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

When I write I try to not write what I’ve writ
The months before, knowing that
Each three clichés, each thrice said phrase
Is hinder to the mind’s synapse.

Used-up words five times five hundred,
Never wond'ring why I’ve done it:
I don’t want to copy -
Least of all myself and me. 

Falling for the trick that quickens death of brain
Are quirks and quips and bits of what
You’re sure has happened, quoted over, over.
Mind’s a rover needing change.

I have friends who still say “weird” to amplify each seventh word;
“Weird” since nineteen eighty-four.
What it means I’ve no idea.
And what is that word  ‘weird’ good for?
Change the words,
For copying yourself is worst.

Am I copying my back life story?
Parroting, regurgitating clichés,
Making up my history?
Faking mystery
To make myself exciting?

Copying is weakening
For you, for me, for memory.
Variety’s the key.
You do not need to copy.

     PS There’s a red line running through our lives: character, aptitudes, permanent throughout.  Bones grow up, grow old and change.  Penmanship changes.  Underneath there’s always a youyou recognize.  Keep it in the frontal lobe.  It’s there.

Don’t Copy 3.1.2015/revised 2.3.2016/ re-revised 9.27.2018 Definitely Didactic II; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Arlene Nover Corwin

And now for something on an entirely different level:

It’s Easier To Tell The Truth
      (Than Tell A Lie)

It’s easier to tell the truth
Than tell a lie.
That is why
Each syllable is poe-try;
Examining a prefix, suffix
To a-fix  an honesty
Found bound inside.

With hours of refinement,
Its defining of identity:
(For what else is there
But to find out who we are?)
Glacial faults, deep and broad;
Small conversions to the good;
Youth and growth to wrinkled age -
Weak > strength >, courage:
A corsage of fortitude.

And the insight that
It’s easier to bathe in facts
Than drown in lies.
Hence the art of poe-tizing,
Its requiring and sacrificing youth and froth
To new found truth(s)

It’s Easier to Tell The Truth 5.5.2021 Definitely Didactic II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Talking To My Brain

Brain, do the righteous thing today –
Health-wise, peace-wise,
Be wise and obey.
Be creative.  Be at peace.  
Make life easy.
Be a brick* -
Choose the moral and the ethic,
Thought spontaneous without cliché.
Make this day
A blend of deep and, let us say,
The funny,
Seeing humor, beauty and delight
In every action, every minute.
It’s not difficult for you – you’re clever,
Taking knowledge out of everything,
Making knowledge out of everything -
Memory dug in.
Brain, I’m talking to you.
Listen!

Talking To My Brain 4.12.2018 The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Arlene Corwin
*(English slang for ‘be a good fellow’’ or ‘be a good guy’.)

Semi-Portrait Of A Friend
   (There’s More To Him Than This.)

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

He remembers all the bad and good;
He’s filtered nothing. Think if you could
Think back on all that wasn’t good in life:
The sad, the mad, the hurts, the wife?

Besides the perfect recall
He sees it all in black and white.
All is beautiful or quite unpalatable;
If disgusting, I would guess it’s frustrating –
To lash out, then to smothers it with, ”Asch!”
To bring to mind each second and,
To have opinions strong.
He’s never wrong –
(On of his ‘strong’ opinions).
Plus, he takes offense,
Pretends indifference.
We’re friends.
I don’t mean to offend;
I pretend I’m scatterbrained -
And comprehend.

Semi-Portrait Of A Friend 6.28.2016
Love Relationships II;
Arlene Corwin

I saw Lars Lerin, Sweden's great watercolorist, interviewed this morning. (If you don't know who he is look him up. You'll adore his painting genius and modest charm. A great, great artist with principle, technique and endless ideas.
It inspired me to write this:
✍️

Every Day’s A Phase

Every day’s a phase – nothing but.
The moon unfazed goes thirty days
With shadowed light a-waxing, -waning,
Straining not, just losing, gaining,
Noticeably self-contained.

You and I, the Gershwins said,
“We sweat and strain, bodies all aching racked with pain”.
C. (that’s me) augments with comments,
“You and I, we wish too much,
Not accepting or in touch
With our restraints;
Not what we are nor what we ain’t.”  

Satisfied is not complaisance.
Compliance, maybe – not complaisance.
Satisfied; acceptance, ease;
Being pleased with whatsoever.
You’re not clever, not the Saviour?
So be it!
You’re not a nitwit for all that.22
You’re not great at what you do?
***** it!  
You are great in ways to praise.
Nothing stays, since everyday’s a phase
And nothing but.

Everyday’s A Phase 11.28.2017 Nature Of & In Reality; Arlene Corwin




;

Gifted But Out Of Tune

Doctor: “What can you expect?
You’re eighty-two!  Accept it!
Vocal cords, no longer tighten.
Yours will never close again.”

Goodness knows, boy, do I know it!
Unpredictable, quixotic.
Coming, going, throwing
Intonation out the window.

Eighty-two, all soon to be
An eighty- three.
Must Corwin flee because of age?
Flee the stage because of age?
****, no!
Today, tomorrow,
She says no to going!

Sings her heart out – when she can.
Songs fantastic; jazzy, cool,
Breaking rule harmonic
For the music and the fun of it.
But voice, alas, hard to control,
Its life so unconnected to the whole.

***** pitch, stich with crooked seam;
Bad, sad, how she sorely wants to scream.
She doesn’t.   Giving out the gifts from heaven,
Hearing flaws – now a given.
Focusing
                on now and only…
Singing, playing joyfully;
Doing when and how,
She crowns the gig and takes a bow.

Gifted But Out Of Tune 10.7.2017
Vaguely About Music II; Pure Nakedness;
Arlene Corwin

Everything An Etude

Your cooking, your yoga,
Your diet, your posture:
Everything a try,
Chance to be brave
Chance to be plucky:
Symphony unfinished;
All’s a laboratory.

Everything an opportunity.
An exercise to make you better.
Never best.
There is no best.
So rest in knowing
Everything is etude.

Everything Is Etude 4.11.2017
The Processes; Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Definitely Didactic; Vaguely About Music II;
Arlene Corwin

I saw the word 'logic' and it suddenly occurred to me how often the lack of it, this precious tool, is missing from our daily attempts at talking.

              The Logic Of The Argument Is Faulty

As I Meditate…

As I meditate upon the general idea of peace,
Wash my brain with waves of …waves
I see an impact and increase
In the days that follow; expertise                                        
Unexplainable inside these
Small, small, small effects.
Nicer, kinder jets of thought;
Generous, inclusive this:
Embracing (the flip side of scorning or dismissing)
Giving ‘thumbs up’ easily.
I
Even feel my IQ up.
Recall dropped into my lap;
The bank behind them all
Accessi-ball,
(a jokey bit of poet freedom)

Patterns and impressions sharper.
Harping on the small things lesser.
Plus,
My mind turns bad to good.
(As I’ve always hoped it would.)
All opportunity!
I never understood
This peace idea.
Not worldly grounded, power founded; sheer
Self caused and self achieved.
Every pause a chance to sieve
The good from bad, the stuff that had
A weakening effect on me.
Since I is always you is we,
All university,
I simply send this little notion;
Hoping it brings oceans
Of the positivity
It’s giving me.

As I Meditate 2.26.2018 The Processes; Creativity, Thinking, Meditative II; Revelations Big & Small; ArleneCorwin

Stumbled upon this one while collating my next book "Circling Round Ageing”. Seeing ‘ deficiencies',  I’m revising it,  the older version already in my book “Pure Nakedness” (page 30).

                    Ascetic Youth

When I was young and immature I took a ‘no’ as absolute,
Not understanding that
A ‘no’ implies alternatives.
I lacked perspective.
Who looked for alternatives;
A complement, a supplement?

Without a doubt,
I gave myself deficiencies
Of every sort.
The diet that said don’t drink milk,
Did not say don’t get calcium.
Who knew?
Who knew the wrong side of obedience Is ignorance.
And so I’m thinking,
That’s how despots do their thing!
Ascetic Youth 6.1.2010 I Is Always We Is You; Pure Nakedness; Arlene
Corwin

How Are You Today?

Volcanos are waking;
Villages shaking.
My husband and I
Had our second shot yesterday.
Me, I have questions concerning bacilli.
Aways the bad mixed with good, good with bad.
While lying in bed
Learning lots from TV,
All that’s around me,
Patiently waiting to see any side effects;
When, and or if…

Friends on the phone,
Themselves all alone:
Some CoVid and sick-ish, some fine,
Some immune.

All is in movement:
My cat at the moment.
Icebergs and soil,
Men drilling for oil;
Out of one’s hands, much unpreventable
Maybe the whole.

All that I wonder propped up as I lay,
Head on three pillows, is how, really how
Are you feeling today?

How Are You Today? 4.10.2021 Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Lumps & Bumps

Wrinkles, lines, ache this, pain that;
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?
Changes down there:
Sour, 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, - dousing.
Sousing us with vinegar.

Lumps & Bumps 5.29.2016/revised 5.11.2020/re-revised4.21.2021
Circling Round Ageing; Birth, Death & In Between II; Arlene Nover Corwin

I enjoy making fun of myself in poetry.  At the moment, I'm editing "Definitely Didactic", my upcoming book.  I came upon this one a few minutes ago and had to laugh. Here it is for your delight.  It is rather charming, actually.
             I Don’t Watch Nature✍️

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

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

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

I was intuitively drawn to record yesterdays passing of beloved  Kent’s daughter Pia, 54.

          A Death In Families

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

              Ambition

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

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

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

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

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

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

He Never Did Believe

He never did believe in God –
Just couldn’t.
He went yesterday.
I hope he faded, simply faded,
Fell asleep pain free, thought free
And no anxiety.

I never preach.
I cannot teach,
But feel some It does reach us all
According to capacities,
The faculty through faculties,
Our capabilities.

Belief or not –
Life’s crux takes care,
Taking generations through -
To rid the self of doubt,
Of frailty and flaw.

There’s force out there
Before the stars,
Before the universes
And our cares.

He never did believe
Or even contemplate the reasons why.
It’s all okay.
It has its reasons reasoning
Beyond the sky and comprehension.

He Never Did Believe 12.11.2016
Birth, Death & In Between II; God Book II;
Arlene Corwin
(to Å)

Some wonderful somebody In Hello (Ella Johnson) described my work as "amazing".  I'm flattered beyond words. Such a powerful compliment makes one hardly feel worth it, BUT, if I it is that, it is because:
     Everything I Think, I Write

Everything I think, I write,
For better or for worse,
And since
I cogitate throughout the days,
The thought-turned-phrase
Converts the days to thought-turned-verse.

For some it’s money that’s thought bound.
For some it’s family circled round
Family, worry, God or Death.
My thing is Truth.

Through diverse channels,
Canals all, the universal stall of measure.
I see all as Truth the Treasure.
I can’t stop.  And who would want to.
Rhythm, melody and phrase
The driving craze in me. Yippee!

Here comes the sister poem called Everything Is Worth A Poem #2,
/ I’ve written one before).

If you’ve a sense of rhythm, rhyme,
Metered time, it’s worth a poem.
It may be so-so at the start,
But blurt it out, impart a theme,
It’s worth a go
To watch the darndest things start flowing.
As they insight into…

Clichés there will have to be.
It’s hard to say new, clear things simply.
Idioms on which you grew, they’re you, real you.
Take Dante. Using the colloquial,
To say the deepest things.  
And pray!  They’ve lasted,
Nay, outlasted…never to decay as past.

You may start a shallow fellow -
Sleepy, hollow.
You have thoughts – just not developed;
Still a pearl inside the scallop;
You use couplets as your form.  Later on they won’t seem normal.
As you broaden, you’ll be lauded
By the gods of verse in Auden heaven.

Though this may turn out to be
A poem six hundred ninety-three,
And oh, so corny
You can see
It is the height of luxury
And makes me rapturously happy.

Everything I Think I Write 6.16.2018 A Sense Of Ridiculous II; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Here I was, watching the new Swedish prime minister Stefan Lofvén (pronounced Levain) giving his important program point by point on TV.  Intending after to edit my upcoming book Swedish Book. What happens?  Another thought and I’m wandering, not taking in each detail, each important name and role…. The following resulted:
Signed, Compulsive but not yet developed,
Arlene

Finding Out About Yourself

Who am I?
Who are you?
It will be asked till time is through.
In fact, it may be
Life’s key issue we pursue;
Extro- intro-, odd man out;
A coverall for all the doubt.

Who are you, you the total real?
Finding out will skål the soul,
Give skill to soul,,
Transform the budding soul/you whole,
Give vision of capacities you’ d no idea,
Where life’s no more apologia.

It’s a game of Treasure Chest,
One where you must persevere:.
And in the end you are the measure of the treasure
And your best.

How, you ask, can little me be all in one:
Human, angel, paragon?  
In a nutshell, a nice person!
Remember too, it’s only ever you
Who knows exactly who you are,
All others are interpreters, projecters
Of who they are.
Far
From who you are at any moment.
So,
While you are there observing,
Being altered and improved
Finding out about yourself, you cannot waiver.
It’s a trip demanding courage
Into superannuated age,
Its pointers in the right direction never over.

Skål - Swedish: drink (to) the health of, drink to, salute, honour; archaic pledge.

Finding Out About Yourself 9.20.2018 Nature Of & In Reality; Revelations Big & Small;

It hit me!  What is ambition?
        
        Ambition

Ambition: good, bad, mixed?
On the surface something fixed:
A goal, an aim; useful, beneficial.
In the end, where does it send you?,  
On the face of it, to purpose;
In the end, to race
Where failing can mean falling into illness,
‘Calling’ turning into sand.

Ambition is a strong desire to achieve:
But what?  Success? What is it you perceive?
Luxury? Prosperity? Fame of name? Victory?
Does it involve a plan? A scheme or more,
To carry out one dream, or more?

To hash out, lash out with your psyche:
Them or me;
Who am I, really?
Are you ever to become the model that you had in mind?
Has ambition been defined?

Like ‘status' and ‘exclusive’, words that have been coloured,
Twisted, loaded,
We have planted on ‘ambition’
An Illusory distortion.

Life fulfils itself if you can wait.
Life fulfils itself if you can work.
Life knows your every want.
Life knows your weak points.
(As time goes, the muscles, joints).

Replace ambition with self knowing.
If you want to keep on growing,
Be Here Now!
That’s it!
The secret
                to ambition.

Ambition 6.13.2020 Nature Of & In Reality; Circling Round Experience; Definitely Didactic II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Got this idea the other day- but only as a title.  Worked on it the past two days.  See if you appreciate its point of view.  Notice that I place it in the collection called Circling Round Egos.
            

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 right against the wrongs.

We even sing fight songs

In 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 manoeuvre.



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 as they sip their sauvignon.

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 4.27.2017

Circling Round Egos;

Arlene Corwin

It happens sometimes that one hits the wrong button.  As in this case, I pressed a button (are they really called ‘buttons’?) which brought up a blank page.  Not knowing what to do with or about it, I started writing and this came out:
        A Blank Page

What Are We Aiming At?

What is it one is aiming at?
And what the means?
Is it utopian to think about?
What is involved?
Such questions asked and answered as the road resolves.
Most times the answers overlap – in fact, each step
The coinciding
Of events and chance
So often and so many, they bring unforeseen abundance!

Means and goal, a little list:
Clarity, transparency,
Ethics and morality;
Fondness of simplicity,
Liking, warmth and care;
Focus and awareness
Of yourself - your faults and gifts.
The means to sift through both
And tackle, challenge, intercept,
Take responsibility for; respect, accept, correct;
To form belief
And follow through.  
It’s hard to let a shape come through you
Like a leitmotif;
A thread that is the real you,
That you were born to find, to be and do.  

What is it that we’re aiming at?
Guess with boldness:
Happiness and peace, of course,
A course of life that’s conquered stress
Made easy by
The depth inside.
Become its bride.

What Are We Aiming At? 5.9.2018 Revelations Big & Small; Definitely Didactic II;  I Is Always You Is We; Arlene Nover Corwin

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

       Annie Ross

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is to show how development’s ‘evolution’ works.  It’s a phenomenon worth exhibiting every now and then.  Don’t you think? I write this to writer and artist friends!✍️
Love, Arlene

Wrote this 2.24.1998: Home Truths before I ever got a computer or published a book.  This is a revision and a refinement. Tighter, better meter, chopped and cut, more condensed and readable.  Much better, I hope.

1st version 2.24.1998
For the man with eyes/The universe lies//In the stories I tell/Through typewriter’s ribbon,/The rhymes that spell/Out the good, ex-uruban nature, food,/My neighbourhood,/The body-me’s,/ The mystic, politic,/Prosaic, partly;/Energy or laziness,/Clarity or haziness;Words that hurt and words of hope/(Mostly hope, for hope encloses./Criticism separates/While hope’s ambrosias/ Fuel the fates/To spurt and cope,/Give life to heart’s least/Beat and last.)Home truths open personal;/Signs of weakness and reversal;/Love with and without libido;/God with and without a credo./home truths for the one with eyes,/
Worldwide spread on paper size A4.

               Home Truths
             ( latest version)

For the man with eyes,
The universe lies in the stories I tell
Through typewriter’s ribbon;
With rhymes that spell out,
The good, food, my old neighbourhood,
Body-ness, politics: prosaic partlys,
With energy, laziness, clarity, haziness,
Hurtful words, hopeful words,
Hopeful curds, for hope encloses,
While nick-picking separates all hope’s ambrosias,
Fueling the fates to spurt upwards and cope,
Keeping life heartbeats last, least, lost a-throbbing…
Home truths are personal,
Signs of shortcomings and signs of reversal.
Love with and without libido;
God with and without a credo.
Home truths are for one with two eyes to surmise,
Spreading worldwide on A4’s paper size.

home truth
noun (usually home truths)
an unpleasant fact about oneself, especially as pointed out by another person: what he needed was someone to tell him a few home truths.
Home Truths 6.13.2019 Circling Round Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin
((found, by the way, on a floating scrap)
8.3x11.7inches

What Is Pleasure?

What is pleasure?
Listening to hubby play a jazz improvisation?
Voicings vested in ten gifted fingers?
Revelling in chords unrivalled?
Food in mouth?
Massage’s touch?

Pleasure, what?
Delight?
Elation?
Gratification?
Simple fun?
Sheer diversion?

To take pleasure is to savour,
As a sample, for example,
Kent’s piano not just pleasure
But a treasure trove of silver;
Coin of worth, worth imitation.

What is pleasure, measure of…?
Anything that makes you smile,
Any force that keeps you mobile.
Any word what ends in -phile.

In opposition to the concept ‘down’,
Such as ‘downheartedness’,
Is feeling blessedness,
A boon your own.

A simple thought in bed last night,
Feeling warm and light,
A bed of roses, height of ease
No pain or seizure.  Not inertia but a closure.
This is pleasure
Also.

What Is Pleasure? 2.25.2020 Circling Round Reality; Vaguely About Music II; Arlene Nover Corwin





.

Cosmic Coordination.  

(4 years later)
Meter righted, verbs re-chosen, rhymes clearer, form tightened, economized and easier to read;
even message and its nuance altered
 
Moment ‘now’ can never come again,
Not poetry, not inspiration;
Angle, viewing never contain the  prefix re- (again).
Moments have a nano-difference, nano-variation -
Two sided coins
Joined by rows of nows.
 
Moments have no measure,
No more import one the other –
Value too.
Does sitting on the loo
Have more significance than any other thing you do?
Same dance, same chance, just nuance new.
 
The instant used for what it is:  a one and only,
Friendly, sunny or tsunami —
It, unique and passing.
Yet not random or haphazard.
Influences, guides that sway –
You need to take them,
Soaking up the many ways.

Remember, be aware,  
You also guide and shape and sway
From where you are, for you have power,
Synchronized with galaxy and star
And all the spheres that ever were.
Coda:
Not to sound too know-it-all, sententious
That’s the way it is!
Cosmic Coordination 12.18.2016/ 12.19.2020 Nature Of & In Reality; Circling Round Reality Arlene  Nover ‘Corwin
sententious
given to moralizing in a pompous or affected manner: he tried to encourage his men with sententious rhetoric.

Sometimes one's just overwhelmed by this reminder.  

All Living Things Love Life II

Written many moons ago;
Writ by life-observer poets;
Scribbbled scrutinies and comments;
Detailed now on TV shows:
Perils menacing or imminent;
Calloused killings of the other,
That despite all men are brothers;
Pain or dread;
The many dead.
Frog, fly, ant
Stepped, crushed without stop or conscience -
Well, what can one say!
Living things that pant for breath
Robbed of air from man to plant.
Air, the global element,
Constituent shared by us all:
And still
We ****.
Implausible! Impossible!  But actual
This second as thought formulates;
Loved beings each transported
To a valueless oblivion.
We watch offhandedly,
Or helpless, mourn.

All Living Things Love Life II 5.11.2021 Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Nover Corwin

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

    Accentuate The Positive*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Good Thing With *** After Eighty
                     (a metaphor only)

The good thing with *** after eighty
Is that it’s never flighty,
Never to be taken lightly
Although playful to the fullest.

Having age’s benefits, which far from few,
The very slowness giving each and every feeling newness
Of a you-ness never felt in springtime’s days:
Rediscovered in a hundred lovely, treasured ways.

Yeah, yeah, one reads the lists:
This, that and fists of facts:
The thin, the fat,
The morning aches in joint and bone
With sleep that’s partial, un-profound.
Multifarious the pains and ills.
And still, the benefits outweigh.
So never underestimate sagacity,
The knowledge and experience; the knowledge from experience
Which only comes from several hundred thousand segments.
Several thousand days behind,

Find yourself and who you are.
Differentiate the light from dark.
See the differences and then unite them.
Learn to welcome and not fight them.
There are many good things with the after eighty ***.

The Good Things With *** After Eighty 6.2.2019 Circling Round Eros II; Circling Round Ageing; Arlene Nover Corwin

Yesterday was, in Sweden, the day after Midsummer.  A day when one is tired from having, almost certainly celebrated the summer solstice with partying and too much food and drink.  We were no exception.  We held our yearly neighbor *** luck in our beautifully decorated boathouse, its lawn all mowed, prepared for games, the accordion well tuned and lovingly played.  
     In my next day fatigue, I sat in the sun,  body exhausted but ideas flowingly showing, I wrote poetry from the sublime to the ridiculous: four in all.  No mean feat.  I'll start with the ridiculous.

    I’d Like To Cut Down Summer Ferns

Summarizing Something Nice💞

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

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

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

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

This is one to which there can be no tag.

Hot off the press!
The Hottest May On Record
I write about the land I live in
Just because I live there and the land’s at hand.
A land forgiven,
For in heaps of, hopeful ways it’s grand.
The hottest May most every day
Since records started to be written, and
A button on the past,
It points to profits oft’ ill-gotten
In a world of greed, technology: half-rotten.
All the harmful tendencies in man
Brought forth, the times and growing population
On their prideful side.
Oh, I hate to be a just one more harbinger
Of god-knows-what:
Plagues and wars and everything that
Brings disaster.
All this from the weather
And this hottest May on record
Within
Little Sweden.
The Hottest May On Record 5.30.2018 Swedish Book; Nature Of & In Reality; Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Poetry is wonderful.  Lying here and this came out.


Delving Into Life’s Significance

In silence or with voice;
To reach spirit or relax,
Using any means that works
To fix the mind is meditation.

Not heroics or polemics,
Not mechanics or semantics:
Any means to coax a mind
To find more than it knows itself.
Something far, yet in itself.
A focussing that brings to life
A state normally hidden
And unbidden.

You can speculate yourself to death,
Still not have breadth;  
Think,  reflect, deliberate,
Ruminate and contemplate .
Still not ‘get it’.
There’s an ‘it’ that has no plot
One day ‘it’ just shows up.
You know more than you knew before
You find a ‘you, not shown before.
You’re where you are.
And happier.

There is a word ‘sublunary’
Which means those who are ‘worldly,
Which, in turn, means most of us.
Then there are those whose tendency
Is numinous -
A living in not of the world:
A flag unfurled.  
To them the stanzas up above
Are relevant enough to prove
There is a better way to live,
To solve, evolve and delve
Into existence and its meaning.

Delving Into Life’s Significance 5.5.2021 Circling Around Everything Ii; Circling Around Experience; Arlene Nover corwin

Don't Eat Anything That Can Run Away From You


Do not eat a creature that can run away from you.

Is that too much a task to ask?

Chances are that if it can – if it can run,

And running’s not from simple fun,

It’s scared, has pain, a brain like yours.  It’s suffering.

So if it relays to legs four

To spring from harm and/or from killing,

My admonishment is this: be willing

To NOT eat this thinking, feeling, fleeing treat.

It is not mete to turn this flesh into a meal,

Make an object from a subject that can feel;

Act unmasks the cruel toxicity of villainry,

Defeats the heart of mercy,

Ergo,

Do not eat the thing that seeks to run away from you.

*I first heard George Osawa, the creator of macrobiotics say it in Chico, California 1963.

Don’t Eat Anything That Can Run Away From You 4.19.2018 Nature In & Of Reality; Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Corwin

I don’t like to write long poems.  Most poetry readers and non-poetry readers - ones would like to attract - have not the concentrative powers or inclination to finish and/or take in the writer’s intent, style, etc.  Yet sometimes length is inevitable,  The poem and ideas form themselves, and as Mozart once told the emperor when told that there were an awful lot of notes in his composition, he answered “Only as many as are necessary!”

All Day Long They Come✍️

Transparent But Limited

Ask me more questions –
I’ll answer them all.
When/if I recoil
It’s not that I’m consciously
Trying to lie;
Deception is not in my bones.  
Guilt and illusions
May live in those hormones
I don’t know I own,
Un-known till the right time is sown.
Transparent but limited;
Blind to some weaknesses,
Thank God, not all.
Week one, a new year,
So hear ye, this typical
New year’s resolve!
Resolved: new persistence,
Stick-to-it, carry-through
Dug into
Processes, habits and thought;
See-through as glass,
Less
Limited.
Not a bad
Camelot!

Transparent But Limited 1.10.2016
Pure Nakedness; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II;
Arlene Corwin

No One Reads Poetry

That’s what they tell me:
Verse doesn’t sell
- Nobody reads…
No one will buy…
Poetry!  
Well-meaning kin,
Publishers who make it known,
Who **** you around
When you send in your soundest work:
Who say,
“Do not send us works of verse!”

Self-trust torn a-sunder
One starts to wonder,
“Is it me that’s mediocre?”

Let me tell you reader dear,
Thousands out there read each stanza, each cadenza
Meant to catch, attach, draw, touch the heart.
Thousands care!

Ingenuity, fertility, a universe in unity;
Intensity and lyric beauty:
Wholly, utterly and unreservedly
Unique!
The peak of truth and culture, muse and genius!
“No on reads…”
Ridiculous!  

No One Reads Poetry 4.27.2021 Circling Round Everything II: Arlene Nover Corwin

I suspect it’s all of us.

Still editing my next book of poetry called Definitely Didactic wherein every so often I stop and share one with you. It also gets to be a tedium when you're dealing with 420 poems (i.e.pages), and I've got to take a break. You, you lovely people are my break.

         Power Of Observation✍️

One or several (power/powers)
Don’t you care, it doesn’t matter
Whether it is one or more;
When you do your yoga,
Use your brain!
Observe what, where
The hurt, the strain.
Let me explain:
You feel, sense, imagine it,
IQ raised,
You’ve praised the part
From *****, ligament to cartilage.


Whatever age you are,
As said before, 'it doesn’t matter'.
Something good results:
From tumult in the psyche calming,
To the farming body,
Harvesting a better life.
Noticing a change means adding to the
Powers of invention,
Range of dreams you will accomplish.
Observation has dynamics
Of an unsuspected magic.

Power Of Observation 1.26.2014 Circling Round Yoga II; Definitely Didactic; Arlene Corwin

Full OfLife’s Meaning

Health and meaning,
Productivity and goodness,
Each without the other
Pointless, empty, aimless.
Karma is as karma does,
Cause, effect, impact that follows
Following the karmic laws;
Chains of act and motivation:
Like a train into a station;
Moving on - you get my point.
Pointing in and at direction
New to view, ensue, continuing
Forever on.

For that reason goodness pays.
So does purity of heart.
These the simplest of start,
Richest at the end.
(and even in the middle,
though not looking like it then).

This, a facile little verse
Written post a cup of java.
Oversimplified, naive,
Written down with caffeine fervor,
Nonetheless sincere endeavour
To get at a truth received;
The intellect experiential,  never swayed
By morning  coffee’s  coaxing way.

And so it ends as it began:
Metaphysical, material and grand,
Taking effort to achieve,
You and I but motes
And sometimes idiots
Living disquietly in worlds of floods
And wars and riots.  

Just remember, life that’s full of
Health and meaning, creativity and goodness.
Each without the other pointless, empty, aimless.
Life itself, its energy
Was meant to be
That!
Full Of Life’s Meaning 9,17.2018 Nature Of & In Reality; Revelations Big & Small; God Book II; Arlene Nover Corwin

To those of you who know about my seven fingers. (It’s just a whim that makes me write this, hoping that t’s good poetry, that’s all.)


     What I Cannot Do: To Date…

Zip up zippers; hold a glass;
Unscrew caps sealed, fused or plastic.
I’m begun to keep a list
To check what’s missing, missed and lost.
There must be hundreds I will run across -
Beyond the bounds of possibility,
Unfeasible and unattainable.

Climbing into shower or tub is easy,
Getting into places ‘squeezy’
Can be handled (but not ‘hand’-led).
I find other means uncovered.
I’ve discovered mouth and tongue,
The art of ways to stretch and hang
My clothes on hangers;
Knots and bows and ways to share
Each strand of hair
So that each hair is neat and pretty.

I can tweeze my brows,
Clip all small toenails wobbly held.
There is a problem with the cold;
Day/night, room/room -
Temperatures not temperate.
Dust and stuff too disparate.

Vacuuming is hard to deal with,
That’s the time to steel myself,
No matter how it feels.;
Knife and fork can be a hinder.
Clumsy, tender, the best boon
Can often be a bowl and spoon.
(not in public where chagrin
Would soon persuade me to constrain;
(Which shows a vanity devoid of training).

Anyway, and without straining
I grow stronger,
Lists grow longer.
Things I cannot do to date
Will train my patience while I wait for
Only goodness knows, for what!

What I Cannot Do: To Date 5.7.2021 Circling Round More Experience II; Arlene Nover Corwin

From Whence The Drive...

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

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

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

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

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

       Bored With Myself

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

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

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

Nothing to say,
But writing anyway

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

Stuff To Talk About

Either I’ve a lot to say, or I convey
The selfsame things in lots of ways.
If the latter –
Ten degrees above ch-chatter,
It’s my nature.
As a watcher and a searcher,
It’s a feature picture:
Fixture of that nature
In a structure something that I’ve got to…

Here is what I’ve got to say:
In the long run books are syllables in print.
Remember the Old Testament:
Apples, snakes, man, woman, knowledge.
In the short run, they’re terrific – [books]
[an] aid and shorter route through college.

That said, it’s projection all the way,
A basic you which never brooks stupidity,
Though fixed, and fix a thing,
But give it meaning:
Means and leanings leading to, letting you…
A simple but-not-easy-principle
Where there is circumstance and fate,
Chance, cause, luck and upshot.
Notice I don’t mention choice.
We choose and voice, but inside lies
Our nature – always you who’s you.

Is character your nature?
Is nature you identity?
The answer’s tricky
And you definitely have to try…
You have to definitely try.

Stuff To Talk About 9.22.2014 Definitely Didactic; Arlene Corwin