Arlene Corwin Poetry

Autumnal Signs: Waning August 

Autumnal signs, but still it’s summer:
Metaphor for growing old;
Metaphor ‘fore growing old.
One more day and it’s September.
Not exactly worth reminding, but
Each passing takes away the doubt
That all things end and all thing start;
With variation’s cause effect
The part effect:
The art of nature.

Yesterday was summer warm:
Bees still swarming,
Butterflies of different genera (‘genus’ the singular)
Surprisingly abundant everywhere.
Dragonflies (my favourite)
Flitting, sitting for a second, off again!
Have they evolved? They seemed to’ve grown!
Then of course, I picked some lingon.
(berries mostly found in Sweden).
Hand held bucket filled three times,
Climbs o’er stump and cone and shrub
Stubbing knees, avoiding trees of every sort.
But I got the spoils, the loot!

Days still long and light, but losing
Minute minutes every night;
An autumnal signal;
Partial but a sure credential to be trusted.
Summer’s busted!
(But todays’ still bright.)

Autumnal Signs: Waning August 8.31.2021 Natire Of & In Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin

And The World Gets Through Its Day II

And the world goes on without me.
And the world gets through its day.
And you never start a sentence with an ‘and’.
As I contemplate the boil on my gum,
The germ that could remove me in a night,
I take offence, collected sum
Of steam a dissipating stream
Which no one would so much as modify
One nano-second’s schedule for.

Earth without an Arlene in it
Without one self-adjusted minute.
Ants don’t change their habit-dance,
Corroborating colleague ants
Who pass away, heads bitten off.

Gigantic are the forces
Pushing onward, forward,
Only nodding towards mortality.
This very day
My childhood friend rings up to say
His chemo- has been discontinued – insufficient.
Chemicals were not enough.
Stupid crab has gotten tougher,
Shifting upwards towards the head.

And the world gets through its day.
And the world goes on without one.
And you never start a sentence with an ‘and’.
 
And The World Gets Through Its Day 10.20.2006 (a little addition line 11 8.30.2016)/8.30.2021
A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Birth, Death & In Between II; Nature In & Of Reality;
Arlene Corwin

  It’s My Eccentric Life

Honey on the shelf bedside, for
Morning coffee, cheese and scone
My husband brings when
I am still in bed past ten,
Moving limbs not yet evinced;
Bedside lamp with halogen
For ageing sight, winter morn, reading night;
Books to hook with but a look:
Reinforcement within reach;
Some in Swedish,
Light On Yoga, Dammapada
I Ching, Gita, “On The Beach”;
A radio for sleepless darks,
Self-made pads and multitudes
Of pencils, bookmarks…
Opulence/accomplishment.

The things one will confess, profess
To help the helpless
Or express with not a single aim –
Freed from cares of boredom
By what doesn’t seem to fit the norm…            
To keep the poem from going on
Ad infinitum,
Much of my eccentric life
Will stay unformed,
Untold its oddball idiom.

It’s My Eccentric Life 11.16.2006 /revised11.25.2013/re-composed 4.10.2021
Pure Nakedness; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative; Circling Round Yoga;
Arlene Corwin

You’ll be happier too. Of course, maybe you don’t need it. Maybe I’m throwing swine to pearls.

 Increasing Your Vocabulary

What could possibly
Be reasons for increasing your vocabulary?
For one, originality; fantasy;
Your individuality.
Ideas you never knew you had that crop up suddenly.
When you express yourself more freely.
You get energy,
Relevancies manifesting constantly.
Least expected
You’re respected too.
People that you never knew
Admire you;
Rewards and profits never stopping,
You’ll be left with eyes a-popping.

Though this may sound trivial,
As one who tries this daily,
Dallying with words and thought,
I guarantee it gives result,
Not least of which are:
Brand new ways, fresh new eyes,
Novel phrases thus new phases.
You yourself more varied.
(Don’t you tire of your old cliches?)
It will be fun. you’ll see –
To nurture your vocabulary.
Increasing Your Vocabulary 8.30.2021 Circling Round Experience; Definitely Didactic II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Below is a quote from an reply to a devoted as well as cleverly critical, poetically interested ‘pen pal’ who, now and again tells me that she doesn’t understand (let alone agree with) what I’ve written.
“…It’s just that I think philosophically, my mind working analytically. It seems to like that. There’s no emotion behind it, just an aptitude for turning the abstract into the concrete…”

The older I get the more I understand that I not only write with words but about words.

          Life Autobiographical

Mind leaning toward the analytical, the philosophical,
Locomotion free of any e-motion,
Aptitude pragmatic
Which seeks the concrete, sees the concrete
In the abstract.

God created words –
And that I seem to worship;
Not with knowledge or intention
But with apprehension’s grasp of things
Beyond description, undefined:
The days’s description of my mind.

Autobiographical, we all,
Consciously or not,
It is the brainwaves’ secret plot
To foster self transparency;
No conspiracy, but gift
That sifts through dross,
Through win and loss,
Through scrap untrue
(the garbage we collect)
Selecting what is worthy, true
To polish and refine the You.

So here I am,
On Saturday, the twenty-eighth
Of August, twenty twenty-one,
The writing done
For now.“…
Life Autobiographical 8.2.2021 Pure Nakedness II; Arlene Nover Corwin

The Art Of The Moment Is The Art Of Action

Every thought and input manifests
In phases which are nothing but unending strings:
Arrivals taking hold and fading
Into further fading phases of infinity.

Each moment is a point in time;
A phase, a prime, a moving on.
We know each has a consequence,
A value, weight, a rigorous exactness;
Is… and then is not.
It has no right,
It has no wrong,
Belongs instead to ever’s now,
Each ‘now’ that came before;
Particular, distinct and major.

In the structured maths of physics, moment is
“a ‘turning point’ produced by force upon an object from a distance”
Perhaps a law that bears on life,
The ‘object’ always near at hand(s).
A qualitative difference in
Living for or living in the moment;
When we say “It was momentous”
We give moment stature,
For then ‘moment’’s nature has a bearing on the future.
Can you catch a moment’s suture?
Possibly.
By focusing on every juncture of your day.
Let us say, moment’s art is the larger part
Of living, in the movement of one’s focussed best.

The Art Of The Moment 8.27.2021Circling Round Time II; Circling Round Experience; The Art Of Exactness; Arlene Nover Corwin

Circling Round Exactness

It isn’t easy
To be
Accurate;
Not in speech or thought or word.
For we are herd-dependent,
Also self-sufficient, self-contained,
A zillion factors leaving us to be
An influenceable non-seeing being.

So it’s crucial that we are
Meticulous, particular,
Taking care in talk and thought,
Clear in seeking what we ought,
So that decades tasted are not wasted,
Un-fulfilled, attaining nought.

To realize the self, make real said self’s,
The ‘real deal’ of life’s goal,
The real deal of it all.
And so, to realize the facts of truth,
One learns by bits and pieces
To be mindful, vigilant, exact, for ‘youth,
Is wasted on the young’”**,
On deeds undone or over-done.
On views received,
On news believed:
False, wasteful, oft’ distasteful, shaved or thieved.

Nature’s forces are intact.
They’ve made a pact with God to be so.
Laws and principles the more so, also.

Earth will circle round the sun;
Moon will circle round the earth.
Comets will be on the run
Laws of being have their girth –
All things exactly as should be:
Inch by each inch and orderly.
All life’s riches
Circling round exactness and dependability.

Circling Round Exactness 8.27.2021 Circling Round Reality
***Georege Bernare Shaw

A World Full of Beautiful Songs

There is a world full of beautiful songs
Out there and everywhere;
Each more sweetly silencing, or
Bringing forth more tears than t’other.
Mellifluous as fragrant honey,
Money cannot buy it;
So lyrical you cry at
hearing.

The child, innocent of harmony and note
Looks on songs she’s learned by rote,
With warmth and ardor.
Learned by heart, not hard to memorize.
Their beauty of itself a chord
The size of don’t-know-what,
Sweet song or hot.

A taste for this, a taste for that,
It is the song that gives it sweet and reassuring (dancing) feet,
This world of word and meter.
World of euphony and melody
To sing about.
A World Full Of Beautiful Songs 8.25.2017/reworked 8.25.2021Vaguely About Music II; Nature Of & In Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin

How Do You Describe Happiness?

Describing happiness:
Not with synonyms; short, general,
But solid, concrete: palpable;
Dynamic and a joy-cum-bliss;

But what is bliss, this so-called prize?
A placid heart behaviorized;
Not acting out with needs to shout;
Sensed pleasure beyond measured treasure;.
What might normally feel neutral feeling viable, achievable;
Pains lessened, trusting more,
Love, affection at each door.

Choosing foods that boost the moods,
Decreasing stress, the daily mess;
Hormones functioning for gladness;
Comfortable with life unclad;

More responsive, more creative,
More yourself, your inner native.
Fewer frowns through ups and downs;
Grateful, hopeful, all a core and source of awe.
Bodies living/dead give meaning,
Things per se have meaning too.
You inhabited by virtue,
Filled with purpose, gain or loss
Showing who is who
And who’s the boss.

Creating meaning, giving same
To those who’ll carry on the chain…
Does it explain, do justice to
This abstract place called happiness?
In ordinary daily practice,
Present, living paradise
An ordinary yes will do.

How do You Describe Happiness? 8.25.2021 Nature Of & In Reality;Pure Nakedness II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Every Living Thing Loves Life

(I’m sure I’ve written ‘bout this ‘fore)

Mantra for today:
A thought for ligament and vein;
One to tattoo onto brain,
Its narrowest of wrinkles:
Every living thing loves life!
Each barnacle, the trivial, the sexual, the ritual:
Living’s problematic riddles.

Any being that has breath
Holds onto breath, abhorring death:
The fly on window, snake, mosquito;
Forms whose unexpected, sweet bravado,
Push through every rushing flow
Around, past rock, the log and stone.

Stock up on phrase’s potency;
A source of empathy;
A symphony of sympathy –
For every living thing that thrives
Loves energies that energize.
Days suffused with thrusting drives.
Every Living Thing Loves Life 8.23.2021 Nature Of & In Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin