If I Had An Editor

25 Mar 2019 Leave a comment

by arlenecorwin in 2019, a sense of the ridiculous II Tags:

If I had an editor outside my self,
Beside my self, my book –
It well, it might look different;
Prettier, more organised, readable, a better font,
With chapters and a bookmark
Sewn and pliant,
Layout starkly more attractive,
Poems easier to get into,
The Corwin world, no matter how obscure,
Would lure and draw you,
Corwin’s world alluring.

It is hard work to work alone,
Be spurred on by and on one’s own.

One tinkers with the stinkers;
Sometimes poems are crap,
And only when one’s left them,
Coming back, re-read them,
Can one throw away the scrap,
Take out the kernel and begin again.

One might have written one in ‘ninety-one,
Gone back, begun
And finished with finesse two thousand ten.
There’s just no way of telling when.
Creativeness takes time, has no intent
And knows no end.

So, if I had editor:
An agent, marketer – in short,
Someone with faith and energy and zeal,
Belief that Corwin has a keel
Of base stability, validity and beauty,
Then the opus might look individual –
Downright extraordinary.

In humility,
I would guess
This ode/hypothesis
Applies to all and each.
So’s not to preach
I dedicate this bit of fluff
To everyone who writes this stuff.
If I Had An Editor 3.20.2019 A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Arlene Nover Corwin

The Whole Of Sweden’s Wearing Beards

11 Feb 2019 Leave a comment

by arlenecorwin in 2018, a sense of the ridiculous II, our times our cultureII, swedish book

The Whole of Sweden’s Wearing Beards

The whole of Sweden wears a beard.
Dare I say weird?
To go around all day un-sheared!
That, combined with bods tattooed:
Chest, breast, throat
And not a centimeter nude
(As made in God’s good world).
I am confused.
A new prosthetic? Possibly.
Aesthetic? Frequently.
A thing to lean upon,
Confirm an ego and/or vanity
That ought to go,
But no, it can’t,
The tattoo being permanent!
Beards! What are they there for?
To hide the origin of doubled chin – one just beginning?
Arctic winter?
Saving shaving?
What’s it for?
Why would one want one hair more!

I wouldn’t want to kiss a beard:
Whirly, curly,
Itchy, scratchy…
None a match for girlie me.
They’re dominating TV;
Interviewers, program leaders.
All I want are clean-cut readers.

One day someone just appeared
And pioneered a new grown beard.
A new veneer
Had filled the sphere: a fad was born;
The bearded fashion was in action.

I am waiting till it passes,
And the fashion turns to glasses
Or an emphases on ar___s.
Who can say?
The Whole Of Sweden’s Wearing Beards 6.17.2018 A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Our Times, Our Culture II; Swedish Book; Arlene Nover Corwin

Mourning Song To A Face

20 Dec 2018 Leave a comment

by arlenecorwin in 2018, a sense of the ridiculous II, circling round aging, circling round wrinkles, nature of & in reality, Uncategorized Tags:

Sometimes one just has to ‘take the piss out of…’ and laugh at oneself! Philosophically, of course!

Mourning Song To A Face😁
👩‍🎤
Ooh, ooh, I’m vain!
Looked at ye old looking glass again
And there were lines up, down, diagonal
Some long, some short, some horizontal;
More today than yesterday
That tell no lies – “no way!”
(As kids are fond of saying).
(I use) hydrogen peroxide to erase
This beastly ageing of the face
That’s waging war on my, MY face!
How dare you nature, to disgrace
This face like some decaying carcass!
As I bathe and scrub and rub
Diagonally and up and down…
Well, at least I’m spotlessly soaped cleaner now.
It nearing Christmas, a new year.
‘New year’ just one advanced age more;
Not benefaction or a gift,
Just one more mourning try to sift
Through shifting cells ‘broke down’,
And trying mainly, vainly not to frown,
Hide through a mask of clown-like makeup
But take up
The day with an unuttered no opinion.

Mourning Song To A Face 12.20.2018 Nature Of & In Reality; A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Circling Round Wrinkles; Circling Round Ageig; Arlene Nover Corwin

Food On The Backs Of Envelopes

18 Dec 2018 Leave a comment

by arlenecorwin in 2018, a sense of the ridiculous II, the processes II, Uncategorized Tags:

Found On Backs of Envelopes ✍️

Talent helps, but at the end
A chain of forces gives intent
Its form whose links
Are luck and karma,
Perseverance as its armour.

Pushing doggedly against the odds:
Time’s cycles, ups and downs,
Fenced in or pushing back or at
Rejection, vanity, the blocks
Of dailyness-es, laziness-es,
Each a hindrance stealing time.
Yet talent is the ground
Fed by the virtues which turn destinies around.

I’ve had this scrap since twenty four: two thousand four,
Which means it’s been
A household tenant fourteen years,
(I date my scribblings),
Its poetic siblings coming after
Several thousand crafted rhymes.

There’s a lesson here somewhere:
Save your bits of paper
Be they toilet, pamphlet, poster, letter…
Keep each ballpoint you collect –
Guidelines you will not regret
But laud, applaud one day
When someone reads the stuff you’ve had to say
And says “Hurray”!
All from not tossing out the scrap
Or throwing crap away!
Found On Backs Of Envelopes 12.17.2018 A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; The Processes: Creativity, Thinking, Meditative II; Arlene Nover Corwin

I Like To Wash The Dishes

19 Nov 2018 Leave a comment

by arlenecorwin in 2018, a sense of the ridiculous II, our times our cultureII Tags:

       I Like To Wash The Dishes😇

I haven’t got a family

Of five or six or twelve.

I like to dive and delve

into the soapy water,

Hands bacterially free and pure,

Warm and clean;

What others buy machines for,

I have got the time for.

i don’t mind the slime or

Plates, knives, forks

That leave the table veggie stuck,

Glasses filled with unknown yuck…

 

I used to mind

But then I found

That washing every dish by hand

Gives opportunity to bend the knees, 

Stand on toes,

Think in poetry or prose

(just like this here)

An opportunity to spread good cheer,

And possibility 

To see  things differently,

A different angle

Spurred on by some wash-dish angel.

Isn’t that bodacious!*

That is why 

I like to wash and dry

The daily dishes.

*bodacious; a kind of slang meaning simply terrific or wonderful!

I Like To Wash The Dishes 11.19.2018 Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Home University

07 Nov 2018 Leave a comment

by arlenecorwin in 2018, a sense of the ridiculous II, circling round yoga II, coffee book #2, defiant doggerel, swedish book, Uncategorized Tags:

Home University📚

 

I have a university within my house.

Inclusive of a thousand, thousand, thous-

and words:

Books, all kinds of printed works –

Brochures and articles collected,

Information; omni-forms connected,

Music notwithstanding.

I could spend a hundred years at home

Enclosed in school and domicile:

Cloistered in this all-in-one.

 

In bed, awake at four (still night)

A candle lit,

Deep breathing done,

Radio to mutedness,

Gradually bcoming restless,

Lying still, a book ‘took’ up,

Tired still, (it’s dark as poop)

Inspired, but wildly, child-ly hungry,

 

Toddling downstairs for a cup to take back up –

(Lovely coffee and a scone

With marmalade and cheese on)

Back in bed head propped, it’s heaven!

By this time it’s almost seven.

 

Read into “Windows For Dummies”,

(reminder, this first writ’ two thousand-seven)

“Treatment of the Heart Through Yoga”

(made that up)

Taking up the pen and paper:

University in bed,

Bedside and in my head!

 

Awaiting morning light,

The January Swedish night

Still uppermost in nature,

Marks a template oft repeated;

Meant to humble the conceited,

Meant to deepen and mature,

The one who needs to self-explore:

A university for sure.

Home University1.20.2007/Revised/re-written 11.7.2018 A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Defiantly Doggerel; Coffee Book “2; Circling Round Yoga II; Swedish Book; Arlene Nover Corwin

 

The Highest Prize

29 Sep 2018 Leave a comment

by arlenecorwin in 2018, a sense of the ridiculous II, I Is Always You is We, Uncategorized Tags:

       The Highest Prize

I am not intelligent;

IQ middling, slow to think

(except when I’ve had caffeine’s drink))

I know people whose vocabulary,

Skills in math and history

Outdo, surpass and outshine mine

By kilometres miles,

Eclipsing talents, each outrivaling  

My wiliest of guiles.

 

And yet, and yet

I lie or sit 

And never quit

Creating verse.

My biggest blessing, little-lest curse

To (all the time) be struck by phrase

That never hazes, 

Never dazes or confuses.

Simply takes my life and uses it.

Perhaps fusing the parts, (I hope)

Unjoined or compromised or dopey.

Of course, being the seated type

That learned to type when just a tike,

I snap things up and write them down,

Typing up and clipping to with paper clip

Each page of quip and deepest scrip*

While taking ownership of ideas wise

And ideas definitely dippy.** 

 

I admit, without self praise, 

That I’ve been blessed with artist-joy.

(A gift I didn’t have to buy

It being given me for free).

The gift to knock together, forge concoct,

Then synthesise chords, words, whatnot…

The highest prize I could’ve got.

 

Perhaps intelligence is overrated.

One can feel complete and sated

By a zillion other qualities:

Not sensory but definitely

Meeting needs:

Ones that feed the world as well.

All other prizes, as you know,

Gone to the hell of false impression’s phantom spell:  

Of no importance whatsoever.

The Highest Prize 9.30.2018 I Is Always You Is We; A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Arlene Nover Corwin

*(written certificate)

**(scatterbrained, silly or eccentric).

I’ll Send You The Menu, Or, I Like To Rhyme

27 Sep 2018 Leave a comment

by arlenecorwin in 2018, a sense of the ridiculous II, the processes III, Uncategorized

Published in Duane Vorhee’s Poetree in foreshortened form.
Super!🤔✍️
😋
ARLENE CORWIN promises, “I’ll Send You The Menu Or, I Like To Rhyme”:
I hear it in each idiom,
Each group of words,
Expression, phrase –
No matter what one says,
It could be innocent or dirty; –
Curd or bird or slurred or turd,
Deep or shallow, nothing’s hallowed.

Partners In Rhyme

23 Sep 2018 Leave a comment

by arlenecorwin in 2018, a sense of the ridiculous II, the processes II, Uncategorized Tags:

     Partners In Rhyme

I’m so corny, but it’s fun!

Now to the question:

Who is partner in this scene

Where meaning

Starts and is developed

Meaningfully or codswallop-ed?

Meter counts (at least for me).

Perhaps it is the arbiter,

The bona fide and unalloyed: the real  partner

Overall or under all and after all.

Who knows

When poetry is prose,

Nonsensical or serious?

Sugar sweet or just plain noise?

Lachrymose or just plain gauze?

Perhaps there is no one collaborator

But spans of conspirators

From many sources 

Stacked and heaped and piled high

So that they’re quite unrecognised

By you and I  (by my own eye).

In any case, the phrase, though slight

Is quite deliberately sweet.

And so I use it on this sheet

For you to call it winsome

Or plain ordinary sh—t and cheap.

I repeat:

I can be trite, banal and corny,

But the irony

Is the I’m thoughtful in the written essay,

Trying to share silliness

Or whatsoever depth is there.

Perhaps that is the partner.

Partners In Rhyme 9.23.2018 A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Arlene Nover Corwin

 

 

12 Sep 2018 Leave a comment

by arlenecorwin in 2018, a sense of the ridiculous II, circling round reality, Uncategorized Tags:

     After my poem “Ageing” I received the following comment.  One on which I hadn’t reckoned.  It inspired this answer and a new poem:

“Well, it is so true and depressing. I was reading this hoping that you wrote something positive at the end, bot not…I would really like you to conclude the poem with a POSITIVE end.  It’s my desperate request as I need it.” T.

Dearest T—-

     The positive in it is this: If you soak yourself in every moment (which requires constant trying – for trying is training – focussing on every breath, every deed, your whole existence changes.  The point is to become ‘perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect’ while you’re still alive.  Then there comes an automatic joy and insight In other words, the whole chemistry changes.  Ageing doesn’t change, but you do!  And for the better.  

     We must talk about this!  But I’ll continue to send you my poetry for most is filled with hope and optimism.  Even fun and funny.

Soak Yourself In Every Moment Or, Trying Is Training

Keep cool inside yourself.  

Detachment is the key.

It’s not un-interest or indifference:

But an objectivity, Impartiality,

Ability to see

                    things as they really are;

Possibility in probability

And vice versa.

When you peel off the outer, see the inner,

The illusion of exclusion drops away,

Inclusion comes to stay

And you’re so much, shall we say, 

Gladder, gay.*

(There was a time when gay meant light and full of glee;

Free of care, carefree:

A surely helpful way to be).

Keep cool and be life’s fool: flexib’ool’, adaptab’ool’, 

Versatile and tool of circumstance.

Life can be a dance,

Full of significance,

Non-material, 

And joyful. 

Soak yourself with honesty

In every little point in time – and see.

Life’s often fun – and funny.

Trying Is Training 9.12.2018 A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Circling Round Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin

 

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