Arlene Corwin Poetry

With Nothing To Do But Write

With nothing to do but write,
Each thoughtful phrase meat for a poem,
Poet complains, bemoans,
Explains and mines all inside all: the most uncharted.
Mixed, the means, part talent, intellect and heart.

The daily news a gloomy blues,
Never ceasing – more increasing
As technology, the paradox,
Lets us in on new unearthings;
Archaeology, biology…pandora’s box;
While globally all wears away, the market’s stocks
Leading with war’s abuse,
Self-interest’s greed its useless need.

The poet demonstrates
(note prefix ‘demon’)
Forced to clean the dirt
And by some gene
Explore, reveal the sheen
Of life as blessed in secret.

With Nothing To Do But Write 4.30.2022The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative; Arlene Nover Corwin

On To Other Things

Sorry, public!
Every day,
Two hundred issues in the way,
And it’s now it’s April 27th
And I’ve not had much to say
For 30 days or more.
The War! The filthy war!

I know the score.
We all still see the tortures,
Rapes and killings,
Buryings and pilllagings,
Flattenings, demolishings…

There’s been no end
Except for diplomatic sending:
Men’s diplomacy trained in talking.
Mr Putin walking, hawking
Like the KGB he’s trained to be.
Does he believe the ideology?
Some part of him must realise –
But his disguise lies in the lies:
Promises of peace,
Yet each day pieces of more crises.
Standing out to me:
His lack of empathy.

Buildings can be reconstructed –
Holy church re-benedicted,
Territories are not prime but are the crime.
Lifeless bodies never can be life perfected;
Never, ever in our time.

The lack of choices that he offers.
Lack of morals in his soldiers, officers.
His voice offhanded,
Every bit is ‘off’!

Once again, I’m sorry
For a silence muzzling my thoughts.
I cannot watch the news I ought to.
Fears and staining tears, constraining pains
Have sent the pen
In more directions – uh, distractions.

At its core this war is killing
Much, much more than we envisioned.
On To Other Things, Sorry4.27.2022 War Book; Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Creativity á La Mode

Poetry comes in many forms:
Informs, re-forms, it storms the norms;
Always links to something – not unlike a jazz performance,
Starting with some vague idea,
Fleeting phrase, or thought… no thought,
No aim at rhyme or rhythm, little talent – still,
One writes, steered by emotion, will,
Which followed up
Reveals an inner, swallowed up
By self-effacement, fears or shame.
Metaphors a brilliant means to claim back self.
The self will always manifest,
Its needs which may have festered long.

Philosophical beneath it all,
Questioning or non-commital,
Coming to conclusions nil;
Still there’s benefit.
You’ve loved, you’ve lost: cost has been high.
You sigh, you cry,
But there you are with pen in hand,
Trying
By a poetising, mus-ifying.

Challenging and changing
Is this pun-fun rearranging words
From out-of-tune absurdity
To bird and spring,
The poem, like jazz, an exploration.
Form or non- random, roomed then bloomed
Since man could dance, play, sing.

Depending on one’s aptitude, one’s talent and/or leaning.
Art takes on its own direction, emphasis and meaning.
Writer becomes better, fuller, more in touch
When he or she has written much.
We see the ‘how’ but why, yes why?
He’s shared, you can identify.
Perhaps that’s why.

The benefit enormous.
The brain’s done the exploring;
Knows more than ever known before.
Creativity the mystery, a history, a wish-story.
Hours giving powers roomed but never groomed.

The jazzy brain makes linkages unknown until then.
Creative cooks take crazy stuff: out comes a dreamy cream puff!
The poet knows he doesn’t know.
Then writes something he can share or show.
Creativity á la Mode 4.26.2022 The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Arlene Nover Corwin

From a new site called “I Love Jewish Food”. I was fascinated by the subject and title. Wrote this in no time.

Knish, Knish

Oh, knish, knish, dish so delic…’!
Remembrances from Pitkin Avenue.
Youthful scraps of memory I use
To fuse my Jewishness
To teenage walks those years ago.

Potato, kasha – such a taste!
Textures laced forever in the senses.
To only trace in recollection,
The impression baked ‘into the spine’
As Swedes might say
(The place I live today).

I miss the blintzes, matzoh brei
I can make blintzes, try
But they don’t taste the same.
As mommy’s cottage cheese /potato blintz of fame.
I must renew the recipe.

I loved, just loved gefilte fish –
The one my grandma made.
Sweet on tongue, dark in shade;
Pickled herring from the barrel;
Any pickled pickle – categorically un-quarreöed;
Butter bought by weight and bulk,
The bottled milk with wired cap
Mom’s fish, dry, over-baked.
My task to buy the rye and cake.

Jewish food.
Most good, but some
My youthful gums
Were not mature enough to brook:
Borscht, sour cream and buttermilk
Not yet my thing.
And yet they ring of Jewishness
Whose cling made Arlene
What and who she is.

Knisih, Kinish 4.25.2022 Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Character vs Gifts

Such a strange phenomenon.
Character un-virtuous,
Talents filled with brilliance,
Artistry, ability of genius…
Artists of renown, (some dead)
Writing, playing, painting, singing,
Like the angel world, like angels would,
But whirling round the genius head.
Lies, theft, brute force — and nothing left.

Dichotomy and contrast, *
Contradiction, gulf and chasm in the highest.
We see wealthy and accomplished men,
Women too, revealed on TV: Corruption!

How are we to take it in,
Contain the split?
All that we can do is do
Our very best to not encourage it.

Correcting as we go along in strife and life.
Use gifts (for they are many)
To equalize the rifts and gifts *
So that the attributes of virtuous integrity
Are one of quality
In personality, identity and essence.
Character Vs Gifts 4.21.2022 Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Helpful hints:
dichotomy *
there is a great dichotomy between social theory and practice: difference, division, separation, divorce, split, disjunction, polarity, lack of consistency, contradiction, antagonism, conflict;
rift **
fault, flaw, split, break, breach, fissure, fracture, cleft, crevice, gap, cranny, slit, chink, interstice, cavity, opening, space, hole, aperture, crack

Each Day Brings A New Reaction.

The old is new, coming from old
In loads of untold ways,
Unseen and un-remembered.
Thoughts about
The routes, the links, the chains –
The reigning rules of life
Reduce themselves to change,
Adaptability:
Survival’s key.

And so,
I, personally
Am happy
Even in my fears,
The ageing years,
The tears of sensitivity
To all that happens:
Happiness related to the happenings.

Each vein that strains,
The brain that trains
Reacts to change
With change not damaged but repaired, improved;
Each new reaction solving
Some old hindrance to development.
Each day commitment to what is.
Each Day Brings A New Reaction 4.21.2022 Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

              The Sect

Fixed rules, fixed theories; ‘We’re right, they’re wrong’
And throngs of followers – not mixed but fixed
And many nixed
For reasons this or that.
Much forbidden, those exuding wrong ideas excluded.

Independence wrecked, behaviour checked,
The pecking order well defined,
Members constantly reminded of their place in time and place.
Who can protect the member of a sect?
Only the mind, but so well defined and so dependent
Well nigh inconceivable to deflect from sect’s set look at life,
With little chance to be, become the architect
Of his or her own life – a life not owned at all.

The intellect, non-introspective, never to connect with truth;
Present and/or aftereffect vivisected,
Never having had the chance to intra-and/or interject for freedom,
The most tiny insect having more.
The Sect 4 20.2022 Circling Round Ideas; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Helpful hints: interject
1 at one point in his story she interjected a comment: interpose, introduce, throw in, insert, interpolate, add.
2 Christina felt bound to interject before there was open warfare: interrupt, intervene, cut in, break in, butt in, chime in; have one’s say, put one’s oar in; remark, comment; 3. say (something) abruptly, especially as an aside or interruption: she interjected the odd question here and there | [no object] : Christina felt bound to interject before there was open warfare.
3..Origin: from Latin verb interjicere, from inter- ‘between’ + jacere ‘to throw’.

 A Standing Battle

There is a standing battle
T’wixt the rattling bones,
The cartilages, ligaments, the brain and brawn.
Not those alone, of course,
The course of days a standing loss,
The force of nature stranger than
The strongest man.

Can one oppose it?
One can chew, not gulp…
Rinse the dandruff from the scalp…
Skip the sugar and the syrup…
Supposing that these things will help.
‘Help’ – what is it?

Bits wear out;
Mechanisms breakdowns, schisms
Jostling for position.
Muscles sculpted, weight kept low;
Standing un-astounding breakdowns,
Standing upkeep neck down,
Age a standing battle now.
A Standing Battle 2.10. 2022/revised 4.18.2022 Circling Round Ageing; Arlene Nover Corwin

      The Words For God

One has seen the word for God expressed
As One, center, tree of life,
The Absolute and key belief…
So many synonyms as are relationships.
Man and nature…tool, and law.
Belonging, each one to the other.
God the Father, Mother, Brother,
Guide, friend, doctor:
God, the aim, the home.

Though itself, an energy supreme,
Indeed the prime,
We give it anthropomorphic qualities**
You might say, physiology –
From limitation and necessity;
We are but human beings,
‘Seeings’ differing.
Motionless, it never moves, has no needs.
And doesn’t really ‘do’ as we
Presume ’doing’ to be.

All gets ‘done; pros, cons.. quell mystery!
Yet some or many constantly
Are seeking connectivity
To make us whole –
That Ultimate being the goal.
The Words For God 4.17.2022 God Book; I Is Always You Is We; Arlene Nover Corwin
anthropologic •*Having human characteristics: anthropomorphic bears and monkeys.

   Preambling Around In A Prologue

What starts a poem, themes fired, inspired?
Point of view enthused
By ‘you’ that lies inside.

Looking back you see the crap,
Which showing up
You’ll not have seen when first you wrote.
You see your strengths rise as they rise.
Perception grows, as you repeat.
It’s time and sweat,
But good to see it.

Reading over; long gone; later
Revisions, versions one to four;
Different poem, different title:
You’re a mortal, this a portal –
Life in writing the recital,
Projection of your astral star,
And no matter how distinctive and objective
Road to find out who you are.

Books are writings of existence;
Of reflection and selection;
Of a past, the now and futures:
Future problems always there,
Future questions always yours.

With no ending to this smog
That claims to be a prologue
We shall amble groggily along
And write.
Preambling Around In A Prologue 4.13.2022 The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative; Circling Around Existence; Arlene Nover Corwin