Trying Out Ideas In Form
          
Accepting some, rejecting others
You think thoughts (of course, what else?)
With mind that thinks in rhyme,
That sings internally in pulse or meter,
With the trying out idea
In one shape, length or other form,
A form poetic, form its norm.

It cannot help it,  choosing not to,
Its intrinsic motto “Write!” into
The dead of night, the morning’s bait,
Some inward freight shipped in by nature,
Makes it make ideas clear – and that alone on matt blank paper.
Talking dissipates in air
While written piece is always there,
If only to be found in some museum cellar
Two damp hundred dry years later,
Made mature
By simile and metaphor-become-reality,
Affecting mankind’s then and future
Through the slow, low burn of poetry.

Trying Out Ideas In Form 8.15.2016
The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II;
Arlene 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

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

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

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

Truth Will Out

If you’ve got a thing to say
A real thing, the words will play
Through synapses old/new,
The new unused, creating unconditionally unsaid
Phrases you alone invent unaided.

If you’ve something pregnant there
Inside the cerebellum,
You’ll be inclined to share
And tell ‘em.
Truth will out
Not shouted, but with clout
Deliberately aimed or not.

Then we come to something there
Called instinct’s intuition
To transport you far and near - everywhere
You need to go
To every place you need to know.

You must, gosh **** it, trust it!

Because all truths
Are there in places ‘neath the scalp
Beneath your hair, sculpted by the roots of roots,
By nerves that serve you night and day
Which tell you things that may,
Have what we call, the truth.
(Not every thought’s idea is true
Though it’s all you.)
A tricky thing this ‘God hath wrought’
Just always call to mind this thought:
Truth will always, in the end, want out.

Truth Will Out 2.20.2018 Circling Round Reality, Nature Of & In Reality; Revelations Big & Small; Arlene Corwin

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




;

Playing With Your Self

One’s mantra ought to be,
‘No people, things; no things, no people’;(italics)
Energy that’s wasted swishing
Thoughts around illusionary realms
That kindle wish and drive desires
Rooted in the mind, and of the kind
That should be cast into a fire -
Wish/desire that sways, that leads astray.

You ask, “What’s left when one’s bereft
Of thoughts of things and world?”
Two words:
Your self(italics), its traits.
All other thoughts flung out to space,
Mind’s tissue
Focused on the one essential issue: you(italic),
You!(italic) To face the real deal you(italic)
To play with self’s true
                                       nature.
So remember,
Slow eradication of the need to talk,
Think worldly thought
Is to awaken from the slumber
Of illusion’s juggernaut.

Playing With Your Self 8.19.2016
Circling Round Reality; Circling Round Yoga II; to The Child Mystic II;
Arlene Corwin

Trying Out Ideas In Form
          
Accepting some, rejecting others
You think thoughts (of course, what else?)
With mind that thinks in rhyme,
That sings internally in pulse or meter,
With the trying out idea
In one shape, length or other form,
A form poetic, form its norm.

It cannot help it,  choosing not to,
Its intrinsic motto “Write!” into
The dead of night, the morning’s bait,
Some inward freight shipped in by nature,
Makes it make ideas clear – and that alone on matt blank paper.
Talking dissipates in air
While written piece is always there,
If only to be found in some museum cellar
Two damp hundred dry years later,
Made mature
By simile and metaphor-become-reality,
Affecting mankind’s then and future
Through the slow, low burn of poetry.

Trying Out Ideas In Form 8.15.2016
The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II;
Arlene Corwin

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

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

          A Death In Families

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.

This Body

Pesky, troublesome, capricious;
Efforts to control a wild-goose chase,
Farcical: a waste.
A strain in vain; hurts when it hurts;
Longings and desires, when and where it will,
Its underskirts.

It goes its way, in the way
And sometimes, thank the Lord, not…
One is forced to say,
“This is my lot.
I’ll do what I can do to help it stay
As long as possible;
Comfortable, perhaps good-looking, but
God knows, that part is least.”
This body is a beast
With some kind of intelligence that lies in destiny.

Goodbye old vanity,
Old friend one used to think so highly of,
Be steered by and obey.
Goodbye old energies one understood so little too.
Goodbye old you -
With arms, legs, trunk,
All of its useful junk inside;
The ride, the slide,
The destination thought its own,
Just bone
If that.

You notice I don’t call it ‘my’,
Belonging as it does to nature.
‘It’ an it and ‘this’ a this; this body a bo-die.

This Body 7.15.2017
Circling Round Vanities II; Birth, Death & In Between II; Nature Of & In Reality;
Arlene Corwin


A good look at reality.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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;

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

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

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





.

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

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

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

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

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’.)

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

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

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

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✍️

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

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

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

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

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)

Watching the ‘’religious’ conflict.  So useless! Perspired, tired, but inspired.  So useless!  

Bits Of Absurdity
It isn’t fun:
The more insightful I become
The more aware and dumb
I know I am.
Glaciers melt;
Is there a hell?
We rave and rant;
The disappearing elephant, rhinoceros or ant.
Some things we can or won’t, or can’t;
We war, invent new types of guns,
Dependent on developing more weapons,
Losing an inherent faith
An unsure housing, planet Earth.
Speculation, reason, treason…
Truth’s relation wobblier.
To remain pain-free, completely sane
Is not too much to ask,
The task a mission in disguise.
Addictions, stimulants, inner crises,
Pills for peace and for release
Messing up the consciousness:
What functioned generations past
Working not at all for some.
The die is cast.
In our numbness we are dumber,
Soon to fumble into slumber
That may last a thousand years or more.
Bits Of Absurdity 5.14.2021 A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Our Times, Our Culture 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

I woke this morning with this word somewhere in my brain. Looked it up and my brain did the rest.

"she saw youths tampering with her neighbour's car: interfere, monkey around, meddle, tinker, fiddle (about/around), fool about/around, play about/around, toy, trifle, dabble; do mischief to, doctor, alter, change, adjust, damage, do damage toLeading nowhere useful in particular.
harm, deface, vandalise, ruin; informal mess about/around; British informal muck about/around."

Tampering With✍️

This is one to which there can be no tag.

What else can one say, but …  

    When This Is Over

When this is over
You’ll still have your character
To deal with.
Times will alter,
But there never is an after.
That’s to say, there is,
But business
Is the thing: merely continuing:
Busyness and nothing more.

And there you are,
Left with character,
Its strength and flaw,
To grow, evolve, refine, define
Through change and understanding,
Standing under with humility,
God, destiny, not pining
From mistakes, goals missed
And all the things ones’s pis_ed away from ignorance.

We’ve talents, gifts
To sift through, filter out;
Finding what we’re all about
To work and use
Amusing us and fusing them
To worlds around,
To bond and bind societies;
Bid welcome to the mishy-mashy miscellany,


Watch the mind: it’s shifty, tricky;
Thus, the one security
Is to be found in in purity!
Work on it!

When This Is Over 5.17.2020 Definitely Didactic II; Our Times, Our Culture II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Remember this always:
Love,
Arlene

What You Think & What You Do Is You

To know, to really know by intuition what is true,
Rather than by intellect’s analysis,
Which going so far by the book
Will never brook reality, big R:
The star.

There in us seed of divinity,
But also personality and ignorance and folly
Which clog the way so constantly
As to obstruct each single day.

In theologic terms: Christian, Hindu, Taoist, Sufi
Shake hands on one thing categorically:
A unitive, intuitive discovery
Which sculpts life’s aim;
Truth, big T, its contemplation as an end,
Activity its means.

Belief in humans doesn’t work.
You only have to look.
We fight, we ****, we’re angry as we lurk in corners
Passing laws to dig for more
Deep oil, coal… searching from a parched ambition,
Marketing on boundless scales the superficial and addictive
While vindictive leaders staunchly march,
Their Janus faces smiling, starched.

Philosophic, scientific principles at odds -
Where, what, if there is a god.
To know, to really know the double-sides
Of all observed would serve the good.

If you (or Man) will spend the time,
Insides reaching for the prime,
The look inside its total aim,
Some good must come of it;
Not total good, but it’s a start.
The brain connected then to heart,
The body horse, synapses cart.

Abnegation (not negation) of the ego,
Trying out the test of virtue
Probably, no, certainly will help
Speed up this royal trip.
You bet there will be blips galore,
So try some more to reach the core
Of Truth within, for
What you think and what you do is you.

What You Think & What You Do Is You 12.7.2019
Circling Round Reality; Circling Around Everything II; Arlene Nover Corwin

I've been away for a few days just thinking.

Joy, Love, Truth

What do you think your brain is doing
When you’re sad, depressed or *******?
Lots!  When sad or in a mood
Amygdala and hippocampus glued
To memory’s emotions tied,
Sensations not forgot!
When you’ve got the hots for someone
And that one is non-responsive
Do not let depression in.
Turn a sadness into gladness
And remember, hippocampus
And amygdala are slingshots into hindrance,
Solving blocks impediments;
A cross to bear you do not want to wear
Life through.

To continue:
Are you full of cheer?
Do you like people
All around whomever and wherever
You come into contact?
Do you strive for truths and stick to fact?

My advice is but to focus!
Deal with body/mind detail.
When you hit resistance, stop
The movement in the middle;
When you hit insistent pain,
Plain sense and yogic counsel
Is to halt smack in the middle of its riddle.
You will soon feel feel well - or well-er
Than the hell before.

When feeling low, illusionary concepts flowing
Going into brain, mind, soul,
Into the feel of wholeness
Is to know the stealing big fat lie:
Illusion passing for reality.

Through the trick of nothing’s nowness
(you could never start with less)
You secure the greatest motivation
To escort you to salvation.

Fortune, fame; misnomer’s lame and empty crown  
Ties you up and ties you down -
When you see the sin of daily longings, basic wrongings,
Throngs with faith in spectre choices,
From profession to the newsy voices,
Know these are not real truths
But grounded themes on schemes and dreams
To lead one far from happiness to emptiness and being fooled.

Let your  ‘down-ness’ be your tool
To push and lead to real seeing,
No more robot in your thinking, but a being
Meant for more.
Joy, Love, Truth 2.6.2019 Circling Round Reality; 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

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

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!”

After my poem “Ageing” I received the following comment.  One on which I hadn’t reckoned.  It inspired this answer and a new poem:

“Well, it is so true and depressing. I was reading this hoping that you wrote something positive at the end, bot not…I would really like you to conclude the poem with a POSITIVE end.  It’s my desperate request as I need it.”
T.

Dearest T—-
     The positive in it is this: If you soak yourself in every moment (which requires constant trying - for trying is training - focussing on every breath, every deed, your whole existence changes.  The point is to become ‘perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect’ while you’re still alive.  Then there comes an automatic joy and insight In other words, the whole chemistry changes.  Ageing doesn’t change, but you do!  And for the better.  
     We must talk about this!  But I’ll continue to send you my poetry for most is filled with hope and optimism.  Even fun and funny.

Soak Yourself In Every Moment Or, Trying Is Training

Keep cool inside yourself.  
Detachment is the key.
It’s not un-interest or indifference:
But an objectivity, Impartiality,
Ability to see
                    things as they really are;
Possibility in probability
And vice versa.

When you peel off the outer, see the inner,
The illusion of exclusion drops away,
Inclusion comes to stay
And you’re so much, shall we say,
Gladder, gay.*
(There was a time when gay meant light and full of glee;
Free of care, carefree:
A surely helpful way to be).
Keep cool and be life’s fool: flexib’ool’, adaptab’ool’,
Versatile and tool of circumstance.
Life can be a dance,
Full of significance,
Non-material,
And joyful.
Soak yourself with honesty
In every little point in time - and see.
Life’s often fun - and funny.

Trying Is Training 9.12.2018 A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Circling Round Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin