Dead Horse 2014

30 Jan 2014 Leave a comment

by arlenecorwin in 2014, birth death & in between II, our times our cultureII, small stories book, Uncategorized Tags: , , ,

Dead Horse

 

Euthanized: that’s what they call it.

Broken leg

(its burst of energy first on the course,

Ahead of all the other horses)

Crack!

Drawn to the side, the track a blur.

 

 

Scene shifts: a prostrate horse,

Its patient eye expressionless,

The jockey hovers, stroking, whispering

While vet prepares a needle –

A gigantic needle, shot, jab, dose.

We, watching have no idea what’s going on.

“Must be a painkiller” we comment.

“He’ll be put to pasture”

Slowly, while the stroking lasts,

The jockey murmuring sweet loving nothings,

In it goes.

The eye, the gorgeous eye-

It doesn’t close.

Oh no, it doesn’t close.

A nothing stare. The light’s gone out.

The mouth shows teeth.

What had we thought?

Were we so crazy as to think ‘it’s just a film’?

Oh no, it was a death end-breath.

And HBO

Has cancelled “Luck”,

The pro-

gram

I would never freely watch again

For all the tea in China.

 

Dead Horse 1.30.2014

Small Stories; Our Times, Our Culture II; Birth, Death & In Between II;

Arlene Corwin

 

 

 

Part Of The DNA 2014

27 Jan 2014 Leave a comment

by arlenecorwin in 2014, a sense of the ridiculous, nature of & in reality, the processes II Tags: ,

Part Of The DNA

 

I love rhyme.

What the devil! What the deuce!

Leveling out the atmosphere;

[The]inner, outer mood; the humor

Meaningless, stuck in whenever…I’m

Extremely fond of rhyme.

 

Not smart but sensing values:

Brevity, intensity, the punch line,

I could wish a better memory, capacity

An anodyne,

The antonym of worry.

[Yes,] if they were mine,

I’d dine on verbal oysters;

Foist my verse on readers,

Hoisting mere or more acceptance

To the gods of words.

 

This DNA that likes the rhyme, verb, adjective,

Long form, short form, no form, the silly,

Wholly unexplainable

Lives in a space un-findable, and yet

It’s mine.

 

Part Of The DNA 1.27.2014

A Sense Of The Ridiculous; Nature Of &In Reality; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II;

Arlene Corwin

 

Power Of Observation 2014

27 Jan 2014 Leave a comment

by arlenecorwin in 2014, circling round yoga II, definitely didactic Tags:

Power Of Observation

 

One or several (powers, that is)

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, think it,

IQ raised,

You’ve praised the part

From organ, ligament to cartilage.

 

Whatever age you are,

(I 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

Unsuspected.

 

Power Of Observation 1.26.2014

Circling Round Yoga II; Definitely Didactic;

Arlene Corwin

 

 

When It Hits 2014

27 Jan 2014 Leave a comment

by arlenecorwin in 2014, birth death & in between II, love relationships II Tags: ,

When It Hits

 

Sometimes it hits ten years later:

So and so is dead.

It didn’t hit

The night

You heard.

It was a phone call. You had guests.

And then, he lived so far away.

Years later – now, for instance,

There are feelings showing up:

Feelings others felt at once

When you, the dunce, felt nothing.

Someone who, at one time close,

No longer close, no longer is.

They call it sadness – and it is.

Not guilt, but weight

Unanswerable, unexplorable.

 

It passes,

Like the ghost that memory is;

And yet

Implanted somewhere in the synapses,

Relationships have ways of showing,

Starting up against the will.

 

We have to go through leaves-of-absence;

Make excuses to feel better by;

Any dense or hollow theory

That fits the frame.

[It’s] awful to be struck, knocked, curbed,

Awful to be any violence-verbed

When suddenly

You really know

That someone’s gone forever,

(at least your ‘ever’).

 

When It Hits 1.26.2014

Birth, Death & I Between II; Love Relationships II;

Arlene Corwin

 

 

 

Out This Week: Circling Round Yoga, Science, War & Cats

22 Jan 2014 Leave a comment

by arlenecorwin in 2014, cat book, circling round science, circling round yoga, then..., war book Tags:

OUT THIS WEEK!
Circling Round Yoga, Science, War & Cats By Arlene Corwin 4 poetry collections in one.
See Xlibris, Barnes&Noble, Amazon.com
Ms Corwin:”In Circling Round Yoga, I’ve circled around varieties of yoga by including such subjects as recipes, thoughts about cooking, meditative reflections and recommendations, direct, unsystematic, and definitely incomplete; recommendations for getting rid of loneliness: ideas that circle around the diverse paths of yoga.
In Circling Round Science it was hard to draw a line between the intuitive, the spiritual, the philosophic and the scientific…
War Book is self-explantory. It’s anti-.
And finally Cat Book, a collections of lovingly unsentimental observations of the only cats I’ve known: Sootis and Albert, who were and are more than a mice eliminating part of my life”

As Of This Morning 2014

22 Jan 2014 Leave a comment

by arlenecorwin in 2014, our times our cultureII, war book II Tags: , ,

As Of This Morning

 

It starts with sadness, disappointment then…

 

As long as there is anger

There’ll be wars

Because,

An angry man begets revenge,

Rebounds

Until the sounds of canon*

Can be heard

*an almost-kind old-fashioned word.

Oh yes, and now, the now-times silent tone

Of sky high drone,

Like Hitler’s V8’s over London

Hitting suddenly – the innocent, the guilty;

Indiscriminately:

Murder.

Just today, in EU’s Europe

Where the left-out, not-yet ones are yearning

(the Ukraine, this morning)

Come to protest.

Then they come: police

With dummy bullets,

Which they turn into the real ones

Killing two, a few unlucky men…

Then,

When it’s through, it’s started!

Racking up: Iraq

Then Egypt, Lebanon,

Now Syria and the Ukraine –

The start of mourning

Just this morning.

 

As Of This Morning 1.22.2014

War Book II; Our Times, Our Culture II;

Arlene Corwin

 

 

Can A Plumber Get Dumber? 2014

21 Jan 2014 Leave a comment

by arlenecorwin in 2014, a sense of the ridiculous, special people special occasions Tags:

Can A Plumber Get Dumber?

 

We had a plumber recommended

By a friend.  Connecting

Pipes to pipes

In places where

They oughtn’t be, creating

Leaks and floods, and where

The poo should go the urine went,

And where the urine should have gone,

Poo stenched.

What should have been a simple task:

Glue, weld, join up, whatnot,

He managed to get crazily, erroneously wrong: ass back-wards.

 

It was summer.

Plumber

Made the colder warmer, warmer colder,

Dryer wetter, wetter, dryer,

All things that should not have been, malodorously real.

On top of which,

He charged a great, great deal of money,

Putting burdens on the shoulders

Of my friend and others.

 

“This is dread-

ful, said my friend,

That dumbum plumber should be dead”.

Instead of shooting him, or even shooing him,

She made him come back fifty times, re-doing

Poo-filled, flooded rooms.

Replacing pipes so that they fit.

And right,

She never recommended him

To anyone again.

 

Can A Plumber Get Dumber? 1.20.2014

A Sense Of the Ridiculous; Special People, Special Occasions;

Arlene Corwin

 

A Plethora Of Riches 1997

19 Jan 2014 Leave a comment

by arlenecorwin in 1997, circling round nature Tags:

A Plethora of Riches

 

I’m tired of picking mushrooms:

They’re everywhere,

And every time I step outside to get the post

Or take a stroll to someone’s house,

My mushroom-oriented eye espies

A fare, free as the air:

Spicy, fruity, nutty-scented,

King’s ambrosia, restaurants prize: Giants!

Size of dinner plate or coffee cup,

So stopping, stooping, take them up.

“Aha, a group for mushroom soup!”

My counter’s filled with peelings:

Stem and cap and earth and spore.

Swamped (a pun).  No more! No more!

On forest floor or in the ditches,

Inundated by these riches,

I can’t seem to rid myself,

Reduce the pile or shrink the stock;

My freezer’s full. They’re chock-a-block

On every shelf,

And every time I serve a plate,

Scores of upstarts wait outside

And I, who suffer from

A lack of will to not bend down

Wind up reloaded.  Mushrooms come

From all directions: Nature’s crown.

Arlene thinks she well may drown

In fungi she can’t name in English,

But, which costly, hunted dish –

Cherished food to fry or bake

With meat or fish, in soup or quiche –

Is there within a finger’s reach.

And I, ungrateful, maybe selfish,

Feeling I’ve a stomach-ache,

Sit panting for the season’s break.

The plethora encroaches.

 

A Plethora Of Riches 10.1.1997

Circling Round Nature;

Arlene Corwin

A Memory I’d Almost Forgotten 1992

19 Jan 2014 Leave a comment

by arlenecorwin in 1992, circling round nature, small stories book, to the child mystic Tags:

A Memory I’d Almost Forgotten

 

Out cycling when it starts to rain;

The day is warm and so is it.

You know how ideas light the brain –

I cycle hard and then it’s ‘lit’:

The me’s inside – I can’t get wet!

I am distinctly warm and high.

The key thought is: I feel all-dry!

 

I felt the dryness.  I was tucked up

Deep within, my guide completely

Conscious of the rain I bucked;

Protective skin that, like a sheet, let nothing in:

An oilcloth but oodles thinner.

If I’d been awash at sea,

There’s nothing could have wet that me.

Nothing could have threatened either.

At that hour security

Was mine.

 

A Memory I’d Almost Forgotten .4.9.1992

Circling Round Nature; To The Child Mystic; Small Stories Book;

Arlene Corwin

A City Girl In The Country 1996

19 Jan 2014 Leave a comment

by arlenecorwin in 1996, circling round nature, swedish book Tags:

A City Girl In The Country

 

During winter I become an excellent cook.

I sit a lot and stand and look

At lake and forest that surround

The house on sides and front, the sound

Of birds calmed down somewhat,

As if they shared a counterplot

And changed their visit-timbre because

Ducks and geese have flown away.

The wagtail’s winter pause

Has taken him to Egypt.  Now it’s peace

That takes the air.  I walk

Much more without the need

To look in shops.  I wear my tweed,

My well-worn tweed, as if it were

High fashion.  In the winter

It is I who see an elk or deer

Before the hunters of next year;

I who get the benefit, burning up the calories

By walking through the snow to fetch

The post in minus two degrees;

I who never ‘kvetch’*

About the cold, dark living deep inside a forest

More than compensated by

A rose that never saw a florist,

Plums that I saw multiply,

Light that’s guaranteed to start

Increasing just when winter’s heart is coldest.

Here I learn to be alone – to face ennui,

The power cuts, the threat that lightening

Brings direct to my existence –

Without asking for assistance,

Keeping in a large-ish stock

Of matches, paper, wood and candles;

Knowing that to blow the rock can make a well;

Leaving on the radio to keep out vandals

When I go, will work quite well.

Everything in miniature:

Death, when summer-folk kill flies and gnats;

Love, each time I watch the cat’s

Abilities: clearing heights, breadths where I gasp;

Survival, when I’ve rescued creature from his grasp;

Cities blurred, just name and word,

Their essence shallows by the nearness

To an earth my ear has heard.

 

*kvetch Yiddish for ‘complain’.

 

A City Girl In The Country 10.19 .1996

Circling Round Nature; Swedish Book;

Arlene Corwin

 

 

 

 

 

Previous Older Entries

%d bloggers like this: