Now this must be the sweetest place
  From here to heaven's end;
The field is white and flowering lace,
  The birches leap and bend,

The hills, beneath the roving sun,
  From green to purple pass,
And little, trifling breezes run
  Their fingers through the grass.

So good it is, so gay it is,
  So calm it is, and pure.
A one whose eyes may look on this
  Must be the happier, sure.

But me--I see it flat and gray
  And blurred with misery,
Because a lad a mile away
  Has little need of me.

Knocking On The Doorway Of Eternity

I’m a mystic out and out.
I never shout it out,
But I’m a little ‘high’ right now
(the morning coffee works – and how!)
Simple prayers, requests and hope,
A little child-like – a puppy.
Yet coming by small feedbacks in small ways;
Minutes, hours or days -
It can’t be just coincidence.
It could be basic innocence.
In any case,
Face flushed with happiness -
Muted or giggly.
No great gesture,
Just a cherished jest
‘Tween the divine and me.
A mystic always knocking on the entrance
To eternity.

Knocking On The Doorway To Eternity 4.2.2018 To The Child Mystic II; Arlene Corwin

My Life is screaming at me because
I am not really living it

I am eating
and sleeping
and acting this part in this play
in this Life

but I am living galaxies away
I am living and breathing
other people's lives
in this nostalgic way

While my body is lazily
flipping pages
my mind is racing
my soul is crying out
for these people
these stories I can
hold in my hands
and caress in my mind
but never truly live.

I am alone
clawing at dreams
and wishes
wanting to just be held
as reverently as I hold these words
but remembering it is
this room,
this bed,
these books
that are holding my body
back
....while my mind still wanders

i left her on the side of the road near the rookery in southern indiana. her body was still warm, not as warm as the time she told me she wished she had a thousand teeth but not yet as cold as the time she grew them all at once and stuck them in me. she taught me many things, like how to forget and how to see through the cataracts and necrosis. she kissed my face and told me i was beautiful and boiled me in a metal bin inside the barn and watched as my skin separated from my bones as easily as slicing butter. she assured me i looked prettier this way, all bones and flaying meat and a thousand little exposed teeth i had no idea were in me.

in the summer her mother cries out her name,
as the harvest comes in.
rows of pure indiana corn,

swollen, pollen-filled and
waiting. festering.
in summer, she sits hungry and

wanting. like a sick dog she waits at her doorstep,
sweltering; silent; whining through molars
and drool.

she hears her mother call her name again and
through the spit she imagines
a billion corn-seeds

crying with her. she walks toward
the porch and sees her mama and
all her broken fingers.

she feels the pregnant stalks call after her;
they use her name and spit her mistakes back at her
like sunflower seeds.

she opens the screen door; her head aches,
she smells
of grain and pond-water and

baby powder.
she feels her arteries and
extends her elytra,

jerks her thorax toward the setting sun,
breaks all six legs on
impact.

her pollen-friends insist they're laughing with her,
they poke her limbs.
they watch her writhe.

"oh, isn't this beautiful? how gorgeous
you look with your
husk shucked off you."

she nods; silent. how flayed she is,
how vulnerable, how innocent,
like a pig led for slaughter.

when she speaks her voice oozes.
humid, sticky, heavy like
fog. i beg her to talk and it bleeds into me,
seeps into my pores. cocoons me in sludge.
i feel her yellow teeth sink into my skin and i feel my fingertips buzz,
i let her tear into me. i sigh into her canine teeth like
they’re the rim of my bathtub.

i feel her scraping the filth off me,
layers of sedimentation in
bacteria and saliva.
it collects under her blackened fingernails and
pools around the edges, soft,
revolting. she peels off my epidermis and my
blood rises to the surface, basks in her presence,
makes me dizzy in its hubris.

i feel all of her, i feel her teeth grazing my
small intestine and i muster a whimper.
aren’t quick deaths supposed to be painless?
like ripping off bandaids or
snipping umbilical cords.
i admire the holes she’s left in me,
tracing their edges, treasuring her bite marks,
realizing that this is all she’s left me with.

she gave me the privilege of a shallow grave,
sticky with topsoil and my own fermentation.
i become aware of my body, all my ridges,
open wounds, angry with infection,
******* liquefied tissue, cellular debris,
pus-filled and trembling.
i make friends with the maggots.

i press on my gashes and watch decomposition seep out of my pores,
i feel my new friends feeding off me, my skin hot with embarrassment from all the attention,
and i hold my breath just to feel the strain of my lungs.

they work their way up to my jaw, giving me soft kisses down to my dermis. i think of her one last time, and how she was too soft,
too soft and yet brittle and harsh and
alarming. i think of her body, all of her parts conjoined with
scarred lacerations and freckles.
i feel her eyes dart over what’s left of me. i feel her breath on my skin.

i ask the larvae if i taste sweet.
they assure me that im rancid.