It sounded like a gunshot
Ripping through an open door
I never know what I want
But I've never wanted something more

Don't take me as an insult
Lying on my bedroom floor
Life sounds so simple
Treat me like a mind explored

I hate myself
And I just want to feel alive
I found out all I find
Dies just the same in time

It sounded like a gunshot
Bleeding out for a taste of fun
The wound is looking red hot
I am waiting here for anyone

To survive
Who will make it out alive?

I survived
And now I feel so lonely

Ha

Surprise, its me again
Full frontal, coming up again
Stripping out your mind
You all look just the same
Take your time
How'd you like a name?

Just survive, and you can have it

No.
I can't promise you forever
But how about we take it slowly
One foot at a time
And just keep walking
Together?

Because that, I can promise you.

If you're someone's friend
You do what you can

If you love someone
You do all you can

and then some...

I’m Lucky

I’m lucky.
I don’t have to earn my living as a poet.
But I have to write it.

No reward to energize,
No prize,
No monetary chance for status,
Fame the same;
A nano-chance to spread my name.
And yet, and yet,
Out of the air
Ideas occur.
And while I sit or lie or stand
Wholly unplanned,
Forced, driven
Structure, meter as yet hidden -  
To seek pad and pen
With no predicting what and when
Will come to mind,
Inside the thing,
Inside the process of the writing.

It is as if some muse takes over
Former Arlene Faith Nover,
Improvising from said air
Ideas she never knew were there.
What could be luckier?
Silly couplets sometimes deep,
Forms arriving from the beep of spontaneity.
How lucky can one be!

I’m Lucky 4.12.2017
Our Times, Our Culture II; Revelations Big&Small; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Pure Nakedness;
Arlene Corwin

I've stared into the sun so many times I should be blind
but every single day I see I reckon with the time
I find the birds in hiding and I catch the birds in flight
they're everything we try to be, they settle for "alright"
how easily we sway because our human's flesh and bone
it leads us to believe we have been made to be alone  
tucks everything we feel into a the box that disappears
considers not the Spirit, faithful always through the years
let everywhere I need to be forgive where I will go
and leave behind the people I will never really know

A year ago
Can you believe?
Already a year has passed
I survived the turmoil and trauma
A pain I cannot even begin to fathom today
For that, I am stronger

A summer ago
I had sworn you off
You came back
Can you believe?
I was filled with caution and fear and light
A friend had returned
For that, I am kinder

A season ago
The leaves were falling as was I
Can you believe?
I understood the capacity of what I feel for you
A capacity I cannot even fathom today
For that, I am lighter

A month ago
Can you believe?
Already a month has passed
I grew in the love and warmth you interlaced between our fingers  
I was filled with laughter and comfort
For that, I am happier

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