Arlene Corwin Poetry

    A Slowing Down

So strange, this creeping slowing down.
So foreign, downright alien;
On, in a frame unrecognized
From toes to eyes.
Going on from day to day
The way it does, because…
The goal is one way only,
And the universe is lonely.

When you’re prone to talk about processes,
Fitting into classes read about,
You know something has passed
You see yourself as in a looking glass:

BMI* too much, too light;
An unknown part coated with fat;
Four, five senses not quite right;
Ears, taste, smell, sight…
Skin dots, spots alive;
Yet brain: fantastic, sharp, creative.

Living in a now
That plows through shams
You took as real.
A gift to make a meal of,
Let’s not make a big deal of
The fact that it, the body’s, slowing down,
An Entire Slowing Down 5.30.2019/rewritten 5.30.2022 I Is always You Is We;; Arlene Nover Corwin
*body mass index

What I’ve Touched Upon When Writ

All writing liquefies
Into the essence that is us.
All these years and all this verse
Have seen my purse of verse consist of
Yoga, war, health, mental training,
Reigning virtues, raining vices:
What is nice and what un-nicest.

With no purpose to instruct
It’s all didactic anyway,
Pushing gently on such threads as come to light.
There is no rush;
Interests shout out from inside;
The poet in me bears its clout
And there it turns to what I’ve writ.

Thoughts i never knew I had,
Vanities and odd connections.
Projections of this self of mine,
This mine which digging deep
Gets ever higher, steeper
Broader and more all-inclusive.

With no notions I begin;
Formerly concealed ideas win,
And there I am –
The inbuilt poet built on rhyme.
The whole with order, metered form;
And art, its aim,
The major part.

I find myself surprised
And sometimes overwhelmed.
Staggered by the honesty,
Astounded by profundity
That lies inside the wit:
Capacity’s originality dumbfounding.
There it’s turned to what I’ve writ.
What I’ve Touched Upon When Writ 5.30.2022 The Processes: Creative, Thinkng, Meditative II; Arlene Nover Corwin

 I Paint My Face

There’s vanity, self-interest,
Trying to impress.
In how we dress…
We’ve all got different ways.
And so, these days
With politicians on my mind,
Men blinding us to what they choose
And how they use it,
I can find myself forgiving
And condemning.

Not much different than the rest
(trying thus to look my best)
But trying hard to shun self-interest
As the underlying motive
I can’t root for Putin’s score,
Trump’s insulting wrath,
The follow-up resulting baths
Of sighing, crying, dying, killing:
Millions being stilled
Out of self-interest.
Right down to the factory man
Selling guns and cannon…

It’s got to be the key (one of)
That leads to person, nature, failing,
Ultimately to its falling.

I’ll paint my face each morning
Sitting in my bed post-breakfast,
Sure it may be wrong one way or t’other,
Certain though it is not smothering
A culture or a nation,
Taking rations from the poor,
Making war!
Of these I’m sure.

But understanding that self-interest’s
Vanity’s of diverse kinds,
I’ll keep reminding self
Of vice’s stealth
And try to never hurt another,
Make myself a tethered serf to
Something higher than this selfish self.
I Paint My face 5.29.2022 Circling Round Vanities II; I Is You Is We; Arlene Nover Corwin
.

We need the specialist.
The virtuoso and the expert.
Connoiseur, the pundit.
There was a time we called them ‘nerds’, respectlessly.
Eccentricity there may be,
But to be outside the circle
Keeps you from the mediocre.
Though a joker to the world.

With those synapses connecting;
Tiny neurologic gaps respecting one another
Brain not bothered by the effort,
The proficient and the specialist
Can change a generation current –
Even ones to come.
While others spend their life ho-hum,
He/she sheds light shorn, unknown, unshown before.
Moral: practice, train,
Get to know your brain and what it values;
What it’s drawn to.

Get to know the real you.
Become a specialist in something,
Anything.
The many-thing-er fashionable,
Being capable of one thing in particular
Keeps you from the mediocre
And affects the now and future,
Possibly protecting mankind too.
The Specialist 5.28.2022 The Processes: Creative, thinking, Mediative II; Arlene Nover Corwin

 Who Was I In A Former Life?

I write.
Most everyday.
Began, as far as I can see
At nine or ten, just poetry:
Always, always poetry.

I sing.
Professionally at nine or,
Maybe well before.
Weddings, parties, goodness knows how, when and where, :
Don’t remember, (but it’s there).

Raising bonds for World War Two;
Chosen for school plays also.
Does this point to something old, something new?
Something I was born to do?.

Just reflecting decades later.
Eight decades and still at verse;
Not adverse, but still AT verse.
Still performing, age a blessing
And a curse.

Nursing all these gifts God given.
Wond’ring, pond’ring
Where, how, why it all came from.
Was I Shakespeare? Jenny Lind?
I’ve not attained that kind of art.
Not smart enough nor gifted.
Sifting through the ancestry –
What might have been, who might be me,
I cannot sniff out anybody.

You? For you
Is rebirth reality?
A possibility?
I’d like to hear
From those of you with years behind;
Ideas, the sense beyond
existence.
Who Was I In A Former Life? 5.25.2022 Circling Round Existence; Arlene Nover Corwin

  The Prize Itself

“Poetry a record of human experience
As valuable as history:”

History, a record valuable as earthly presence
In all forms, all entities;
Legged, armed, bodied we –
An all-inclusive’ family.

A prize is – what?
A symbol of the unsurpassed,
Superlative? First-class? The best?
What is best when all are vested
In and dressed
In talents endless:

Individuality, unique
But incomplete .
To be refined and re-defined
Each passing second, blessed first.
I surmise, each one the prize
Itself.
The Prize Itself 5.24.2022 Circling Round Existence; Arlene Nover Corwin

• Quote from Poet Lore

      Jazz Invincible

The entire mode of jazz expression
Perhaps informed by one progression:
One, four five: or
Blues-cum-jive
Upbeat, down, the mood, the beat,
The sound encompassing the heat,
The call, the all of swingng,
Playing, singing…
Even dancing while romancing.

Listening to jazz
In any meter, and/or pace
Is more uplifting
Than the swallowing or sniffing
Of all, any drug.
Myself, I want to hug my husband,
Practice more,
Make my ears, eyes, mouth my score:
(music score, of course)

The source of it, inside myself
I cannot trace,
My boyfriend played the saxophone.
I thirteen, much alone
(my parents owned a hair salon)
He told me about Symphony Sid.
I started listening in bed.

I was, way ‘fore George Shearing
On hearing ‘Jumping With…’
I wrote the first song heralding
The great recording by Fitzgerald.
(Ella, fellas)

I was hooked, and have been since.
Jazz invincible,
My middle name,
The frame and aim.
Jazz Invincible 5.24.2022 Vaguely About Music II; Arlene Nover Corwin

     Lighter Nights

Shorter, lighter nights have started.
TV weather map displays it:
Longer days and higher sun,
Shorter darkness, earlier dawn.

How the mood and body says it!
These days it
Grants energy so sorely needed
Wiinter long
When stuck inside, one’s summer song
Faint, indistinct.
It’s May. I think
The best is still to come:

Humming, bees,
Explodng trees,
Flowers, sky…
‘When “ The grass is as high
As an elephant’s eye”*

Oh, if I
Could have and save
These lighter nights,
The days between
I’d call it sweet, sweet heaven
All my waking days in Sweden.
Lighter Nights 5.23.2022 Circling Round Nature II; Arlene Nover Corwin

• from the musical “Oklahoma” by Rogers & Hammerstein.

     Lighter Nights

Shorter, lighter nights have started.
TV weather map displays it:
Longer days and higher sun,
Shorter darkness, earlier dawn.

How the mood and body says it!
These days it
Grants energy so sorely needed
Wiinter long
When stuck inside, one’s summer song
Faint, indistinct.
It’s May. I think
The best is still to come:

Humming, bees,
Explodng trees,
Flowers, sky…
‘When “ The grass is as high
As an elephant’s eye”*

Oh, if I
Could have and save
These lighter nights,
The days between
I’d call it sweet, sweet heaven
All my waking days in Sweden.
Lighter Nights 5.23.2022 Circling Round Nature II; Arlene Nover Corwin

God, You Are…

God, you are my now –
Somehow.
You are my there –
Somewhere.
My here, my near…
I dare to say.

My present state
In meditation.
Watches, waits
In meditation
For some evidence that states
Your Being is alive and well,
Considerate of my survival
And all other beings in what looks like hell –
World circumstances being what they are.

Really underneath your spell
And your control.
Are you the whole,
The A to Z that soothes –
Or is it fantasy?

As far as this mere ‘fan’ can see
It craves your loyalty
And mine.
It helps to feel a power divine.
Daily aids which aren’t imaginary,
Synchronicity no mere coincidence,
But more like presence,
Presents.

Whatever is reality
I shall continue ‘seeing’ you
As actuality.
I have no choice, and yet,
I’m making choices endlessly.
Nature being what it is

Anomaly and mystery,
Some inconsistency’s absurdity;
You will remain a living entity
For me and millions like me.
God, You Are…5.22.2022 God Book II; Arlene Nover Corwin