Arlene Corwin Poetry

      The Cold Facts

Are not ‘the cold facts’ the big questions?
Or the ‘dumb’ ones
Ones which point to lesions
Or the things that deeper hide?
Are the ‘cold facts’ endless cold ones
With no place of warmth inside?
And has not Google changed our lives?
Is it not that we were born
To ask, to learn;
Each gesture of the wagging tail,
Animals and babies all,
A statement of the asking?
All these, past the question, worth the pondering?
There’s no question that this has the ring
Of truth.
Cold Facts 1.30.2022 Our Times, Our Culture II;

National Holocaust Day In Sweden

Let us start
By understanding and defining;
Badly, vaguely analysing
Holocaust:
“A slaughter or destruction on a massive scale
By fire, war” – in this case massively detailed
Murder of six million Jews
And other persecuted groups
In concentration camps
In World War Two.

Annihilation, devastation,
Ethnic cleansing, liquidation.
Carnage, butchery…
And then you ask yourself the final question:
Why?
What purpose, for what reason:
Why?
Who wants to kill?
Who wants to die?
Not you, not me –
Not by such catastrophic methods surely!

Yet from ’forty-two to forty-five
Romanys and Witnesses, gays and Jews
Were starved, imprisoned, gassed alive!
The causes in the theory, the history
Behind the need for whipping boys, fall guys and patsys::*
Scapegoats all
Who take the fall
For someone else’s evil needs –
Indefensible their creeds;
Perhaps the snake in Garden Eden.

I rejoice the conscience Sweden
With a sense that saves
Its the still small voice,
That takes a stand to foster
Memories of the ones who lost,
Who paid the cost
With lives tossed into self dug graves.
National Holocaust Day In Sweden 1.27.2022 Circling Round Yoga, Science, War & Cats II; Arlene Nover Corwin

.

   Birthday Eva* 

So, HAPPY SEVENTY-FIVE!
Of all our friends
You are the most alive!
Twenty Twenty-Two
Is turning out to be
The very best for you,
Energetic, special Eval
Making moves with youthful fervour!
How we savour
Clever Eva!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY is the flavour
Of the year!
So HAPPY SEVENTY-FIVE; 1.26.2.22 Birthday Book; Arlene Nover Corwin

• Eva Bergström

Is this any clearer?

Written in a funny mood. Not often that I write thus:

Portentous* Problems Of The Future

Much to value, much to prize;
Much reasonable, much to praise.
And yet, and yet,
The Arctic melts, floods, lava, rains,
Droughts and grains that will not sprout;

Come the leaders who dictate:
Called dictators – title hateful.
Childish in their need to fake;
To fight, take power
For an hour
Or for life.
Lured by strife to satisfy:
Reasons only god-knows-why.
Legacy? Vanity?
Ego, greed this tragic need?
They’ll all be dead, like you and I.
Do they not think that they will die?

Power can be good and wise;
Love of truth, shunning lies;
Getting, like us all, disease;
What-in-heavens-name does please them?
Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin…
Perpetuated names as villains.
Sure, they may have done some good,
But who would want their neighborhood
As base, a place to live in;
Democratic rights deprived
When sharing’s’s all we’ve go to give,
And giving’s all we’ve got to not
Divide us.
Portentous Problems Of The Future 1.26.2022 Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Nover Corwin

*portentous: ominous, warning, foreshadowing, predictive, premonitory, prognosticatory, momentous, fateful; threatening, menacing, foreboding, sinister, ill-omened, inauspicious, unpropitious, unpromising, gloomy, unfavourable.

Written in a funny mood. Not often that I write thus:

Portentous* Problems Of The Future

Much to value, much to prize;
Much reasonable, much to praise.
And yet, and yet,
The Arctic melts, floods, lava, rains,
Droughts and grains that will not sprout;
Come the leaders who dictate:
Called dictators – title hateful.
Childish in their need to fake;
To fight, take power for an hour or life;
Lured by strife to satisfy:
Reasons only god-knows-why.
Legacy? Vanity?
Ego, greed this tragic need?
They’ll all be dead, like you and I.
Do they not think that they will die?

Power can be good and wise,
Care for truth, shunning lies;
Getting, like us all, disease;
What-in-heavens-name does please them?
All those Grumps and Tootins, Allins,
Oy, those names go on as villains.
Sure, they shall have done some good,
But who would want their neighborhood
As base, as place to live
With democratic rights deprived
When sharing’s’s all we’ve go to give,
And giving’s all we’ve got to not
Divide us.
Portentous Problems Of The Future 1.26.2022 Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Nover Corwin
*portentous: ominous, warning, foreshadowing, predictive, premonitory, prognosticatory, momentous, fateful; threatening, menacing, foreboding, sinister, ill-omened, inauspicious, unpropitious, unpromising, gloomy, unfavourable.

Written in a funny mood. Not often that I write thus:

Portentous* Problems Of The Future

Much to value, much to prize;
Much reasonable, much to praise.
And yet, and yet,
The Arctic melts, floods, lava, rains,
Droughts and grains that will not sprout;
Come the leaders who dictate:
Called dictators – title hateful.
Childish in their need to fake;
To fight, take power for an hour or life;
Lured by strife to satisfy:
Reasons only god-knows-why.
Legacy? Vanity?
Ego, greed this tragic need?
They’ll all be dead, like you and I.
Do they not think that they will die?

Power can be good and wise,
Care for truth, shunning lies;
Getting, like us all, disease;
What-in-heavens-name does please them?
All those Grumps and Tootins, Allins,
Oy, those names go on as villains.
Sure, they shall have done some good,
But who would want their neighborhood
As base, as place to live
With democratic rights deprived
When sharing’s’s all we’ve go to give,
And giving’s all we’ve got to not
Divide us.
Portentous Problems Of The Future 1.26.2022 Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Nover Corwin
*portentous: ominous, warning, foreshadowing, predictive, premonitory, prognosticatory, momentous, fateful; threatening, menacing, foreboding, sinister, ill-omened, inauspicious, unpropitious, unpromising, gloomy, unfavourable.

Innate Wisdom

There is a wisdom deep inside –
Like temperament and readiness.
Not available to guide, redress
Each person at the same time in their lives.
But there to come to light,
To see, to use.
Even if you cannot choose.

To those who are receptive
I address this. Who knows
How, who, where or when
It enters;
So one writes,
Not always sure what’s right,
But sure of this:

There is a a wise one deep inside.
To ride the storms
And go along with happenstance,
Peaceful, with acceptance,
And if necessary, playful pretence.
Wait and watch and act and see:
Patience is a key.
Innate Wisdom 1.19.2019 Definitely Didactic II; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Wrote this immediately after seeing a documentary on the inscrutable, charismatic Lennie Tristano. Inspired, it took less than an hour to write.

    A Big Pile Of Junk

Tristano said,
“Let thought come through
All your ten fingers”
(Or whatever number you must use
To play the blues
Or any tune:
“How High The Moon” or Gershwin’s “Soon”)
Your thought a boon
If it’s spontaneous, impromptu.
Corwin says the same thing too.
Not filled with an emotive ardor
But the charter of the instinct
And the intuition: Both as one.
Let musicianship take lead,
And lead your music to your still unripe;
No comic gimmick or alchemic hype.
Your hippest self will be your type,
Reveal inner hope and razzmatazz:
We’ll call it jazz because –
That is what a true jazz is.

Tristano
Called his own piano
“A big pile of junk’
To be transformed by Monk,
Or anyone whose inmost mind
Uses the utmost verve to find
That inner passion,
Do what’s bidden, often hidden
In the inner sanctum of the shrine
We all call talent.
A Big Pile Of Junk 1.22.2019/revised 1.23.2022 Vaguely About Music II; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Wrote this after seeing a documentary on the inscrutable, charismatic Lennie Tristano. Inspired,It took less than an hour to write.

Tristano said,
“Let thought come through
All your ten fingers;
(Or whatever number you must use
To play the blues
or any tune:
“How High The Moon” or Gershwin’s “Soon”…
Your thought a boon
If it’s spontaneous, impromptu.
Corwin says the same thing too.
Not filled with an emotive ardor
But the charter of the instinct
And the intuition: Both as one.
Let musicianship take lead,
And lead your music to your still unripe;
No comic gimmick or alchemic hype.
Your hippest self will be your type,
Reveal inner hope and razzmatazz:
We’ll call it jazz because –
That is what a true jazz is.

Tristano
Called his own piano
“A big pile of junk’
To be transformed by Monk,
Or anyone whose inmost mind
Uses the utmost verve to find
That inner passion,
Do what’s bidden, often hidden
In the inner sanctum of the shrine
We all call talent.
A Big Pile Of Junk 1.22.2019/revised 1.23.2022 Vaguely About Music II; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Arlene Nover Corwin

 Wrote this immediately after seeing a documentary on the inscrutable, charismatic jazz pianist Lennie Tristano.  It took less than an hour - (the poem not the documentary).  I must have been inspired!

    A Big Pile Of Junk

Tristano said
“Let thought come through
All your ten fingers;
(Or whatever number you must use
To play the blues
or any tune:
“How High The Moon” or Gershwin’s “Soon”…
Your thought a boon
If it’s spontaneous, impromptu.
Corwin says the same thing too.

Not filled with an emotive ardor
But the charter of the instinct
And the intuition.
Be as one.

Let musicianship
Take lead, and lead your music
To your still unripe;
No comic gimmick or alchemic hype.
Your hippest self will be your type,
Reveal all your inner hope and razzmatazz.
We’ll call it jazz
Because
That is what a true jazz is.

Tristano
Called his own piano
Nothing but ‘a pile of junk’
To be transformed by Monk,
Or anyone whose inmost mind
Uses the utmost veve to find
That inner passion,
Do what’s bidden, always hidden
In the inner sanctum of the shrine
We all call talent.
A Big Pile Of Junk 1.22.2019/revised 1.23.2022 Vaguely About Music II; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Arlene Nover Corwin