left but superficiality –
A shell - and crusty one at that,
Destined in the upshot to fall flat.
She dry, he soft, not often reaching Everest,
Yet ***, oh yes, the very best,
Back and forth in all its warmth.
Superlative
In giving.

She Was Dry, He Was Soft 7.1.2018 Circling Round Aging; Eros Ii; Love Relationships II;

Another Boding Sign

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

*smultron; wild strawberry

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

Lower/Higher

Even the eyebrows lower;
It shows in the darned mirror:
Life changes constantly,
A going downward mostly –
At least physically,
For I, the inner I invisible
Am rising high,
Am rising high.
And so to hell with vanity
And negativity.
Life’s outer is a liar,
For I, I rise still higher.  

Lower/Higher 8.20.2016
Circling Round Vanities II; Circling Round Aging; Circling Round Wrinkles;
Arlene Corwin

Don’t Look Now, But Poetry Is In

If you’re reading this you know it:
Poetry is in.
Read and written
By those one or two aware or metaphysical,
Those more than few in love, depressed,
Oppressed, repressed;
Just pressed to write.

It’s right to write a stanza,
A romance -a, spectacular extravaganza
For whatever and wherever
There’s
A public where
There wasn’t.

Rhyme, no rhyme,
Minus meter,
Syntax less or more,
Ignored.
It matters or…
It doesn’t.
The objective is to say it,
Think it
In no special order,
Murdering the word
Or helping word to smolder
On a reader’s shoulder.

Poetry is definitely
Back in
Fashion.

Don’t Look Now, But Poetry Is In 11.29.2016
The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Our Times, Our Culture II;
Arlene Corwin

Watch The Mind

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

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

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

Wrote this this morning after I'd seen a Swedish singing star interviewed with torn, torn jeans talking about how he came to be no longer nervous when performing.
Sing Your Song All Wrong As Long As It Feels Right

(a prose poem  - meter but no rhyme – well, a little)



I used to be invisibly controlled by rules,

Sometimes blamed on pressures peer:

Perhaps I am still, will be ever.

Rules inhibit, yea, dear reader,

Leading art and your behavior.

Double whammy*, inspiration, guide and model

When you would most like to feel

Creative, and spontaneous,

Well pleased, extemporaneous.



Subtle, so immensely, so intensely so;

Astonishing how much one swallows,

Soaking up, believing garbage as god’s truths

So hard to scrap;

All those rules coming from the praxis of the earthliest of mouths.



What is it sought beyond all else?

It’s freedom, spontaneity,

Belief that what you’re doing

Is its own confession, own possession;

Valid as the others

Always followed and believed the best.



Now I’m older.

Times have altered.

Folk appear on television with torn jeans.

Fashions once thought awful - trends.

In the end,

The young will always be impacted by

‘The others’ they think templates,

Patterns, blueprints, guides.

I have seen the light.

Sing your song all wrong as long as it feels right.



Sing Your Song All Wrong 4.21.2018 Vaguely About Music II; Our Times, Our Culture II; I Is Always You Is We; Definitely Didactic; Arlene Corwin

whammy |ˈ(h)wamē|

noun ( pl. -mies) informal

an event with a powerful and unpleasant effect; a blow : the third whammy was the degradation of the financial system. See also double whammy .

• an evil or unlucky influence : I've come to put the whammy on them.

ORIGIN 1940s: from the noun wham + -y 1 ; associated from the 1950s with the comic strip Li'l Abner, in which the hillbilly Evil-Eye Fleagle could “shoot a whammy” (put a curse on somebody) by pointing a finger with one eye open, and a [double whammy] with both eyes open.

The Trick Is To Stay Fresh

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

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

Flattered

This is actually a letter
To the editor.
I'm flattered, flattered, flattered
When the editor begins and ends
His email with "You're trending."
It mattered, boy, it mattered.
It was the kind of confirmation
That gives artists of a genre whatsoever
Faith and trust and strength
Which almost never
Happens otherwise.  
Thanks Hello.
You have made me feel like Jello.
Thanks and thanks and thanks.

Flattered 11.26.2017
A Sense Of The Ridiculous;
Arlene Corwin

Everyone Has Faith

Everyone has faith.
The only question is the choice we make.
Everybody worships (kind of)
What we worship is our choice –
From leaning, and from combination
Of that leaning and condition.

Choose, we choose what we were born to choose.
The gene, the fate, position, lot,
Perhaps to win or lose:
Strange as it sounds, our knot.

The crux
Is that life *****
But faith brings trust, conviction,
Optimism, hope and courage -
All positive and negative, yin and yang
As well you know.
For what is not?

Everyone Has Faith 5.14.2017
To The Child Mystic II; The Nature Of & In Reality; Circling Round Reality;
Arlene Corwin

I've added a line: "Even fish feel while they swish!"  
          Doddery

Am I getting doddery,
Long in the tooth,
Long dead to youth?
Or sensible, experienced, mature,
Deploring times and crimes of culture?

I feel pain, must look away
When I see creatures run, swim, fly
Abused,
Unfelt for,
Victimised.

**** fight, horse race, injured, forced;
Elephant, rhinoceros, without tusk;
Even fish feel while they swish;
Hunted whales or seals or tuna.
Turned into a grilled hamburger
I no longer eat frankfurter…
What the heck is wrong with me?
Who out there sees what I see?
*doddery;
slow and unsteady in movement because of weakness in old age: he's a bit doddery on his legs and doesn't get about much.

Doddery 5.18.2021 Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Nover Corwin

It’s All Yoga
    (Simple but not easy)

I don’t think people understand.
It being trend and only trend
They don’t exactly know
What they are doing.
Some think yoga is for beauty.
Some think flexibility.
Some think health of body,
Possibly tranquility.
The list goes on, with vanity foremost.
Yoga has an aim or two or three or four.
Surely, there is more to understand than four, for
Yoga aims at understanding
On a level corresponding to the tangible,
Intangible, (what we call spiritual)
Which means total, total, total, ALL!
Yoga  is a vehicle
For every single thing you do in mind and torso
To amplify the total you.
SO,
Focus on your fingers when you touch, grab, push.
Focus on toesies when you lie in bed.
Focus on the brain parts in your you-know, head
When quiet, worried, hurried, rushed,
Anxious, peaceful, doubtful,  ‘fraid:
The list goes on and on.

Focus, focus, focus find.
Nowadays they call it mindfulness
Or meditation.
It has always been.

Since everything you do contains
A means to find the who you are,
Defining what you’re headed for,
Ought to go and ought to know.
The principle
Is oh so simple -
But not easy.
Don’t be queasy about living.
It’s all take and it’s all giving.
Make the most of it.
Toast to it.
Make a yoga of this tool kit.

It’s All Yoga 2.11.2018 Circling Round Yoga II; Circling Round Reality; Nature Of & In Reality; Arlene Corwin

A Little Quiz

If you could sell a thing for lots,
Finance your yachts;
Would you boycott?
If what you sold
Could finance wars,
Could bring worlds
To their burned-out knees,
Would you do business?

If you could earn a salary
By working in a factory
Producing weapon’s heads,
Guns, poison gas –
All granted by the local laws,
Would you do business?

A little quiz - a little Buddhist -
Prompted by
The sheer potentiality
Of personalities and crime TV
Regarded daily.
Hypothesize:
Your kids are hungry.

A Little Quiz 8.29.2017
War Book II; Our Times, Our Culture II;
Arlene Corwin

Non-Sequiturs – Or Are They?

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

          Watching A Fly

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

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

To Those Who Say…

Those who say, “And then I said….”
Are short of something in the head;
Hidden pride in there instead.

Those who say, And then I told her…”
Dearest reader, here’s an answer:
“Then I said’s,”
A subtle, passive, ego-centered taking lead;
A mixture of denial, fugue,
(If ever there was such a thing).
It’s not a joke,
And I’m not kidding.

To Those Who Say…6.25.2017
Circling Round Reality;
Arlene Corwin

I’d Like To Find Another Word For God

I’d like to find
Another word
For God, for named in scripture’s world
It is a word – a name – word just the same,
Quenching some, offending some,
Plain annoying to some sorts,
Explaining little, saying lots.

Lord, Almighty, the Creator,
Maker, Godhead, Yahweh, Allah,
Father, Son, the Holy Spirit,
Brahma, more, the Man Upstairs,
A thousand other
Endless names for one ground grand initiator.

Birthright, culture, parentage,
History, heredity and what they’ve led to,
What we’re bred to,
Simple leaning notwithstanding,
Pre-programmed we land un-manned.

I think highly of the theist and it’s opposite the non-
With no high regard for anti-s,
For the principle of love embraces
Fat and thin, uncles, aunties.
                                      
In the meantime,
Brain un-stymied,
With ideas and inner truths,
I continue in the use of
God, the word that makes some happy,
Giving comfort, consolation
While I seek some substitution.  

What we want to know
Are secrets, keys, realities;
Of life, of death, of fate and how
To live consistently serenely in tranquility;
Long-lived and daily:
Life without anxiety,
Fulfilled with understanding.

I’d Like To Find Another Word For God 10.29.2017
God Book II; Circling Round Reality;
Arlene Corwin

Gerontology

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

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

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

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

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

Gerontology 10.18.2016
Circling Round Aging;
Arlene Corwin

Charting The Changes      
     (Once Again)

How can I leave them?
I have eyes, the body, brain;
These changes subtle and not so… going on,
And I a part.
The ***: it never leaves.
You watch the nuance - age regardless.
Muscle, limbs, all inners shifting;
Dangers one could ne’er imagine
Years before -
And there they are,
Daily dominators from within
And from without,
Pushing, shoving, tugging
Quiet, noisy, brash and smug.
Dangers one would - if one could -
Convert to chance both sound and likely;
At the center of it all:  you. I and we,
The question being, how to cope with,
Deal with it undisturbed; philosophic, unperturbed,
Optimistic, cool, detached,
Present-living, hatching new ideas
From day to day as if it’s play,
The way presenting self on impulse, off-the-cuff
And you obeying  
Soundlessly in laughter.

Charting The Changes (Once Again) 8.7.2016
I Is Always You Is We;
Arlene Corwin

I was sitting in the bath doing my usual grubblande (Swedish for brooding, musing or contemplating) when I had the thought that there's no one special way that suits everyone.  All great teachers have know this, and I, being a 'great' yoga teacher thought about my lovely ladies each of whom has entirely differing needs when doing the same posture.  Hence, There's No One Way - written on a near standing envelope with a dull black eyebrow pencil.  It was a hell to read what I wrote hours later.

        There’s No One Way

Isn’t that grand?
There’s no one hand or leg or breast or eye;
No muscle, vein, no capillary:
No technique for everybody.
Find out who you are!

No one way to take a bath,
Wash a dish, play the harp.
No one true A that’s flat or sharp.
Find out what you want!

Nature’s force is infinite;
The ways of change spectacular.
Sudden sometimes, mostly slow,
So you don’t know what’s happening
Until it blows (as in volcanoes).

What conclusions can we draw?
“Know thyself” the door essential, referential.
Gleaning rules for self -behavior,
Self- analysis, for judging not;
For simply knowing what
And how and when to do
What’s good for you
Because there’s not one ‘tried and true’ for Fu Manchu,
The cuckoo, the well-to-do.
Renew yourself in any way that suits!
There’s No One Way11.30.2017 Nature Of & In Nature; Definitely Didactic; Arlene Corwin

Just One More Anomaly

Memory, how is it working?
Reconstructing what it will,
No matter how one wills it.
Using tricks or keeping still,
It goes downhill sulking, lurking,
Modifying all the while.

Date, event - assumed, imagined;
Recipe for roasted chicken, how and what the vitamin,
Where one laid the just used pen;
Truths about what might have been:
One is not amused or gladdened!

One reads histamine boosts memory.
Where to start: ear, nose or eye?
The husband tells a story,
But the story and the history refashion
Into joke or smoke, or expectation.
An honest man, he reconstructs time’s long bygone.
What and is there a solution?

How to boost the falsifying, garbled brain,
Train away the stigma and enigma?
Food: The marvel is the good it does, in spite
Of junk consumed both day and night,
Those lovely cells of memory;
Losing neurons constantly.

Interests, hobbies:
Training. learning, instrument…
Any bent, life but experiment;
Each callisthenic ‘heaven sent’.

A poem one way to speak,
Renewing bits new and archaic;
One in which a syllable will stick,
Inspired to get a kick out of the rhythmic lyric
Born in life.

Just One More Anomaly 5.29.2020  (formerly Another Autobiographical Anomaly 2.11.2019/Recomposed 5.29.2020) Pure Nakedness II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Anomaly: oddity, peculiarity, abnormality, irregularity, inconsistency, incongruity, deviation, aberration, quirk, freak, exception, departure, divergence, variation; rarity, eccentricity.

I See It All Around

I see it all around.
Filling, thrilling palpably.
Lying here upon my sofa
Watching men and women suffer softly for their art;
Interviewed, performing in one way or other,
It is I who gain -
Grains of magic bonding cells
Of thankfulness.

Oh how I love, just love the talented:
The skilled, devoted - all the nuances of gift.
My eyes see beauty, ears learn more.
I cannot underscore this marvel,
And I do not try to understand.
I simply shake its hand
And say thank you.

I See It All Around 10.28.2017
Circling Round Reality; Big & Small Revelations;
Arlene Corwin

Just wrote this and had to share it from the love it gave me.

    And Where Are You At The Moment?

The mixture of Vedanta, Hinduism and Buddhism that’s had a part in shaping all these years. Of course there have been other parts of this mixture, but this is on the board at the moment.

         A Bit Of Buddhistic Thought In Arlene-Speak

Pain Is Such A ‘Pain’

Besides discomfort, pain’s a pest;
A nuisance, bother, hinder,
At its worst or best
A hurt that quashes thinking’s process:
On the list of inconvenience highest.

Common idioms in use:
‘Pain the neck’ ‘pain in the ***’.
****** yes, but two most graphic!
To be optimistic,
Usually, it takes a rest;
Not long, perhaps, but any pause
Is better than no pause at all,
The standstill most appreciated.

If it’s un-retreating, un-vacating, un-evacuatable,
Make a vehicle that’s readable -
And write!

Pain Is Such A Pain 4.14.2021 I Is always You Is We; Circling Round Experience;Arlene Nover Corwin

Going To You

I couldn’t sleep. What could I do?
I went to you.
I go as often as I can,
As often as élan emerges:
Like a spy whose operation purges,
Does not tell (well,
                 those detected and elected).
I ought to come to you more often.  
True to form you’re there to soften
In one way or t’other – like a mother.

Is it just interpretation, fancy, brain synaptic,
Watching happenings?
Often ending as I would wish they should,
Seeing failings patched, detached,
Improving slowly once they’re hatched?

If I had been born to preach,
Joined synagogue or church,
Become rabbi, Mormon, Witness, priest,
Going north, south, west and east
At least I’d feel I landed.

But I’m silent and agog,
A secret seeker through the fog of worldly turbulence
And tastes that tempt, participating in the dance
With casualness, no casualty, but taking in causality as One,
It being April one, a day of fun at fooling friends –
Supercool, I face and grace it with my presence.

Going To You 4.1.2017
God Book II; Circling Round Reality; Pure Nakedness;
Arlene Corwin

The Book

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


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

Morning’s Minute Meditation

I send my heart this morn,
Not with emotion but with intellect –
For I suspect
                        that’s quite okay.

One may think one’s way,
Not necessarily emote,
For one connects
                                 in any case,
Each with a modus operandi.

In conclusion,
Not to worry how it’s done
Every bit a hit
(as in reward for effort).
Just one minute needed.

Morning’s Minute Meditation 11.12.2017
The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; To The Child Mystic II;
Arlene Corwin

As much as one hates to use the pronoun “I”, writing or speaking, there are times when ‘I’ is the middle point and of the essence.
Sincerely,
Arlene (see footnote).        

  Now & Then, How I Miss…

I practice living the Now.
But now and then
I miss the old Arlene
Who had ten
                    fingers;
Who could play arpeggios
With ease:
Adagios, capriccios,
Effortlessly
Trouble-free.

Un-nostalgic, chanced to see
And old Youtube of Arlene-me
Singing, playing“All God’s Chillun” speedily,
Gleeful, musical and jazzy.
Wound up teary-eyed.

With just three left to play with:
Thumb and index on the left, only lonely thumb the right,
Filled with weakness
I can play a swinging bass
With Monk-like dissonance between,
The right thumb not at all a small dumb finger.

The trick will be to sow creativeness anew.,
Augment, stretch, grow and not go into
Any other place than Now
(if Now at all can be referred to
                                        as a ‘place’.
I rather think of it as space).

In any case,
I was a little sad today;
The old Arlene who cannot play
The way she used to,
Caused by nature’s vagary.

Dear reader, please forget  
This sentimental, reminiscent “…How I Miss…”
A useless business at the very least.
Now &Then, How I Miss…1.6.2020 Vaguely About Music; Pure Nakedness; Arlene Nover Corwin

Arlene Corwin collapsed on August 3rd, 2019.  In a coma for a month, when she awoke, there were 4 fingers missing on the right hand, 3 half fingers on the left,  and two catheters in one kidney   The cause: Blood poisoning or sepsis (from the Greek ‘sepin’ make rotten).  After two months she was home.  Muscles shrunken, walking with help she began a regime of sit-ups, pushups, yoga…and using every object inI the house as tool now is fully flexible and growing stronger with each day.
But the hands, those hands…We’ll see what happens.

There Is A YOU That’s Only You

There is a You that’s only you
And no one else:
The meditative point’s dynamic
Force that stimulates all progress;
Within the system You or process.
You the core, nub, bottom line:
You without a fine distinction.
There is a Cause that’s cause
And nothing, nowhere else.
For some an easy goal,
Even a means of solid gold.
The point of points is to unite
The You that’s only you with Cause,
Invisible, one might
Proclaim invincible.
So let us start with you, your tool:
Arms, legs, trunk, head
Inside of which the trillion cells
(More than the stars, the galaxy’s as well)
Which make up I and All Q that is you.
Why do you think they’re there?
To share with others, naturally,
But to evolve to unity:
A two in one,
(or if you’re into Trinity
Then three…)
To make the story short,
Wise thinkers, seers over all the planet
Have perceived pragmatically
Two ends:
To find the You that’s only you;
To get into
The Cause that’s root.
After which you’re through
To all that is and true.
The end.
There Is A You That’s Only You 1.9.2018 To The Child Mystic II; Revelations Big & Small; Arlene Corwin

Do We Own?

Do we own?
Own what?
Parents die;
Friend, enemy;
Ones we have never known
In circumstance we’ll never see
In lands we’ve never been.

What do we own?
Goods heaped up over years,
Stored in a wardrobe or armoire,
Or locker somewhere
Because life has changed-***-rearranged -
Or we’ve lost interest - period.

Do we own?
Appropriated from life’s providence?
For providence means helped/provided for,
Sustained, maintained, endowed, supplied.
It never meant forever.

We alone are what we own.
I too.  And you.
(Though there are some who say we are on loan.
But that’s another story).


Do We Own? 8.10.2017
Nature Of & In Reality;
Arlene Corwin

A/The/My Way

I never knew I had a ‘way’.
And still it shows up da by day
Laws but felt, themes unmeant;
Through sudden fountains of content;
Through many offshoots but one road,
No signposts to direct or goad.
Still it is:
A kiss of fate though non-insistent,
Usually
An accident and serendipitous.

And because, and just because it is a whisper
I’ve no choice
But to
Tune into
And obey,
Swaying to its hinted push,
The glint of pressure
Nothing but a pure, faint sureness
And a pleasure.

                      ----------

Minutes past I ate three plastic plates of pasta.
(a pun-ny lie, but funny)
Now I sit with pen in hand
On my verandah, in the wind,
Thankful for not understanding
Karma’s muted law un-grand,
Inscrutable but suitable
To me alone,
One on her own
Within the schemes and actions of concern.

A/The/My Way 8.6.2017
Pure Nakedness; Revelations Big & Small;
Arlene Corwin

Lying In Bed In Truth

I lie in bed.
I look down at this body.
Mine.
Not very interesting.
I wish to feel the single this.
Aloneness.
Thingness.
Separated and detached,
No past which wants to show itself;
Just now.
Alone but not a lonely I,
For as a Buber labeled it,
An I and Thou,
All others also I and Thou
Surrounding and surrounded by…
Monads all.
Single souls.
Working on and out the hole
And whole of this existence.
Fingers typing,
Eyes a-skyping
Mind hard to describe
Where is it?
What’s it doing?
All and nothing.  
What’s it want?
A knowing all integrally,
Organically,
Unseparate yet separated.
This is mysticism underrated
In a nutshell.

Lying In Bed In Truth 3.12.2018 Nature of & In Reality; Circling Round Reality; To The Child Mystic II; Arlene Corwin

One idea can lead almost directly to another  - although a day apart, as in this case:

     Sometimes the deepest questions elicit the easiest truths.  Because it is rather sillily written this ‘truth’ below is slated to go into a collection called “A Sense Of the Ridiculous #II,  A Sense Of The Ridiculous #I  already published.  (see Amazon or Barnes & Noble, I think )…and more, I’m sure.
      Simplistic, Black & White But True🤪

Teddy Roosevelt, the President,
Said, “Where you are, with what you have, do what you can”.
Do it, do, do, do”, said
Ted,
The President!

And I concur with Teddy's view,
For reader, do
You have a better, more complete
Solution?

Complex issues
May have layers,
Many sayers,
But sometimes there are no clearer
Answers than one thin as tissues.

Simplistic, Black & White But True 5.20.2020 A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Circling Round Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin

         The Elixir

If there ever was a magic potion
Inbuilt in an earthly notion,
One to change the habits old
Into a new and lifelong gold;
Outside all tricks,
The negatively nix;
A lotion of refreshment
Portioned out, the perfect servant,
Ocean of vitality and vibrancy
And most of all, not fancy,

It is doing what you can
With what you have
Wherever you may find yourself,
Tools always in your hand
Or foot, or leg or mind,
Its wangling angling,
Its instinct, intuition, reasoning.

Right there in existence
And your presence
Is the feature and the fixture:
The elixir.
Elixir 5.21.2020. Words To Love; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Elixir; (also elixir of life) a preparation supposedly able to prolong life indefinitely:

How Many People Would You Have To Change To Change The World?

How many people would you have to change
To change the world?  
The other day the man I love,  
One who has faith in God above.
Declared the impotence of man.
Insisted phrase by rehashed phrase:
“This world has never been so bad.
It’s getting worse and worse and worse!”
He feels so helpless. What a curse!
Has no belief in his own richness;
Can’t understand the reach
Of butterfly’s effect: the flap
Of wings in Florida
With vibes that stretch to Africa.

How does it work?

You find the thing you’re born to do.
You do it hour by hour by hour.
Work through the furor,
Take your power,
Use it, focused on the now.

There’s nothing more.

That small series called your life
Is quite enough to end all strife.
Not instantly, not right away -
For life takes time.
But yours is prime:
A mix of self-esteem
Humility and bravery,
Seeing life reflectively
With love and strength
The length of days.

How many people would you have to change
To change things?
Think of wings!

How Many People Would You have To Change To Change The World? 3.2.2018 Our Times, Our Culture II;

I certainly realised when I wrote "There Are Daughters…” that not everyone had children, and I don’t mean to make anyone feel sad.  When I write, (which is everyday), I simply become, shall we say, attached to a phrase or the seed of an idea; even a rhythm or a word or funny rhyme.  These can take me in any direction.  This process has led to 19 books with two more on the way.  
     It’s a kind of yoga, a mental training - and the most unexpected ideas come out - ideas which I work on and refine.  I write on anything at hand.  Just today, I found 4 scraps, one dating back to 2015.  I’ll show you.

Notes found…refined, completed.

       This Brain

This brain invades
The good, the bad:
Everything that’s done, not done.
And so I try
To purify
The brain
And turn
Invasion into
Sympathetic action.
This Brain 2.27.2020 Nature of & In Reality; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin
      After Surgery

After surgery
One is like the princess and the pea,
Feeling every crevice
On each surface.
After surgery
One’s sore, and golly, gee,
All parts exposed or not
Are vulnerable,
Incapable
But filled with the potential
Of life ahead,
For one day you’ll get out of bed,
Participate in daily doings:
Cleaning, practicing and s(cr)ewing.
We’ll see
How afterwards can be!
After Surgery 2.27.2020 Nature Of & In Reality; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin
      Dear Friends

Dear friends,
You’ll never know the inspiration
You have been,
And what I’ve learned
Of gratitude and giving,
And what I lacked..

You’ve helped change aims,
And I will never be the same,
Hoping I survive and have the chance
To show the learning’s knowing
Filled with just one speck
Of your munificence, unselfishness
And open-handedness.
Dear Friends 10.10.2019/2.27.2020 Arlene Nover Corwin
      I Have Become

I have become yours
To grow in your power;
Grow and flower
Over self-love’s lowest.
Wow!
How a syllable inspires.
I Have Become 10.25.2019/2.27.2020 Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin
         It Sneaks Up

It sneaks up: autumn,
And Huston sings “September Song”.
A rainbow arches:
Purple, blue, green, yellow, orange.
One can’t tell because
They blend and fade.
You’re stuck there at the window,
Captivated.
It Sneaks Up 12.15.2015/2.27.2020 Circling Round Nature II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Illusion

What isn’t an illusion?
That’s the question.
You aim for fame. Well, forget it – it gets boring
When the door to happiness subsides.
How long before the ride of charm
Turns into gasp; one last-ing gasp.
What circumstance, experience, ambition
Doesn’t turn to opposition
Some time in its life?
One thing turned into two
And diametrically opposed:
Up/down, down/up, then seeing through –a last, last sup.
Illusionary, but that’s not to say it doesn’t matter.
Everything a smattering of truth
For you to act through,
Watching diligently as you do it.
Not to say you must be stiff –
Just act as if
The whole thing’s real.
Don’t let it steal the real you,
That’s all.
There is a real you –
Let’s call it soul
Or essence; outer/inner
Unity of you-nity (that’s funny).
Ok, so it isn’t money,
Gathering (of many things
Such as position, power,
Family and all the things I can’t remember).
Passing, unpredictable, unstable,
Every syllable of all you want
Attainable – but then what?

Illusion 7.1.2017
Circling Round Reality;
Arlene Corwin

Illusion - what isnt?

Brain, Give Me The Answers

Does this sound too much like prayer?
A little red-faced,
Weakness in my psyche.
Embarrassed ‘cause it’s not like me,
One feels the hypocrite:
I, who stake
My life on ‘God, who makes not one mistake’,
And here I sit,
Baby-ish,
Asking to change destiny –
At least push it my way.
Shame, shame on me!

I’ve got to wait –
Just like all others.
Meditate,
Reject my druthers,
Concentrate.
(I’m poor at that).
Be grateful for the goods I’ve got
(and that includes MyQ
and its capacities))

Nonetheless, addressing you,
Dear self so true,
We have a pact
(And that’s a fact)
So if you will cooperate,
I’ll wait
Until who knows, the whimsicality of fate
Is ripe: propitious, and/or generous  
And brain-wise,
Advantageous.

Brain, Give Me The Answers 8.24.2017
Pure Nakedness; I Is Always You Is We; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II;
Arlene Corwin

Someone Out There Needs This

So you write!  
So I write,
Trying hard to say it right,
Forthright but kind:
Trying hard to find the word
That does not hurt
But flirts and heals,
Feels universal
By some sort ‘you’
Who needs it then
At just that moment.  
For
There’s always someone out there
Who needs what you have to say.

Someone Out There Needs This 9.26.2017
I Is Always You Is We;
Arlene Corwin

Why I Use Punctuation

I use punctuation
To help people read my verse onto
A resonating air;
Verses you can hear, i.e.
Aloud.
I’m proud to say that it has
Meter, rhyme,
Capitals that start the line
So the intention is fulfilled
And joined up with tradition.

A dot has meaning, comma too.
The semi-colon’s there to help you
Understand my thought processes.
When I want emphasis
Or that you accent,
Or I make a special statement,
I take care with punctuation,
For communication is the key
That underlies all poetry.

I might use exclamation points,
But never when it’s not important!
I use hyphens quite a lot
Because my lot lies in creating words,
The standard dictionary not enough.
And I do so want you to ‘get it’.  Get it?

Ah, dear punctuation!  
We could go through all the signs for pauses.
Unimportant technically,
They’re there to help you verbally.
A poem is to be said - not read.  
It’s all for you!

Why I Use Punctuation 6.27.2016
The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II;
Arlene Corwin

Sometimes poetry is story telling, sometimes didactic teaching, sometimes a combination of both.

A Letting Go & Letting In

A ‘ballsy’ lady I know well,
Who doesn’t hesitate to tell
Those she considers foes, to ‘go to hell’
Considers meditation
Self-deception and delusion,
Which ‘dislike’ inspired me to re-define
In easy terms,
A practice I consider firm.

Meditation, as I find it, see it, use it
Is a mind full, filled by focus, plus,
A letting go and letting in
A ‘thing’ you can’t put finger on.
All these three are meditation.
These, a brain that’s working on
A different plane or several planes.

I admire her for her ‘*****’
But sympathize a mind the sees life as a
Nothing worthy or an all.
She may be missing what’s behind -
Which may be spirit or a soul;
Some non-something behind the earth
Contactable by non-thing faith.
No meter there to measure pleasure;
Or to calculate its treasure.

A Letting Go & Letting In 4.23.2021 To The Child Mystic II; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Arlene Nover Corwin

I was watching a reportage about the strong possibility of a war between Iraq and Kurdistani Kirkuk.  I don't consider myself a political person, neither politically aware nor politically active.  But sometimes, I'm moved on a deep level at the futility of and process leading up to war.  This is one of those moments.  I went directly to the computer.

        You Can’t Have A War

You can’t have a war

Unless you have weapons;

You can’t have those weapons

Unless you have industries;

Can’t have an industry earning no money -

And money means profit,

For who runs an industry

That doesn’t profit -

Profit the carrot.



Weapons-to-profit:

The distance is multi- or many small instances

Building the one upon other,

Easy to disregard,

Turn a blind eye to.



Oil or real estate,

Access to coast,

Minerals, labor:

Possession and use.

Passions’ abuse

And war is the certainty.



It’s terribly sad,

This fighting for terra;

A sickening error

Pretending it’s doctrine or canon or righteousness.

Overruled, conscience.



You can’t have a war,

Restrain it,

Unless there’s this chain of re-action,

Everyone playing his part.

It’s breaking my heart.

Ain’t it yours?



You Can’t Have A War 10.14.2017

War Book II; Our Times, Our Culture II;

Arlene Corwin

Written this morning, I had an inkling that the title sounded familiar, so I looked it up (bless the computer) and lo! there is was - a poem, not at all the same, written in 1998, twenty years ago, even published under the misprinted title Pushed Around by Fat.  Anyway, here they are:  Pushed Around By Fate#1 &
#2.
      Pushed Around By Fate #2