There’s No One Way

30 Nov 2017 Leave a comment

by arlenecorwin in 2017, definitely didactic, nature of & in reality Tags:

I was sitting in the bath doing my usual grubblande (Swedish for brooding, musing or contemplating) when I had the thought that there’s no one special way that suits everyone.  All great teachers have known this, and I, being a ‘great’ yoga teacher thought about my lovely ladies each of whom has entirely differing needs when doing the same posture.  Hence, There’s No One Way – written on a near standing envelope with a dull black eyebrow pencil.  It was a hell to read what I wrote hours later.

        There’s No One Way

Isn’t that grand?

There’s no one hand or leg or breast or eye;

No muscle, vein, no capillary:

No technique for everybody.

Find out who you are!

 

No one way to take a bath,

Wash a dish, play the harp.

No one true A that’s flat or sharp.

Find out what you want!

 

Nature’s force is infinite;

The ways of change spectacular.

Sudden sometimes, mostly slow,

So you don’t know what’s happening

Until it blows (as in volcanoes).

 

What conclusions can we draw?

“Know thyself” the door essential, referential.

Gleaning rules for self -behavior,

Self- analysis, for judging not;

For simply knowing what

And how and when to do

What’s good for you

Because there’s not one ‘tried and true’ for Fu Manchu,

The cuckoo, the well-to-do.

Renew yourself in any way that suits!

There’s No One Way11.30.2017 Nature Of & In Nature; Definitely Didactic; Arlene Corwin

 

 

 

 

Everyday’s A Phase

28 Nov 2017 Leave a comment

by arlenecorwin in 2017, nature of & in reality Tags:

Sorry, if I seem to produce too much.  With putting stuff online, I know one’s public has a saturation point.  Can’t stop it;  ideas keep coming and with experience and practice, technique keeps growing, in the growing comes a flowing and poof – out comes a poem.  Not necessarily the most refined, but that’s okay.  I can and do forever tinker…

             Every Day’s A Phase

 Every day’s a phase – nothing but.

The moon unfazed goes thirty days

With shadowed light a-waxing, -waning,

Straining not, just losing, gaining,

Noticeably self-contained.

 

You and I, the Gershwins said,

“We sweat and strain, bodies all aching racked with pain”.

  1. (that’s me) augments with comments,

“You and I, we wish too much,

Not accepting or in touch

With our restraints;

Not what we are nor what we ain’t.”

 

Satisfied is not complaisance.

Compliance, maybe – not complaisance.

Satisfied; acceptance, ease;

Being pleased with whatsoever.

You’re not clever, not the Saviour?

So be it!

You’re not a nitwit for all that.22

You’re not great at what you do?

Screw it!

You are great in ways to praise.

Nothing stays, since everyday’s a phase

And nothing but.

Everyday’s A Phase 11.28.2017 Nature Of & In Reality; Arlene Corwin

 

 

 

 

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I’ll Never Be A Virtuoso

28 Nov 2017 Leave a comment

by arlenecorwin in 2014, pure nakedness, the processes II, vaguely about music II Tags:

           I’ll Never Be A Virtuoso

(Notes from a Piano Playing/Singer/Poet)

I’ll never be a virtuoso.

Sure as I’m an expert on

My name, my palm – I know it.

So I ponder as I listen to

Michel Petrucciani on piano,

Joe Pass on guitar,

Wayne Shorter on the tenor –

Am I any less an artist sans finesse

If runs, uneven, coarse run out into the sand?

Of course not.

Never to become a virtuoso is my lot.

 

But I’ve a lot that’s going for me:

Tempos, energy,

Out-coming spontaneity,

Ongoing creativity, ingoing spirit,

And an awfully cheerful personality;

Gifts and graces I don’t even know about,

Waiting to come out – or out.

 

Noel Coward wrote: ‘the talent to amuse’….

Perhaps I use that talent,

And there’s nothing wrong with that.

 

My notes are high while not the highest,

Vocabulary not extensive,

Not the most imaginative;

IQ slightly more superior than Pooh’s:

Who cares?

(That’s not a question but an exclamation).

Never virtuoso, I shall be the one

Who wears her brain upon her sleeve,

Her heart her slave.

 

Somewhat below, above so-so,

I know I’ll never be a virtuoso.

I can live with that.

I’ll Never Be A Virtuoso 5.21.2014 Vaguely About Music II; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Pure Nakedness; Arlene Corwin

I Can Write But I Can’t Speak

27 Nov 2017 Leave a comment

by arlenecorwin in 2017, a sense of the ridiculous, pure nakedness, the processes creative thinking meditative Tags:

 

I can write but I can’t speak.

It’s as if God says,

“You have a message. Write the words.

I’ll give written words a glaze,

But eloquence that can be heard’s

Off limits, for I slow you down

For honesty, integrity:

To kill the vanity you’ve sown.

I’ll make you stumble, clumsy, dumb,

Slow-thinking, witless,

Sounding somewhat girlish.

I’ve obscured your verbal self

So that you can’t impress.

I keep you in the house

So you must guess

What is and what is not success.

 

Left there to stammer,

Lose my language;

Syntax, grammar

In a sandwich

Of aphasic doublethink,

The phrases weak,

Technique oblique,

My karma manifestly leaking,

Left to do my dharmic seeking,

(Swim or sink)

Through scribbled, scratched and silent ink.

I Can Write But I Can’t Speak 2.11.2003A Sense Of The Ridiculous; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative; Pure Nakedness;Arlene Corwin

 

 

[There Are] Things You Can Never Change

25 Nov 2017 Leave a comment

by arlenecorwin in 2017, birthday book, circling round reality, definitely didactic Tags:

[There Are] Things You Can Never Change

 You make provision for; you train,

Prepare, do anything you can,

And still,

You have to deal with the moment:

Variations never-ending,

Ever modifying and evolving

Subject to the will

Of something your own will,

Will never understand.

(why do you think there are so many meanings to the word?)

Good luck, and blessings on us all.

May we cull the best from life in every world

That may/may not exist.

 

[There Are] Things You Can Never Change 11.25.2017

Definitely Didactic; Circling Round Reality;

Arlene Corwin

Brain, Give Me The Answers

23 Nov 2017 Leave a comment

by arlenecorwin in 2017, I Is Always You is We, pure nakedness, the processes II Tags:

       Brain, Give Me The Answers

Does this sound too much like prayer?

A little red-faced,

Weakness in my psyche.

Embarrassed ‘cause it’s not like me,

One feels the hypocrite:

I, who stake

My life on ‘God, who makes not one mistake’,

And here I sit,

Baby-ish,

Asking to change destiny –

At least push it my way.

Shame, shame on me!

 

I’ve got to wait –

Just like all others.

Meditate,

Reject my druthers,

Concentrate.

(I’m poor at that).

Be grateful for the goods I’ve got

(and that includes MyQ

and its capacities))

 

Nonetheless, addressing you,

Dear self so true,

We have a pact

(And that’s a fact)

So if you will cooperate,

I’ll wait

Until who knows, the whimsicality of fate

Is ripe: propitious, and/or generous

And brain-wise,

Advantageous.

 

Brain, Give Me The Answers 8.24.2017

Pure Nakedness; I Is Always You Is We; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II;

Arlene Corwin

 

 

 

The Twenty-One Inch Waistline

22 Nov 2017 Leave a comment

by arlenecorwin in 2017, circling round vanities II, pure nakedness Tags:

Sometimes I get the silliest memories.

The Twenty-One Inch Waistline

 When I was young –

As yet unsung,

I yearned, no, burned

To be like she

Who had a waistline twenty-three:

I was twenty-four.

Hungered voluntarily.

Now they’d call it self-starvation,

Anorexia;

I soon set sights on twenty-one.

There was envy,

There was vanity.

Oh, if I could only be

Like her.

But I remained a twenty-four.

It wasn’t in my nature

To be less or more. 

These days I’m fine

With my twenty-four/five inch waistline.

 

Twenty-One Inch Waistline 11.22.2017

Circling Round Vanities I; Pure Nakedness;

Arlene Corwin

 

Always In Preparation #2

21 Nov 2017 2 Comments

by arlenecorwin in 2017, pure nakedness, the processes II Tags:

           Always In Preparation #2

(a rather long simplification)

 

Always in preparation for an interview:

What will I answer? Never know.

– What do I like? do things I do, the way I do?

– Write poetry, play jazz, do yoga?

Body/mind my mental window in my mental interview:

And I must justify it all.

Some germ, some theme begins the whole:

The technical; word hurdles

When I write or sing;

All challenging,

Performing, writing or just doing.

 

T’ween two covers it’s official;

Everything grist-for-the-mill,

I’ll likely publish ‘til I’m still.

No special motive winks or flirts,

No motive hides behind my skirts –

 

My ears hear musically,

It all comes naturally, substance counting most;

Not tricks, not formulae, cliché –

If there’s a Corwin idiom

It’s in the DNA.

I work out tunes, -out poetry, -out bodily.

The mind works out spontaneously,

I (wherever I is to be found) give in, give form,

Substance from-and-in the frame.

 

In short, I paint myself into a box

And creep around

Until some [final] satisfaction binds.

A futile paradox:

To clarify and satisfy

The interview,

But there am I,

Always in preparation.

 Always In Preparation 7.6.2014

Pure Nakedness; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II;revised 11.21.2017

Arlene Corwin

 

 

Flawed

19 Nov 2017 Leave a comment

by arlenecorwin in 2017, a sense of the ridiculous II, vaguely about music II Tags:

It may be right to be ‘a little mad’.  

         Flawed

Listening to Thelonius Monk.

(Give him a try –

If you haven’t already)

I myself am sunk

In heaven.

(or is it ‘raised’)

Anything for a rhyme

Anytime.)

Ouch!

Anyway, there’s genius

In being flawed:

In honesty, in bravery –

Wrong notes,

Strong, short, long notes;

Flatted fifths, half-tones the chord;

Finger placement – absurd.

Who can be bored!

Who cares?

He dares.

Stares into space,

Jumps up and down,

No smile, no frown –

He plays his junk,

Always a Monk – Thelonius..

And so I sit in pillowed bed,

Caffeinated (to my toes and head),

Cogitating.

Letting, simply letting…

Waiting, writing

With an honesty and spunk (see Monk, sunk, junk)

Flawed to the gills.

Hmm, sills, bills, chills, kills…hmm.

 Flawed 11.19.2017

A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Vaguely About Music II;

Arlene Corwin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I Am So Grateful [Anybody Reads this Stuff]

14 Nov 2017 2 Comments

by arlenecorwin in 2017, I Is Always You is We, pure nakedness, the processes II Tags:

I Am So Grateful [Anybody Reads This Stuff]

 I am so grateful anybody reads this stuff.

Exasperated that most others don’t.

And even with an inner miff

I carry on, pushed by an inner drift,

(some would add an inner gift)

Ambition not my motivation.

 

A brainstorm popping from wherever popping up pops up from.

You will recall it’s happened to you all;

You know, thoughts over which you’d no control.

And yet you thought them, acted out on

Drives beyond what’s called

Free will. 

 

So, am I grateful or detached?

Dispassionate, disinterested, crosshatched?

Standing alone from strength

Yet obstinate from weakness’ lack of confidence.

I’m sure of this:  the length

Of life that’s left to me,

I will persist in poetry.

(One must

When it lies in the guts)

Tampering with syntax, spelling, yummy slang,

Choice aesthetics in good taste/

Choices crappy and a waste;

Writing with a rhythmic sense,

Caring very much for tense,

But not for meters recherché;

I, utmost mystic and most earthy:

Quelle dichotomy!

Hypocrisy?  No, contrast only!

 I am grateful for and to the one

That read Ms Corwin.

 

I Am So Grateful 11.14.2017

The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative; I Is Always We Is You; Pure Nakedness;

Arlene Corwin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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