I wash the brain with peace,
Synapse to sleepy synapse.
Themes may change from day to day,
The mind and will working that way.  Today,
It’s peace – a motif that I never ‘got’.
I’m one step nearer, sensing it.
Behavior freer, talk a bit…
I’m more polite, considerate.
Something’s taking ‘way the ****
That usually rolls around as chaos;
Something near to paradise’s
Innermost best aspect peace, is
Uppermost. I use this basis
For my practice,
Imaging, imagining, examining,
Pretending, willing…
All that matters is the stilling
Followed by activity that does some good.
(What I wish is that it would).
Meanwhile, I am smiling more and more.
This ‘peace wash’ must be working.

Washing Over /My Newest Trick) 2.23.2018 The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Revelations Big & Small; Arlene Nover Corwin

Saturday evening, last day of June. Whipped this up this morning, then went out to buy a microphone stand. The things that strike one at any hour!✍️

       Multiplication Trap: Desire
One desire, two desires, three desires four,
Leads the passions, wish and hope
To x desires more.
You may be sure it is a trap
In which we dopes become ensnared.
Don’t be scared. We can get out,
Snout gotten out from vanity and narcissism,
Egotism, all the –isms spawning
Self-indulgence and the gout.
If this sounds silly, filled with of ire;
Truth be known, it is desire,
Its yearnings never-ending,
That keeps sending one into the mire
Of distress –
And even wretchedness.
Yes.

Multiplication Trap 6.30.2018 Circling Round Egos; Circling Round Vanities II; Arlene Nover Corwin

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

Storm Michael: One More Symbolic Sign

Worsening fires,
More dire censures
From poor mother Nature;
Storm winds and torrents
Since last tempest Florence
Hit North Carolinas;
Coastlines more flooded,
And still those who doubt it.
Like President Trump,
Dumping the evidence,
Still in denial.
Shunning the evidence…
What about Pence?
The climate thing vile.

Yesterday’s hurricanes,
Quickening winds and the rains with no drains…
Roofs blown off, trees blown down;
All of it happening all over town,
And all of it shown on TV.

We are living in times without equal.
With sequel statistical  flooding next door.
Storms know no borders,
And people are urged to be hoarders -
For crises like this are but chains,
And the rains have no enemies.
(maybe the sun - but that’s only one,
And nature’s not done with us -
That is for sure.

I’d bet my Schwinn bike
That Michael is far
From ‘taking a hike’
And happy to hear
That there’s not been one like it
Since records began.


This entire ramble
Is merely a gamble:
A figure of speech
For the breach in the wall
Of political wailings
And also their failings.

Storm Michael: One More Symbolic Sign 10.12.2018 Our Times, Our Culture II;Circling Round Nature II; Arlene Nover Corwin

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

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

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

As is often the case, I found this idea on a scrap - started and unfinished some time ago.  I’ve whittled it down to a simplistic piece called in a file Defiant Doggerel.  A would-be collection one day.
           A Good Ethic

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

Dear anyone of any religion, any holiday - anytime during the year.  For you.
Love,
Arlene

                                  A Christmas Greeting

Because I received so many encouraging comments on the 1st version written in 2017, I was moved to write a second, the elections coming so soon. Just the morning, after a good breakfast…

These will go into my book OurTimes, Our Culture II; plus another that deals only with 2018. (I haven't decided on a title yet, dear publisher Cyberwit.net)
Love,
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✍️

I’ve Forgotten…
(Entitlement to those forgotten)

I’ve forgotten
All the people I’ve been guided by
Whose I had impact.
I would say it was an army -
Some to venerate, to honor
Just for being who they were.

Teachers who reached out –
Or not.
Friend who sat in seat in front:
Third grade, long braid – precisely what
I longed for.
Comic friend, a hundred two this year.
Men who loved me;
Thinkers high above me;
Authors by the hundreds,
Women, men of all professions;
Holy ones…
My goodness, memories gone
And here I sit, result of all
That stands and stood to break the wall
Of ignorance.
They were my chance
And I’ve forgotten more than many.
I would gladly pay a penny to remember mem’ry
Unremembered, out of mind,
Left behind and unobserved,
Consigned to god-knows-where
Out there in limbo.

Tricky this!
I’d like to put a name or give some fame
To those who made me tried and true,
Who said, some way, that “You are you”,
Who gave or formed my values.
Give their due
To those who
Gave me mine.

I’ve Forgetten8.2.2016
Pure Nakedness; Special People, Special Occasions;
Arlene Corwin

You've all heard of the American in Paris.  But have you heard from the American in Sweden??

The Stimulant

There is a plan.
Prevailing since the dawn of man;
A master plan that never pauses,
Working through unchanging laws
Consisting of effect and cause.

So knowing thus,
I’ve pledged my whole - Including what I call my soul
To have a voice (despite no proof that we have choice)
And ‘spite my preconceived ideas;
To ‘giving in’ before I die
To changeless codes in changing life.

(if death means bye, bye-bye and bye -
If not, then learning reasons why…
I’ve got to understand the rest,
All that which serves this life as best;
Or life seems meaningless or mournful,
And who thinks we’re born to mourn!

Every instinct longs for joy:
Contentedness and happiness
Insect to four-legged beast - man, not the least;
From ignoramus to the fool,
Pursuit of joy both goal and tool.

What works for me is godhead nearest
(who I sometimes all God dearest).
Universes far from me
Yet deep inside, implicitly.

Thus, ‘fore I leave, ‘fore setting sail,
Believing in a force for good
And something which controls it all -
And this, right in our neighbourhood,
I leave this paper meant for Man:
There is a master plan inherent
Meant for us and our enjoyment;
Stimulant for saint and mortal:
Total life we have a right to.

The Stimulant 10.4.2018 God Book II; Circling Round Reality; Revelations Big & Small; Arlene Nover Corwin

I never get tired of saying it.  

     I Love Talent

I love talent!
I just love talent!
Talent is a grace, an ace,
A freebee, blessing:
Something that you get for nothing;
Something that’s a bank, a chest,
Toolbox/treasure all-in-one.
How to leach it, turn it to a skill and fun;
Teach it how to be its best handmaiden,
Guest of soul.
Toil at the risk of pain,
Ignorant of the world’s disdain;
Refining and aligning self to inmost gain.
I love talent!
How I love it!

I Love Talent 8.17.2001/revised 5.3.2017/revised one more time 5.3.2021
Special People Special Occasions; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative; Arlene Corwin

This was inspired by my friend Ulf who takes umbrage at my predisposition for rhyme and meter which he interprets as weakness. You ought to write prose, says he.

The Meaning Of It All: a race that is no race
(a poet speaks)
I may never be ‘streamed’,
(the modern stamp of popularity)
No theme alike in all I write,
For all I write is as diverse as hours in the day,
The changes taking place within the mind
With just one cup of of coffee
Or the viewing of a tragedy
On a ubiquitous TV.
Yet, with eyes to see
There is consistency,
A constant that is, let us say, a me,
A thread of personality,
Of pity for the way of, shall we say, humanity.
A love for the reality of life,
A search for its illusions,
And when seeing them,
A reaching for the answers.
And then the need to write them out;
A kind of scientific paper never absolute per se,
But sure there is a key
Even to death’s mystery
Which still eludes the me.
Wherefrom come this need to share?
Not fame, not name
Though they are protons in the atom’s lair.
No, the need lies deeper than the gene or cell.
A part of creativity and tendency to feel well.
A part of love that satisfies the giver
Just as much as it might satisfy receiver.
Desire’s hope gets in the way.
A hinder to analysis and objectivity.
Hope’s desire is the night to day.
Thus verse instead of prose.
One bouquet instead of one sweet aromatic rose.
Thus a freedom formed from discipline, revision;
Tiring and emptying until a moment’s inspiration
Jostles for first place:
A race that’s is no race.

The Meaning Of It All: a race that is no race 3.17.2019 The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Circling Round Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin

COPYCATS ALL: AN ODE TO PEP YOU
(Revised. It lacked so much before✍️

We’re copycats all - and it’s healthy.
Coins have double sides, so naturally,
One can spend months, years, merely days
Courting the wrong face of one's pennies.
It can’t matter.
Everything we do is cluttered
(slight. very, copiously, lots)
The moment’s mind-state fixing choice.
So give your voice to instinct’s sense
That does SO matter
As you climb the human ladder,
Mindful of each phase's border;
Copying what touches, reaches,
Even from the cheapest bleachers.

As you climb each step,
This tiny ode is here to
Snap, push, pep you up
With vim and zip.
Copycats All: An Ode To Pep You 1.24.2019 Circling Round Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin

More Than Pet

Albert Cat lies at my side.
Pressed up against my thigh he sleeps.
He’s slurped some yogurt from my thumb;
Not much, for he’s not hungry -
Took a whiff, showed interest;
I appreciate his interest, his intelligence;
It shows we’re equals:
Pals.
His senses know my tones of voice.
I try my best to sense his choices:
Moods, foods, evidences he evinces through the day;
His likes, dislikes, what’s good, what’s play.
He’s whimsical and unpredictable;
I’m conversational, respectful;
Relationship reciprocal,
I am the more responsible,
And that’s okay with me;
The mutuality enriching each.
Time tells me,
So does he.

More Than Pet 4.30.2021 Cat Book II; Circling Round Experience; Love Relationships II; Arlene Nover Corwin

On reading a 1997 interview with Saul Bellow who when asked about his near death experience at the age of 8 and then again at 80 something, said “I (still) have the feeling there are so many things to complete”.  (Gothenburg Post)

(There Are) Things To Complete✍️

I had completely forgotten that I'd written a poem with the same name earlier this year.  Wholly different the one from the other.  What a brain!
I think the 2nd is better than the first.

          Being Remembered ✍️

I Knew Her

I knew her;
With her ups and downs;
When she was productive, positive,
Knitting grytlappar, socker och trojor;
Not for self but for we others,
Starting projects, energetic and creative.

Knew her:
With her yearly birthday cake
To celebrate Pernilla, Patrick;
Knew her with her pretty legs, nice clothes, good taste,
Devotion to her Laila, Olga, birds and nature.
Yes, I knew her nature: happy, well and not.

Yet, you never know that whole entire;
Soul entire;
How she searched the Biblical,
For faith we all are searching for.

I knew her parts, her mind her heart,
Good and uneven.
If there is a heaven
“…for the Father’s house has many rooms
And many houses”…
And a place for everyone,
New life begun,
There she is in happiness,
Good health and peace.

I Knew Her 12.16.2018 Birth, Death & In Between III;

*Pia Johannson December 1. 2018

Hello everyone.  it's a terrible withdrawal when your computer goes down.  Have you noticed?  Here I am happily once again, new computer, new and timely poem called "It's Only A Game".  
it's the last day of the World Soccer Championship, and I wrote this days ago.  But synchronistically, it, my new computer, the poem: all more or less coming at the same time.
Here:
         It’s Only A Game✍️⛹️‍♂️⚽

The final days, public in hysteria
Uniting yet inciting.
They call it fervour,
Splitting apart the mind and heart
Of those disposed.
Collective but not necessarily reflective,
A fan not always fantastic but fanatic.

July, two thousand eighteen.
All the world’s a TV screen.
Football and the ball is round;
Teams running, bounding
On a spree
To reach a goal that no goal-ee
Can foil.

For 90 minutes folk will weep or cheer.  
Or anger.
Men will fall, miss the ball,
Cards of red or cards of yellow
Referred by referee to tell all
Players who will bellow at the other fellow…

While one side of the stadium’s in tears,
Air defiant, the other cheers,

Some will go their way in stillness,
Some will go in ´killing-ness'.

It is a game only,
Not World War ´******' Three.
No one has died.
Two teams have played their best with pride.
Life carries on without a particle of shame.
It is, will always be a game.

Only A Game 7.11.2018 Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Never Corwin

This is a long one!  But it’s an answer.  Yes?  

      Do More Research

“Do more research!”
That’s what I told my doctor
When he said, “I have no answer”,
I responded, “Do research!”
To which he answered,
Nether jokingly nor mocking me.
"I’ve got all these patients… masses… “

I said, “Then it’s up to you to do some more!
It helps the rich, it helps the poor.
If I am helped, it will help all,
The big, the small.”
He’d  put me on the spot.
He said, “Perhaps you’s like to change your doc?”
It shocked, of course.
My only course was to reply,
-Oh me, oh my! Of course I don’t!
And then I left.

Reliant on a Google font,
On Wiki- this, or Wiki- that!
My only course, of course,
Was to search on my own.
Research my illness up and down,
A clown in search of a solution.

If I may, a not-too-nice person
Offering advice to a profession,
Indispensable to all and each,
Not besmirching and/or preaching,
I say this: Do more research!

We, but wretches without knowledge,
You, eight stretched out years at college!
With your know-how, you know how to fetch the facts.
So act! We’re waiting for a salve
To work on our finite behalf.
March straight right to the books you have,
And do research. It’s us you save!

You and we are all betrothed.
Do not leave us in the lurch.
It’s in your oath.
You with all your education.
Medicine, its limitation.
Do more research!

Do More Research 7.27.2020 Our Times, Our Culture II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

I’ve Only Ever Known Jazz

Of singers who lay claim to jazz,
I only hear a copied trend:
Styles, arrangements, timbre, sound
Make their populistic rounds.

Then I sing; hear harmonies,
Voicings, bass lines, every chord;
No schmaltz, no crotch, no gestured show,
Knowing I’m a jazz-rich throat,
Each note sung on the spot,
Improvised creatively right from the start.

Do I have a heart? Sure, but
I never will be Bassey - more a Sassy
Jazz-directed to my toes;
God knows how it begins and shows.
My instrument the ears and what they hear,
Voice right or wrong Informed by song.

Monk-like clusters mustered up by choice and taste;
Diatonic or laconic, unexpectedly chromatic:
Product of the 50’s ‘cool’.
Schooled by Ella, Vaughan, Tormé,
Miles, Gillespie, Chet, Monk, Christy,
Frishberg’s, Dorough’s’’s Blossom’s *****,
Mose, Matt Dennis; Hendricks, Hancock,
Hundreds more…great tunes galore:
Some you haven’t heard before!
These my first and opened door.

Whereas some others have their glaze,
I’ve only ever known cool jazz -
Spontaneous, each choice unfazed.
That my music’s cool soul’s razzmatazz.

I’ve Only Ever Known Jazz 4.24.2021 Vaguely About Music II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Planet TellUs
(to be continued - always)

With principles and measurements,
Apportioned out by nature’s senses,
Balanced and divided, its intent
To boost and serve,
Its animating force give verve
To planet X we know as Earth
Its birth, its ageing, death and worth.

Planet Tellus, Tellus Mater:
Molten iron at its core;
Years in zillions boring
Toward a multi-verse of multi-stars
Solar systems, massive quasars.
All around, exo-planets not yet found,
Members of their own sun’s orbit,
Grasp of numbers too profound
(Which we speculate’s four thousand.
Doubtless, forty-thousand more).
Super telescopes
That probe with mirrored hope,
Piercing the sky-filled stuff:
The gaseous dusts that fluff the ‘skies’ -
(‘sky’ a word to pluralise)

Celestial bodies shoot, reboot
With loyalty to nature’s rules,
Its seen effects, its unseen cause.
Mysterious black & floor-less holes  
Imploding and devouring…
Scouring ageing, failing stars for flaws.
Gallant planets Them and Us:
Existence by persistence!
Persistence for existence!
PS:
I’ve a theory:
Black holes open endlessly
To start a new infinity -
(Oxymoron- ic-ally).

Planet TellUs 1.6.2021 Circling Round Reality; Nature Of & In Reality; Circling Round Nature II;
Mother Earth

PS 5.9.2021I’ve done the whole thing over: punctuation, syntax - all to make it clearer to the reader - and you.  See if it makes a difference.

   I’ve been taking this apart & putting it together umpteen eleven times, unsure of what I was aiming at, unsure of my attitude and what I was saying.  Finally, it itself formed my conclusion.  Ah, the creative power of poetry.

   Fragments Of Energy II

Fragments of energy, forces of power;
Distance illusory… near, here or far.
So much is theory, notion, idea.
Is God really God,
We, the peas in an almighty near and far pod?
Is the mixture a mishmash but all-of-a-one:
Unified fractals* that make up the fun,
Snowflake or buttercup, echoing bird.
Re-stated everywhere - here, now and every ‘there’?
(Look up the word)
Clusters or clutter, matter plucked,
Plunked down with order;
A concert in motion, a symphonic One.
Part of the order of earth, moon and sun.
All of a fragment with no counted number,
Each of us members In atom toned embers.

In some sort of incomprehensible way,
One is glad to be
Even a fleck of those fragments of energy.
Fragments Of Energy II 5.9.2021 Circling Round Science; Nature; Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin

fractal; a curve or geometrical figure, each part of which has the same statistical character as the whole. They are useful in modelling structures (such as snowflakes) in which similar patterns recur at progressively smaller scales, and in describing partly random or chaotic phenomena such as crystal growth and galaxy formation.

The Wonder Of The Human Brain: A Learning Tool

Beneath the hair
I think it there.
In the genius and *****
A hundred billion neurons
(more likely eighty-six that charges up our many tricks)
Brainstem/spinal cord connected;
Cerebellum which located
In the rear
For balance, schooling that is motor.
Cerebrum fills most of the skull;
Cortex called cerebral -
Sliced in half, a left and right,
Small other parts for thought:
Decisions, mem’ry , learning(s) sought,
Communication and perception:
Stimulation out and in.
(You’d think the parts were wearing thin).
Brain soft,
A craft
In white and gray.
Monsieur Poirot was fond of braying
About his  ‘gray cells’ intellect.
(One sees a giant self-respect)
Two percent of body’s mass
With twenty-five the body asks
To keep it thinking, (***’ as well)
Energized in best of health.
It gathers up what we call knowledge;
It’s a collage in a  college.
Sleep or in activity, we’re using all that energy.
In other words, the brain’s awake all for our sake:
Yours mine, a mine of wonder.
The real wonder is that it
Creates new cells to keep it fit:
A hippocampus we can’t see
For learning and for memory:
Seven hundred cells that grow
Each day that we don’t know about.
We do not feel them, seal them, heal them.
They’re just there – like air.
And so the brain rains down upon us
Means and answers, thoughts unanswered,
Mysteries inside
And we’re along for this glad ride.
For whose sake and for why?
Some sort of wonder in the sky?
Could be.

The Wonder Of The Human Brain 6.14.2018 Circling Round Science II; Nature Of &In Reality; Definitely Didactic; Arlene Nover Corwin

One Can’t Keep Brooding…

One can’t keep brooding over gravity:
The drooping, dropping mushy *****;* -
Hormone’s programmed mystery
Which summons all and wins.
One’s tired of mirrors,
Made up terrors,
Looking in at thinning skin.
The time spent on the pimpled chin:
Hours that spoil.

Loyal friends disinterested,
Strangers with the least concern;
Who has time to burn
On affectation and facade,
The cavalcade of vanities
That seize the eye?
One can’t protest
What which is useless.

****** is the warmly affectionate  Yiddish  word for ‘***’’ or ‘bottom’
or ‘rear end\’, none which has the tender expressiveness of ‘*****’.

I Can’t Keep Brooding 5.8.2008/re-composed 4.4.2021
Circling Round Ageing;Circling Round Woman;Circling Round Nature;Circling Round Vanities;
Arlene Corwin

I'm not a nostalgic person. but occasionally I run across an old poem that feels worth putting out there for its universality and perhaps poetic value.  Here is one such:⌚️

I hope you’re not getting tired of my little inspired inserts.  I love them all (my small children) each one that shows up one after the other.  Sequences that surprise even me, the author, each one a little world, a little microcosmos.

The Houseguest You Never Want To Leave

Gerontology*

Sitting in the car and thinking…maybe wrongly,
Youth cannot identify
With one, who eighty-one or two
Is me - or you;
The age non-real,
Too far away to feel.
Sadly,
Doctors too: your doctor, my…
So many symptoms pass them by.
The pity is, it’s we who sigh, or cry…or die.
We, who do the main research,
Left in the lurch
To crouch in front of the computer,
For we must,
There being none to trust
Except for God,
Who, just and boss
Is first in charge of  soul and loss,
Age and body,

We need doctors eager, sage,
Whose zeal is aimed at us: the aged:
Who burn to, yearn to heal, engage
The living old,
For theirs and they
Will be join the white-haired fold
One day.

Gerontology re-viewed, renewed 3.24.2021(original 10.18.2016)  Circling Round Ageing; Birth, Death & In Between III; Arlene Nover Corwin
*Gerontology
the scientific study of old age, the process of ageing, and the particular problems of old people.

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.
March 27, 2019 Just 'found' this -'found' in the broadest sense since it's been on Facebook all this time. It seemed weaker than it must have felt when I wrote it in 2017. I've tinkered and re-written - with hopes that it's stronger.
You Can’t Have A War

Universe’s Interplay

How I love, wondering about
And pondering over
All the interplay and how
                           it happens —
That it happens overall!
“Over all”… short words
Encompassing the worlds all over.

Startling, terrifying;
All about life forms & dying  
But awakening enquiry as well.
Awe is that.
Hence, the suffix -some and -ful.

When something takes your breath away -
So stunning and spectacular
You cannot get a sound out —
When something is phenomenal,
Its primal rhyme the word ‘sublime’,
Its sight suggestive of cohesiveness
The prefix aw-
Becomes and Aww!

One plays with “interplay”;
The way in which things have effect
On each and other.
Maybe Hubble will, one day
See magic cables able to connect it all;
Strings and cords that lead
Where all is joined in one big ball
Of energy, so powerful but small
It is invisible.

Universe’s Interplay 2.27.2021 Nature Of & In Reality; Circling Round Nature II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Only time will tell whether you influenced another human being or not.  Numbers on a computer mean little.  To feel you are ‘an influencer’  means to ask yourself who, how, where and why.    


The New Fad Word: Influencer

The latest fad, the newest word -
A word you’ve heard;
**** for the herd.
A word dreamed up by vanity
And deemed to be an actuality
When its truth is actually
Imaginary -
Not to be taken seriously.

We influence where e’er we go.
We set examples, sway, control.
We guide, we form, we shape the norm,
Is that the ‘influence’ at which you aim?

There’s room for goodness, goodness knows,
For we’ve observed how sorrow grows,
With leaders leading by the nose
Whole groups of hopeful, wishful crowds.
They influence, oh yes!
By pressing pain and lies
Into the sighs and cries and floods
Of men and those who acquiesce.

I submit that you omit the concept ‘influencer’
From your aims.
Life’s no fame game.
Your name has value only when
You’ve lived and helped your fellow men.
To that I add a short Amen.

The New Fad Word: Influencer 1.31.2021 Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Nover Corwin.

Watching some Youtubes, in this case interviews with an 83 year old Ginger Rogers and a same age Gloria Swanson.  Remember them?

   The Comings & The Goings

While standing at the sink doing the dishes:

It Was The 1st Of May

It was the 1st of May today.
I’d not one new idea to play with.
I drew an odd poetic blank.
Was this the start of writer’s block?
Washed some ******, cooked a meal,
Had thoughts to think, much to thank.
Thought about success, illusions,
Dreams, delusions,
Mediocrity,
Folk who do things differently,
Acceptance of diversity:
Aspects of reality
(Which seem
To be my constant theme.)

Look, a poem is out!
In spite
Of not
A thing to cite or write
About.

It Was The 1st Of May Today 5.1.2021 A Sense Of the Ridiculous; Arlene Nover Corwin

Just wrote this:  You know how these little revelation-***-thought-***-wish-hope...come.
    Let Me See [Y]our Plans Completed

I used to pray each morning,
God, please plan my day.”
Now, it’s morn,
And I’ve matured (it seems) since then.
What occurred to me as root,
Not You, non-absolute,
An Ignorance of what comes next,
But - as I do - surmising that it all began,
Was planned at the beginning, and
That all occurs in Law determining
A chain of cause/effect the thing -
Then cause original must bring,
Determined from the very start,
An end, an end to each event,
To each and every incident.

There is no fluke, no bit of luck,
No happenstance, no accidents;
All provide-nce.
Therefore I pray, to start the day
And just to get my head on straight.
(Already planned and known beforehand).

So I say, for my head’s sake,
“Let me see our plans completed”
Though I know it’s all been planned,
One might say programmed
From the start:
The very start,
Of which I am a nano- part.

Let Me See Your Plans Completed 3.3.2018 God Book II; To The Child Mystic II; Circling Round Reality; Arlene Corwin

This is the 2nd poem I’ve come upon written in 1999, so woefully up to date I feel I must send it out.  Called Gone In A Minute.

                    Gone In A Minute

An avalanche, a mud slide ,
Every meter drenched and plastered,
Gliding and colliding, guided
By terrain alone,
And crash, boom, clang,
The whole shebang is gone.

People!  Yes, of course!
Their words and art;
The future’s start.
Centuries of minds,
Mines of thinking gone:  
In a non-thinking wink.

How long then, family name?
The worked for fame?
Volcanic ash, a lava stream,
Centuries of verse, and worse,
Memory all creamed away.

Fire, flood, the drowned, the charred:
Things no longer anything;
The best and worst on equal footing.

Wars: the scarred, disfigured, marred
And all the future Bachs, Picassos,
Jenny Linds, Carusos,
Shakespeares, Einsteins,
(not to mention Arlene Corwins)
Never to expand a wing,
Create a thing,

The crux is, what we bring to mind
How easy and complete,
How fast defeat
Comes to a globe
Once calamity’s in orbit.
And we wonder what is worth it, what is not,
Ask what lasts when pasts wiped out
Leave nothing.

Gone In A Minute 8 22.2020/improved from1.2.1999 Our Times, Our Culture II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

An End To Everything #1

Earth, Dust, Atoms, Particles… Earth, Dust, Atoms, Particles… The Spanish painter Tapies was, in one of his artistic stages taken with Buddhistic philosophy: When I Googled him, I was reminded of a poem I first wrote in 1994, revised in 2018 and again today in 2020.   You may recognise the Vedanta philosophy in me, a philosophy that grabbed me in the early 50’s and has never really let go.  Both earthy and spiritual, it has always suited my person and personality.
Arlene

            The Particles Of God

The particles of God are falling on my head.
They’re falling on the living, probably the dead;
On believers, non-believers; equal particles they fall –
They’re always falling on and in and through the body wall.

God is particles of oneness.  There are parallels galore.
When the atom showed its kernel and revealed there was more
To meet the eye, a kind of onion-layered door
Was opened there inside the mind as just the metaphor
For simpletons like me.  God energy,

With big or little G;
Living, knowing particles that have no personality
But which, if I’d clean up my act,
Would mystically reveal the fact
That they, the particles and I, have one identity.

I’m trying to arrange and rearrange my head instead,
Make it more receptive than a means for daily bread –
A conscious sponge, a large receptor,
Image-making faculty a particle collector.

Each impulse must be pure, for
We’re in areas of justice and reward;
And particles with qualities inherent in our race:
Areas of mercy, all the virtues, love and grace -
I’d rather not involve them - just assume that they exist.
It’s the God without the person that this poem has gently kissed:
Ever-present particles that are the living’s gist.

The Particles Of God 3.26.1994 /10.4.2018/1.14.2020To The Child Mystic; God Book; Arlene Corwin

Watching The Advertising World

Sometimes I write the most serious thought whimsically.  This is one:

    A Terribly Prosaic Poem

Whenever I have nothing To write about, but feel that I’m playing hooky if I write nothing - skulking, as it were, I often write about nature.  In my bed, surrounded by forest, birds who have established their lives in the  insulation under the rooftop and above all windows, I lay there and watched the thick, fine snow floating mindlessly, windlessly  down.  Voila, a title!  Now to find content:

      It’s Snowing Gently, But A Lot

It’s snowing gently
But a lot.
Persistently and softly.
Is that not a metaphor
For …something…
An insistence
Whose importance
I can’t know but sense.

It’s the gentleness that strikes me:
A force that doesn’t force, but is.
An element and facet
And an aspect of behaviour
That could be a saviour
To a person’s happiness
And peace of mind.

The thing or things get done
Looking like fun
But with an impact on all things around.

An almost silent path
With not a sound of wrath,
But just a bath of H20
We’re calling snow,
Knowing that the whole will go in time.

I guess I’ve found my metaphor in rhyme.
It’s snowing,
But while snowing going.  
If that’s not an emblem
Of life’s semblance
And a trope
For spirit’s power and hope,
I don’t know what is.

It’s Snowing Gently, But a Lot 2.17.2021 Circling Round NatureII; Nature In & Of Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin

I like Likes But Favor Comments
(an online reaction dedicated to all writers and all readers)✍,️

TRUE CAFFEINATED CONFESSIONS: WHEN I'M HIGH
(one day some coffee company is going to give me a noble prize for all the eulogising poetry I've written to it)
You all know how one just loves one's morning cup of coffee!

I Keep Writing

I keep writing.
Keep communicating,
Keep commiserating,
Not berating
The who rule - are even cruel;
Mind a channel and canal
From higher drives than the banal.

No saintly motives certainly,
No angel, me.
Avoiding self-conceit, the counterfeit,
Just letting writing’s drive win out.
To float the boat of human spirit.
Concerned with benefiting it,
Its underflow.
And how do I, the author know?
Because when put aside, read afterward,
There is no pride, no sense of good.
Just there, a theme from sitting where
A page is sometimes sage
And kind, the writing shined to some perfection.

So, professing fun and love,
Carved from talents from above,
Conditioned like a kind of Pavlov,
I keep writing
To a public never seen
From a hidden, obscure wellspring,
Writing vows but  to the ‘now’
And no self-gloating holier-than-thou.

I Keep Writing 9.26.2018 The Processes: Creative; Thinking Meditative II; Arlene Nover Corwin

You Never Can Tell What Stage You’re At

You cannot tell what stage you’re at.
You simply cannot see it.
Oh, you can compare,
Sometimes aware of highs and lows,
The glows in others and yourself,
But deep inside, where knowledge grows
In secret, by accumulation – there
Where flaws are balanced out,
Leaps are made and hurdles cleared
Through secret routes, unknown
To even he who owns the lot -
There, where they’re first set and graded,
Met then faded out -
It’s there to which there’s no access
And it’s of little use to guess          
What’s going on, while what is going on goes on.  Oh yes,
You think you know yourself;
You see results and where you’ve failed or sailed through:
That’s you alright:  partial you;
A hidden, most potential you.
You never know your stage.
But if you’re very good and kind – a little sage,
You get a glimpse of things to come;
Hints that you’ve removed the ****;
A tiny slice no longer slum,
And just enough to keep you crowing,
The best is to keep on going,
Concentrating on a something
You don’t even know is there;
So elusive that you’d swear
It never was, except for books: saints,
Men and women: claimants –
Just like you – who won.

You Never Can Tell What Stage You’re At 3.23.1995/reworked 4.11.2018 Definitely Didactic;  Arlene Corwin


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