When I’ve nothing to write about, I look at nature and I’m there!  Somewhere the mind binds to this observation which then turns into a meditation or a contemplation.  Below is one such occasion which turned into an opportunity.

       Picking Lingon In The Sun

Sitting on a heather-filled and rugged hill.
Ground abounding in a million lingonberries,
(Simply called in Sweden, lingon)
Weather still, some breeze and sun,
If pleasure is a word for fun,
This is a perfect definition.
Who could want more?
This is Nature in its glory.

Oak standing near
With tiny birches there like weeds.
And I, on knees squeeze in between
To separate the fruit from green
To find  the bitter/sour berry
Growing most prodigiously
Five and six per stem.

Mindful and relaxed,
A wee bit taxing,
Climbing in, out, up
Focussed on each future cup
Of jam-to-be
I cheerily fill up my oblong plastic cup
Short of the top
For fear of dropping my collection.

Once at home
This sweet reflection
Will end up a poem.

Picking Lingon In The Sun 8.24.2020 Circling Round Nature 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

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

Planet Tellus #2
    (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 hope,
Peering, piercing the sky-stuff:
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  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 Us 1.6.2021/#2 1.13.2021 Circling Round Reality; Nature Of & In Reality; Circling Round Nature II;
Mother Earth .

What's on my mind today?✍️

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

Pleasures Of A Low *** Drive

Low *** drive,
No *** drive,
Enjoying it,
The yearning, pining, longing gone,
Not missing it a bit.
Distracting thoughts,
One-sided thoughts,
Dissipated into thin, thin air,
Scattered and dispelled God-knows-where.
Who in heaven or hell cares?
Like losing fetters
That bound up mind, heart
(and other parts) for years.
What a delight
To have hormonal chains
Evaporate
All by themselves, fording
Oceans, seas and rivers
Of their own accord
To come to rest
Inside a calm and loving breast
That doesn’t give a hoot
About
A *****.

Pleasures of A Low *** Drive 1.21.2017
Circling Round Eros II; Circling Round Aging;
Arlene Corwin

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

      Poetry Is My Means

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



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



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

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

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

A little bored with myself, and feeling I needed the practice so as not to be stuck in a stagnation of inspiration I wrote: for other poets, becoming-poets and readers of anything:

                  POETRY IS THE MEANS ✍️

Poetry is the means
To viewing thought in new perspectives,
Finding more about the self,
Separating strength from weakness,
Plus from minus.
Each and every poet is
A deus
           ex machina.

Never literal,
A giant symbol
It a sign, it helps refine, define
A person’s true persona,
Things not known before the poem,
And the poet had no notion,
No ability to see
The deep, the silly,
*****-nilly-ness yet miracle of mind,
Its mysteries with tints and hints
Of revelations previously owned
By sages, holy men and masterminds.
Everything the human misses
In the daily-nesses of existence.

Poetry gives everything a gift can give:
Reward a push toward inner riches;
Means to keep reader in stitches;
Better stock of words not least;
Poetry is priest and beast and feast,
Grist for the mill
Of keeping still:
An agency of beauty.
That is poetry.

Poetry Is The Means 1.12.2018 The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative; Arlene Nover Corwin

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

Pull The Plastic From The Sea

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Qualified Abstinence

I’ve decided - though not wholly -
As of morning’s bath - to put on hold
The daily custom, habit’s viewing -
NCIS, Dr Phil - suspecting as I do
That they are doing me some harm
Engaging, charming
                                 as they are.

Mind as thought and mind as stomach,
Turn to worry, churn with fear
As states of things in world and home,
Play out the clearer,
Signs maturing in their chaos,
Ever growing, ever baiting;
Making brilliant, analytical dear Phil
Ever more mouth-watering.
Well-loved NCIS plays its part,
Portraying nations torn apart
With ever cleverer technologies
And cleverer–type baddies
Getting ‘theirs’ from even smarter good guys.

If then, strong enough to not back off,
The morning TV staying off,
Then maybe, only maybe
This old belly
Can restore its tranquil peristalsis,
Family squabbles turning babble to a kiss.
Phil, dear Phil, continue to be wise and kind!
NCIS’ cast: brave, cuddly and seasoned -
Flag unfurled, continue to engage yourselves
In world salvation!
Stationing my thoughts in action,
I must leave you both
To carry myself into truth
As cellular Arlene conceives, perceives,
Inherently achieves it.
(If, of course, l don’t fall back into the -
(crude, ill-mannered rude word)  ****!

Qualified Abstinence 7.20.2014
Pure Nakedness; Our Times, Our Culture II;
Arlene Corwin
arlene corwin poetry.com

Questions, Insights In the Night

This election: eighty-six:
Next election: I’ll be ninety.
If I’m there, how will it be?
The issues, climes, economy?
Shot to hell each plant and tree?
Arctic icebergs flowing, dry?
Bird-less, fish-less, mammal-free?
Wormy things confirming that
The rings around the trees don’t grow,
No longer show, for as you know,
“The wages of sin is death” for all.

In four years will T have been faithful?
Told the truth, kept promises?
Done what he can?
Not been T promiscuous,
‘Grab the *****’ need all gone?
By ninety will there be a woman
Who will run and who can win?
Will Fun old Grump be loony binned?

Gun old Frump? Nano Cramp? Run old Chimp?
Will any win?
Be seen, be heard November third?

I hope I’ll be here for my duty:
‘Fake news’ outed for its hype,
Typing out my poetry,
Garden snails on my board;
Growing foodstuffs for the good;
Success and progress,
Conquered virus,
Plumbed black holes,
Nature whole;
Ego friendly, free of worry…

Four more years until next vote:
Will I laugh, will I gloat?
Find a way to play out life’s allotted,
Unsought, final day?
These, one giant question/insight
In the middle of last night.

Questions, Insights In The Night 10.12.2020 Circling Round Reality; A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Recurring Themes, Recurring Dreams

It’s all projection.

Have you noticed that
From art, to food, to clothing, all
Are cloaked in style
You’ve carried with you for a mile;
A thread in common,
Background shared.

Through life, if you’re aware,
You see the common motif there.
Some dark, dark matter
Smattering the whole of you
And all you do
To permeate each, every hair.

Holding to the non-dogmatic,
Real, empirical, pragmatic
Of each day’s encounter,
Nameless through the daily banter,
What can it be called?
Can one explain an undercurrent so obscured
Without a mind to find it?

Then you see the undetectable:
Theme, variations
That define the line you’ve drawn throughout.  
Back again, again, anew.
In art, in food, in points of view
Recurring themes, recurring dreams
The title running through.

Recurring Themes, Recurring Dreams 11.26.2016
Circling Round Reality;
Arlene Corwin

Reflection On A Self-Destruction

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

Yiddish for buttocks
British informal term for television
cigarettes

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

I ‘know’ a man (if one can ‘know’ anyone on a Mac) who writes like a dream; fine poetry, deep, erudite - but suffering.  Oh, how he suffers in his verse!  And so, I felt myself forced to reply in kind - my kind.
     I start off by quoting one of his weaker adjectival descriptions and base my response on his picture of life.  

        Reply To An Unhappy Verse

Man is ‘weak’ but man is strong!
The ego always plans to stay,
But strengths and insights
Can and want to rule the day.
So do not dream, do not desire.
Aspire to maturity, the spirit’s liberty
Leave childhood memories behind.
Continue on with climbing into mind
Where you, dear * will  find
The optimistic peace you dearly, daily long for,
So be strong for this.
Its not far off - a kiss away.
You do not want to miss its entry.
Have a nice and healthful day!

Reply To An Unhappy Verse 5.11.2020 Circling Round Experience; Nature Of & In Reality; 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!”

Rhyme, Meter, Punctuation

Rhyme, meter, punctuation
Help to clarify
The explanation/situation
Sitting in the poet’s eye,
Growing there
To share with unknown others.

Rhyme and meter; punctuation
Put in order the occasion,
Make it easier to question, reason;
To arrive at some conclusion.
An idea kept in seclusion
Is not happy on its own.

We created language
As a telephone.
Rhyme and meter; punctuation
In the  the genome.
Verse in form; verse informed:
A condensation of the all,
Dependent on the mind-sized wall.

Rhyme, Meter, Punctuation 1.22.2021 The Processes; Creative, thinking, Meditative II; Definitely Didactic; Arlene Nover Corwin

Right Time, Right Place

Rosh Hashanah
(Jewish New Year celebrating 5781)

To honor Jewish New Year
I put this here:

Year, fifty seven eighty-one.
Five thousand seven hundred
Eighty-one: a time for self-renewal,
Self-reflection.

Self renewal:
Jewel
In a holiday
Which only stays
Two happy days.

A Yiddish standard wish could read;
“Have a good and blessed year!”
In Hebrew one could plead,
“Shanah Tovah!”:  “Sweet’ and happy year!”
No fear but sweet good wishes from the heart
For this year’s date
Sealed by good fate.

And so, in blowing the shofar
I pose the question:
Who could ask for more,
For duties simply put,
Lie there.

shofar; a ram’s horn used in the Jewish High holidays to awaken the soul.

Rosh Hashanah 9.18.2020 Our Times, Our Culture II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

“I never doubt the qualities of God.  When I meditate, (which I try to do whenever I’m not speaking) I have these qualities as a kind of mantra each of which I focus on individually, taking them into myself as completely as I can at the time.  After all, they are God’s.  They are: peace, power, purity, knowledge, love and bliss.  Purity was a hard one for me for a long time. But I understand the process better now.  As regards it, I’m aware, for example, how many layered it is, and how so much it led up to my, shall we say, fingerlessness, involving, as it does so many different kinds of choices on the way. Just a small example.  Nowadays I’ve also begun to take into the whole of my brain ‘light’ - not as a concept but as a kind of literal and visual process..  Although a verbal being, I’ve never had much of a visual talent.”

           Ruminating

I never doubt God’s qualities:
Doubt aways there somewhere -
But I suppress it (as one should)
Because it does no good.

A thinking brain invaluable,
It wants the best,
Works while it rests,
Retreats not
When we eat or sleep.
Has multi-synapses of neurons deep;

It, a force, of course,
For every power has a source,
A course,
And cause is force
Of one kind or another.

So I take the bother
To reflect and weigh,
Meditate throughout the day
Ponder, wonder, analyze,
Musing, using inner eyes,
Chat, think, ask,
Use every task
As means to reach
The endgame beach,
Teaching the brain where it should aim.
The qualities I use for that have names:
Power, purity & peace,
Knowledge, love & happiness.
Simply put,
Repress your doubt
And try it out.
It cannot hurt
One little bit.

Ruminating 4.5.2021 Circling Round Reality; To the Child Mystic II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Same Old Problems

Saving Me From Myself

I pray for this, I pray for that
And wonder why I never get
Or haven’t got
The goals I set.
Suddenly in one great burst
One leap,
Gone is the thirst
And I feel cheap,
See the task before my eyes -
It’s just to bask, not analyze.

I’m getting everything I need,
The rest irrelevant indeed,
And full of greed and ignorance,
Requests of inborn arrogance,
Destructive if un-timed.

Instead I should be thanking It
For waiting until I’ve been primed
For It, and saving me
From everything
Unscheduled my self.

Saving Me From Myself 5.14.2000 Pure Nakedness; To The Child Mystic; Arlene Corwin

My beloved Kent is 83 today. Here's what I wrote to him:

     Saying Goodbye To Eighty-Two
We're lying here. It’s nine p.m.  Nine p.m. exactly!
Three more hours to eighty-three.
Do you feel different?
Much less ignorant than yesterday?
Feel that years have run away?
Or maybe you don’t mind
The wrinkles that you find?
Don’t care that hair is thinner
Or that whether it is there
Or not.
Three more hours.
In the morning I’ll give you a poem I’ve framed.
I’ll let you come and give me breakfast.
Everything will be the same
Except that you are one year older.
Once again, we are
Three years, three months apart.
Dear heart,
A happy wish for years to give
You health and vigour.
Years to live twenty years longer -
Maybe twenty-four years more.
Say goodbye to eighty-two
And I will say, “Sweet dreams” to you.
You’re tired and I’m inspired
So I’ll wait until tomorrow
Till you read this.
Here’s a goodnight kiss:
(****, ****)

*
"****, ****" means kisses in Swedish
  Happy, Happy Eighty-Third
Are you really eighty-three today?
In weighing time, the climb of time
It seems a fancy fantasy.  
As if not many moments past have passed,
And last year I was forty-eight or so,
You forty-four or five, the glow
Of youth still in our faces,
Space of time not closed.
Who knows how long the years are likely?
Time’s been good to you and me:
incredibly, we live like royalty
And lovingly, to boot.
We’ve rooted out the key to what
A  good relationship should be.
You’ve made me happy,
And so, in return, I wish you too,
This final word:
A HAPPY, HAPPY EIGHTY-THIRD!
Happy,Happy Eighty-Third 2.8.2021BirthdayBook; LoveRelationships; ArleneNover Corwi

Saying Political Things

I suddenly find myself
Saying political things.
A president who has a name
That pumps out rhymes that rhyme with stump and thump and clump
So numerous, so humorous you try in vain
To stifle sniggering, giggling, trying to abstain
That is, when you are not afraid of what comes next,
(What, whose head will come undone on any pretext.)
I, who never had opinions of significance inside my head,
Find that I am sitting up in bed
Watching the news,
The countless views,
And find I’ve got some too!
The boohoo, ***** you kind, and views about:
Is North Korea bad or mad?
Why is the crime rate rising?
Is it rising?
Not the least surprised
If it goes either way.
And so I say,
It’s unexpected to discover
Arlene Corwin (former Nover)
Faltering and altering, but taking stance,
Dancing around matters of importance,
Though they may be comical to you,
Positing her new-found thoughts political.

Saying Political Things 5.29.2017
Our Times, Our Culture II;
Arlene Corwin

Seeing Globally

Seeing God In  Everything

Make it a habit to see God in everything.
To go inside the biologic brain
And train.
The practice simple but not easy
Time and effort: key.

Repetition means repeat;
It also means rehearse.
It has the power to reverse
What feels a curse to grace,
A sense that everything is in your favour,
Savouring its flavour
In Itself a nice affair.  
It needs a run-through every day
Or else the feeling gets away.

It’s hard to not take note of pain
Which comes again, again, again…
A something you can’t comprehend.
The man I live with renders
                                       thanks
Each morning when the body wakes,
Though there is pain he cannot shake.
Perhaps that is the way to solve
A problem unresolvable:
Wait, translate, try to love an obscure It above.

Faith: a puzzle all its own.
A koan. A hurdle.  Complication.
Yet we take on faith coin’s worth;
A sun, moon, star
Which always have been always are…
We trust the unseen power source:
Atoms, protons just because
We know they’re laws.
                    
If one can take a a blind belief
Finding that it gives relief-  
A circumstance wished for
Has been dished up suddenly.
Why not start to practice seeing
God and good in the entirety
                       of your existence,
Giving in without resistance
What comes fleetingly each moment
And what comes fittingly to be!

Seeing God In Everything 2.10.2020  God Book II; Circling Round Reality; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II;  Circling Round Meditation; Arlene Nover Corwin

Self-Doubt

I sometimes wonder, try to picture
Men like Mr Trump, sitting on the ‘loo’ or ‘john’
For really, he is one
                               of us - just human,
Doing what we humans do.
I wonder he’s ever plain unsure,
Plain insecure.
I wonder if he has self-doubt.

Sceptical about ideas that come to mind,
Understanding that the mind can find
The craziest of thoughts to think.
Myself, I waver, do not savour every Corwin blink.

And here we have men of the hour,
Men with power
Postures, faces, hands and fingers
Giving out their unsound signals,
Accusations unconditional, wholesale and total.
Do they never have self-doubt,
When I the lowly writing poet
Try to deepen virtues that I am without?
Analyse and question
Layers, sides unseen?
Look for ways to harmonise the pieces and the one,?
Smooth out the rougher parts
While at the same time being soft at heart,
Broad and kind, well defined
Wise and well-informed in mind?

Self-confidence has bits that disavow self doubt.
To learn to recognise, discern the two
Is good to do,
Of value to
Your future
And by definition,
Everyone’s.

loo, john are English slang for toilet.
Self-Doubt 10.2.2020 Our Times, Our Culture II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

At  this time, Wednesday, November 4th, 2020 5pm Swedish time, still glued to the TV, not knowing yet who’s in! This was written in October.

               Self-Doubt

I sometimes wonder, try to picture
Men like Mr Trump, sitting on the ‘loo’ or ‘john’
For really, he is one
                               of us - just human,
Doing what we humans do.

I wonder if he’s ever plain unsure,
Plain insecure.
I wonder if he has self-doubt.
Skeptical about ideas that come to mind,
Understanding that the mind can find
The craziest of thoughts to think.

Myself, I waver, do not savour every Corwin blink.

And here we have men of the hour,
Men with power
Posturing with face, hand, fingers
Giving out their unsound signals;
Accusations unconditional;
Wholesale and total.
Do they never have self-doubt
When I, the lowly writing poet
Try to deepen virtues that I am without?
I, who analyse and question sides unseen?
Seeking ways to harmonise the pieces and the one,
Smooth out the rougher parts
While at the same time being soft at heart,
Broad, kind and well defined,
Wise and well-informed in mind?

Self-confidence dissolves self-doubt.
To recognize, discern the two Is good to do,
Good for you, of value to your future                
And by definition,
Everyone’s.

loo, john are English slang for toilet.
Self-Doubt 10.2.2020 Our Times, Our Culture II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Self-Doubt II

I try to picture you-know-who
Sitting on the ‘john’ or ‘loo’
For really, he is one of us:
Doing what we humans do.
Wondering if he’s ever insecure,
Unsure about what comes to mind,
Understanding that the mind can find
The craziest of thoughts to think.
Myself, I waver,
Do not savour every blink.
And here we watch men of the hour,
Those with power
Giving out their unsound signals,
Posturing from face to fingers;
Accusations, condemnations…
Is there never doubt of thought,
When I, the lowly writing poet
Try to deepen virtues absent, missing parts
While always staying kind at heart,
Well-inclined, well-defined;
Self-understanding melts self-doubt.
To know the two Is good for you,
Of value to the time to come;
By definition, everyone’s.

loo, john; English slang for toilet.
Self-Doubt 10.2.2020/re-composed 1.27.2021 Our Times, Our Culture II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Yesiree!          

SELF-HELP BOOK

Selfies & The (Selfish) Need

Rembrandt painted hundreds in one medium or t’other.
Thanks to photo’s techno-grams
Selfies of all kinds abound,
Home paintboxes thick on the ground
Which begs the question:
Exploration or self-love?
Motives passive and elusive, definitely inconclusive,
Probably a votive to self-love;
The selfie shows its needs up front.
Pretext for one’s vanity, its insecurity.

Then there’s the blog:
A kind of selfie, yes?
There to impress via modernity’s express
A world you hope
Is waiting for your scoop,
Your dope, your ****.

When you’ve seen a glut of bodies
Photo-shopped and chopped to please,
Is there more you need to see?
Or is it true desire breeds desire
And that fact a warning dire?

Impudently, imprudently
Continuing until we rue the days that bluntly
Lead us nowhere in particular
But to the usual, predictable, familiar wrinkling
And the loss of beauty’s pull.

Selfies & The (Selfish) Need 7.5.2017
Circling Round Vanities II;
Arlene 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

Non-judgmental, self-explanatory,   I just love it!  Sensing A Divine

Seventy And Eight

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

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

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

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

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

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

Seymour Phillip Hoffman: The World Is Crying For You

If he’d known
The world would mourn his passing,
Would he have overdosed on ******?
How much self-love does it take
To break the habit?
Would you grab it, if you could?
I think I would.
Even kids and wife
Can’t make that change in life:
The skid, the slide,
The gliding down and down
And even more…
Until you’re on the floor,
A needle in your arm,
Unconscious of your heart’s alarm
Whispering “Stop
– or else your time is up!”

SPH, you never knew
They’d mourn your passing
As they’re doing.  
That it would cry: the bylines, headlines
Sounding, bounding, ‘round the world in living print.
If you’d been more intuitive, more self in-touch, less self-indulgent,
Drugs might have been out-of
Thought and need, thought and greed, but…
Habit feeds on thought
And you were caught.  
And so,
We throw
No stones at windows,
Even if and though
We know the world will not cry at our passing.
We’ll mourn
And learn.

Seymour Phillip Hoffman: The World Is Crying For You 2.3.2014
Special People, Special Occasions; Small Stories Book; Birth, Death & In Between II;
Arlene Corwin
  



https://arlenecorwinpoetry.com/2017/02/03/seymour-phillip-hoffman-the-world-is-crying-for-you/

Although it may look as if I’m carrying on a one-woman campaign, writing poetry about amputation as I occasionally do, I just want to say that as a recent amputee, having gotten a mysterious sepsis (blood poisoning) and going from a ten fingered person to a three whole, three half fingered person, certain situations that I find myself in set off quirky observations which, as a poet I simply cannot resist setting to meter and rhyme.  

            Shampooing

To those of you who’ve never known
An amputee of any sort -
A few bones short,
Shampooing is, well, interesting,
Challenging, to say the least!
The warming bath with bended knees
The bottle squeezed, the soaping in,
The tender skin on scalp and crown,
Just sitting down!
Each step to get those darned hairs clean.

It takes awhile to go that mile,
But afterwards it’s worth it;
A warming and uplifting gift,
The escapade engaging brain:
A training on a very basic yogic plane.  

Shampooing 11.20.2020 A Sense Of the Ridiculous II;

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

       She Dry, He Soft

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

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

She Let A Moth Drown In the Lake

She let a moth drown in the lake,
Waves taking stackars* little thing
Further than her oar could reach.
Standing on beach, cupped eye,
Squinting, trying…
Moth was gone.
Death had won.

Just so you know I do no lie,
That ‘she’ was I.
I am the wimp who hesitated.
Fear of depth, of cold, of wet.
Excuses inexcusable.

Death of moth, still flapping moth
Is just as undeserving as our own demise.
Pedestrian, prosaic, commonplace,
Disgusting,
Yet compulsively discussable.

All living things delight in life-ness.
While they move and throb the slightest,
They delight.
Who takes a life by standing by
Will also die.
It is essential, is it not, to cry,
Identify with kin?
Kin hereby meaning ‘life within’.

Left with remorse and shame
She self-condemns,
She takes the blame.
She hopes some force
That knows the individuality of moth
Shows sympathy in rebirth
In some future form that has a breath.

So be it, Om, Amen to Earth!

She Let A Moth Drown In the Lake 6.14.2020 Birth,Death & In Between II;Nature Of & In Reality; Circling Round Nature II;Pure Nakedness;Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover, Corwin

*stackars; Swedish; ‘poor thing’

She Was A Hippy

She never smoked, never drank,
Never joined a cult or sect.
Her hippiness, her happiness
Found itself in waist length hair,
Patterned tights,
Bra dismissed
And short, short skirts:
Her expression of new freedom.

Fifties beatniks never reached her,
But the sixties found a new awareness
Which addressed her heart,
Unleashed a part she only guessed at;
One which dressed her mind.
Convention could not bind her
As behavior took a shape unstudied,
Natural - hardly touched before.

Maturity without hashish, Rajneesh,
The itch of spirit bringing in a shift in old priorities.
A little bolder, somewhat older;
Hippy of a different sort.
Mother, wife, musician, poet
All and each each supportive
And escorting her some steps to standing,
Understanding and continuance.

She Was A Hippy 3.13.2020 Pure Nakedness II;  Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

She Was A Hippy

She never smoked, never drank,
Never joined a cult or sect.
Her hippiness, her happiness
Found itself in waist length hair,
Patterned tights,
Bra dismissed
And short, short skirts:
Her expression of new freedom.

Fifties beatniks never reached her,
But the sixties found a new awareness
Which addressed her heart,
Unleashed a part she only guessed at;
One which dressed her mind.
Convention could not bind her
As behavior took a shape unstudied,
Natural - hardly touched before.

Maturity without hashish, Rajneesh,
The itch of spirit bringing in a shift in old priorities.
A little bolder, somewhat older;
Hippy of a different sort.
Mother, wife, musician, poet
All and each each supportive
And escorting her some steps to standing,
Understanding and continuance.

She Was A Hippy 3.13.2020 Pure Nakedness II;  Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Sifting Through The Dross

Fire, flood,
War and blood -
It is no wonder I can’t stand
The papers and TV,
Those apps aimed right at me,
The dearth of quality,
The deprivation, loss of lives,
The angst it gives.

Preferring comedy,
Cartoons by Disney…
Am I cowardly?  
Maybe.

Fixated on the negative but well aware
Of heroes all around each day, each year,
Deeds of goodness and devotion,
Yet, there is this bleak emotion, yucky fear.

Another factor is the greed:
The pressured need for growth and profit.
Prophets sow salvation’s seeds.
Many listening, few that heed.
With much to win and much to lose,
One mostly feels the costly loss.
But sifting through the dross with trust,
Stably doing what one must,
One gets a glimpse of tunnel’s light,
Decides it’s worth a willing fight
And pushes on through restive night.

Sifting Through The Dross 11.15.2019
Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Signs Of Maturation
   (Or, You Don’t Need A High IQ)

I notice time and time again
I’m not the smartest on the block.
And yet, and yet,  
My art is smarter than the poppycock
Set down by others.

Trying to avoid cliches, banalities;
Striving to go deep; concrete
As every Brooklyn street I walked,
I still fall into traps of slickness,
Fear revealing cowardice.

Then pluck returns, turning
Weakling into un-concealing
Rhyme & meter, candor, frankness,
Frightened youth turned madame Truth:
Nakedness, no underwear, aware, yet baring all:

I try to use a thoughtful wording:
Criticize an oversized dictator;
Cruelty, unfairness, ******,
Herding reader into paths that further,
To the murkiness which lurks in secret.

Paradoxically, and never knowing what to say
Until I’ve said it, concepts, insights coming out
From God-knows-where, I let it shout.
Draft by draft, refining, re-defining,
A conclusion whispers, “That’s enough!”
It isn’t tough.  I stop.
And hope
           I’ve reached you.

Signs Of Maturation 9.5.2020 Pure Nakedness; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Simplifying

I think the isolating medium -
(Pandemic’s global impact)
Has done the job for me;
Few demeaning ultimatums;
Calls returned, lunches met,
Malls paraded through
With nought of worth to do.

Oh, the benefits of saying in!
Throwing sins of wasteful time
Into the garbage bin of slime and time.
Everything brings inspiration.
Anything a motivation,
Open to inventiveness of one's creation
Which, in turn means making choices
Truer to an inner voice;
Not fiddling, waiting for some muse
To lift you from your busy-ness.

There is a principle I hold to:
Everything you wish to do
Will always be simplicity
But never easy.
That, my friend
Is, you could say, the end.


Simplifying 5.22.2021Circling Round Everything II; The Processes: Creative,Thinking,Meditative II; Arlene Nover Corwin

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

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

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

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

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

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

         The Elixir

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

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

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

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

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

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



I used to be invisibly controlled by rules,

Sometimes blamed on pressures peer:

Perhaps I am still, will be ever.

Rules inhibit, yea, dear reader,

Leading art and your behavior.

Double whammy*, inspiration, guide and model

When you would most like to feel

Creative, and spontaneous,

Well pleased, extemporaneous.



Subtle, so immensely, so intensely so;

Astonishing how much one swallows,

Soaking up, believing garbage as god’s truths

So hard to scrap;

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



What is it sought beyond all else?

It’s freedom, spontaneity,

Belief that what you’re doing

Is its own confession, own possession;

Valid as the others

Always followed and believed the best.



Now I’m older.

Times have altered.

Folk appear on television with torn jeans.

Fashions once thought awful - trends.

In the end,

The young will always be impacted by

‘The others’ they think templates,

Patterns, blueprints, guides.

I have seen the light.

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



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

whammy |ˈ(h)wamē|

noun ( pl. -mies) informal

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

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

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

(Written to Joe Maita’s site JerryjazzMusician who, now and again calls out to jazz musicians everywhere for relevant poetry.  A great idea!  Especially for us jazz musician enthusiasts and non-musician enthusiasts without whom jazz might never exist.

It’s always such a pleasure to get your call to arms.  Wrote this just now just for you - and the rest of the world, natch.

    Sitting Down To Play

Sitting Outside A Day In May  
      
I find myself not only wondering [but]
Thirsting, needing to know when and how they died, [but]
Thoughts or suffering or not: in short,
The state before and during…

I observe a skin that’s wrinkling,
Drying out and shrinking,
Hear and spy a bird in tree,
See the freshness, spring’s new growth,
The only thing I really see is death, a passing.

I allow myself my breaths,
The moods, desires -
All that goes along,
Forgetting for the most part.

Deep down I see the buds of parting
And an emptiness because
I have no answers.
All that I can do is wait and act and meditate
As if life equaled all time-in-the-world.

Every year in spring
I find I’m writing,
Charting age unconsciously,
Literally marking time.

Not sad, not glad but emptier
Than years before,
(or maybe more).
Noticing, acknowledging a substance;
The substantial underlying all the grandeur.

Sitting Outside A Day In May 5.21.2016
Birth, Death & In Between II;
Arlene Corwin

Sitting Up In Bed Building A Career

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

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

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