The Perfect Egg

30 Jan 2018 Leave a comment

by arlenecorwin in 2018, circling round nature II, revelations big & small, small stories book Tags:

                 The Perfect Egg

The perfect egg came to my room today –

As you’d expect, on breakfast tray.

Accompanied by perfect bread toasted just right,

Blue cheese topping with slight melting,

Coffee uber- lightly milky:

Every bit of breakfast silky.

 

Back egg:

White hardest ‘neath the shell,

As it approached the middle, well,

It turned to something creamier

Less firm, protein-ier,

Approaching yolk, a golden such

Still warm and loose (but not too much);

An egg where nothing jarred the senses;

White not phlegm-y, yolk not hard,

Each molecule a bard

That spoke of poetry and vitamins,

Lecithin – pure nourishment.

 

To s-egg-ue into finish:

Thank you rooster, thank you hen;

Thank you them again, again.

Thank you he who cooked and brought you;

Me, whose morning hunger sought you.

He, whose chemistry had wrought you;

Thanks to all those mental banks

Inside providing all these thanks

For nothing but a perfect little egg: the perfect egg.

The Perfect Egg 1.30.2018 Revelations Big & Small; Small Stories Book; Arlene Corwin

 

Internet Down

17 Jun 2017 Leave a comment

by arlenecorwin in 2017, a sense of the ridiculous II, our times our cultureII, pure nakedness, small stories book Tags:

           Internet Down
My Internet’s been downed
Like copters in the movie
Black Hawk Down. Not really.
A childish melodrama that speaks
Of need and weakness.
The company that charges
For the privilege of barging into planetary life
Has sold itself to one – more rich and more far-reaching.
Dependent wretch,
I’ll have to pay the higher rates. They hold the reins.

There being glitches in the starting up.
This gap a slap in Arlene’s face,
But missing Wikipedia and mail,
I’ve let them nail me.
Waiting for the Flash drive USB
To come, but gosh and golly,
It’s a four-day holiday.
The post has lost more days
(the post is slow in any case).
The therapy?
I’ve had to muse on facelessness and vanity.

A week of absence
From the Web-based
Superhighway cyberspace,
Digitally online
Will be fine –
A rest from showing off the ego;
A real place in real space;
One’s fancied expectations
Where you know deep down
That not one of the bodies out there
Really care,
But you.


Internet Down 6.4.2017
Small Stories; Circling Round Reality; Pure Nakedness; A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Our Times, Our Culture II;
Arlene Corwin

Seymour Phillip Hoffman: The World Is Crying for You

03 Feb 2017 Leave a comment

by arlenecorwin in 2017, birth death & in between II, small stories book, special people special occasions Tags:

                 Seymour Phillip Hoffman: The World Is Crying For You

If he’d known

The world would mourn his passing,

Would he have overdosed on heroin?

How much self-love does it take

To break the habit?

Would you grab it, if you could?

I think I would.

Even kids and wife

Can’t make that change in life:

The skid, the slide,

The gliding down and down

And even more…

Until you’re on the floor,

A needle in your arm,

Unconscious of your heart’s alarm

Whispering “Stop

– or else your time is up!”

 

SPH, you never knew

They’d mourn your passing

As they’re doing.

That it would cry: the bylines, headlines

Sounding, bounding, ‘round the world in living print.

If you’d been more intuitive, more self in-touch, less self-indulgent,

Drugs might have been out-of

Thought and need, thought and greed, but…

Habit feeds on thought

And you were caught.

And so,

We throw

No stones at windows,

Even if and though

We know the world will not cry at our passing.

We’ll mourn

And learn.

 

Seymour Phillip Hoffman: The World Is Crying For You 2.3.2014

Special People, Special Occasions; Small Stories Book; Birth, Death & In Between II;

Arlene Corwin

(Yet Another) Portrait Of A Friend

19 Oct 2016 Leave a comment

by arlenecorwin in 2016, love relationships II, small stories book, special people special occasions Tags:

I have a friend

Who has a perfect memory.

You might think it’s a perfect gift.

We have to sift through thoughts –

That is, you, I – but he,

He pictures everything,

Recalls it all: dates, times, the history

Complete. What could be wrong

With knowing all the lyrics to each song

You hear?

Draw near, I’ll tell you:

 

He retains the good and bad.

He’s filtered nothing. Think if you should

Shoulder all the woes of life?

The sad, the mad, the wars, the strife?

Besides the perfect recall,

He sees everything in black and white:

It’s either awe-inspiring or shit.

I’d guess it’s vexing

To remember each and every second

And, on top of which, to have opinions strong,

Be never wrong: one of his ‘strong’ opinions .

Plus, he takes offense, pretends indifference.

Yet, we’re friends.

I always yield, always bend.

You see, I am indifferent

And I’m charmed.

 

(Yet Another) Portrait Of A Friend 10.19.2016

Love Relationships II; Special People, Special Occasions; Small Stories Book;

Arlene Corwin

Reflection On A Self-Destruction

09 Oct 2016 Leave a comment

by arlenecorwin in 2016, small stories book Tags:


Gifts past belief,

Perfect pitch, honed technique,

Undoing self from morn till eve –

It grieves those who no longer seek him.

Sitting all the day,

A once sought artist,

Solo instrumentalist,

Never lifting up his tushy,*

With his all upon the telly,**

Living on old memory,

One waits for a communiqué,

“Dead!” – from fears collected

Long self-neglected years,

Long self-rejected years

Laced with the chaos of self-based abuse.

[He was] once handsome-faced,

But hooked on spirits, wine and ciggies,***

Thinking on the Long Ago,

Not letting go,

Years spent, tears spent,

Its climax happening

As of this typing,

Lessons still unlearned.

 

*Yiddish for buttocks

**British informal term for television

*** cigarettes

 

A Reflection On Self-Destruction 10.6.2016

Small Stories Book;

Arlene Corwin

The Man Who Killed My Brother #1&#2

29 Mar 2016 Leave a comment

by arlenecorwin in 2015, 2016, circling round reality, love relationships II, small stories book Tags:

 #1

 Wanna hear a story, all?

The man who killed my brother

Went scot-free. Not exactly. He

Got three years in the cooler, for

Such is the law. 

They found my brother’s blood

On wall and floor.

God knows what more

There was than wall and floor!

 

The prosecutor told me

That the judge was sympathetic.

Family wrote supporting letters,

Loving letters, caring letters, for

My brother was no orphan.

 

He was gay.

The family had to pay

A mammoth sum

To have his body come

Back to New York.

They didn’t trust his aids-free health. 

My brother was fit as a fiddle.

 

After years they found his killer.

All the proof was there, and still,

The trial went in killer’s favor.

He was free in three. 

Detectives, in their stab at comforting

Said, “He’s a bad egg.  He’ll be back.

Inevitably, his kind are…”

So I was left to trust.

One day the killer will be back behind those bars,

His freedom left to rust.

 You have to trust in justice.

2015

 #2 

Got off with slaughter – slaughtering:

Manslaughter.  One can only

Laugh in irony.

Slaughtering is butchering.

Decimating, wiping out,

Murdering and killing off,

Annihilating,

Putting man or Man to death.

 

Nowhere in the dictionary

Does it warrant or suggest

A measly three year sentence. 

 

The man who killed my brother

(blood on walls and floor…all over…)

One could call that massacre.

I would call that massacre.

And all he got was three small years.

 

I thought about it just today

And thought I’d say it. 

2016

The Day I Passed Garbo

21 Sep 2015 Leave a comment

by arlenecorwin in 2015, small stories book, special people special occasions Tags:

 

Blasé New Yorkers are blasé goal walkers,

Harboring no other thoughts than achieving.

Seeing not, hearing not, smelling not, yet,

On a wet, windy day,

Making way upwards West 57th,

Shoes coming toward me,

Brown, flat, longish coat, aging face, hat or kerchief,

(Or am I imagining) rather dark glasses.

As New Yorkers do,

Fobbing off glance or gawk,

I walked.

It was Garbo, of course.

Our paths never crossed.

Never turning my neck,

Never swerving the gait,

Lacking nerve to slow down,

I continued my goal-walking moment to class

Cool, detached, saying nothing to anyone.

I, Arlene Corwin had passed Great Garbo

That sixty some years ago,

Only to mention it now.

 

The Day I Passed Garbo 9.21.2015

Special People, Special Occasions; Small Stories Book;

Arlene Corwin

 

Justice #2

09 Jul 2015 Leave a comment

by arlenecorwin in 2015, our times our cultureII, small stories book, war book II Tags:

Justice #2

 

Radio bound, one listens.

Radio sound looms large and carnal,

Channeling the yearly summer invitee

Intimately speaking – just to me.

A war reporter tells the tale:

Children maimed and children sold;

Authentic, old

As man and strife

Who can live that life?

She, the free

Despondent correspondent

Writing, adding to

The altogether madly true

Omissions:

Empathy, morality,

Equality, veracity,

i.e.

Justice.

 

 

Justice 7.8.2015

War Book II; Our Times, Our Culture II; Small Stories Book;

Arlene Corwin

“My Life”: A Cliché

07 Jul 2015 Leave a comment

by arlenecorwin in 2015, circling round egos, pure nakedness, small stories book Tags:

“My Life”: A Cliché

 

We’ve all had, got, are a ‘my life’ story.

Biographical clichés,

Not one more spellbinding than the other,

Not more varied,

The minutiae peculiar to its owner.

Mothered, smothered by the ego, vanity,

Self-interest, urges, virtue, sin,

All in stories of ‘my life’ and simply

Variations on the all-too universal themes.

Clichés

But worthy.

 

“My Life”: A Cliché 7.7.2015

Small Stories Book; Pure Nakedness; Circling Round Egos;

Arlene Corwin

 

Dead Horse 2014

30 Jan 2014 Leave a comment

by arlenecorwin in 2014, birth death & in between II, our times our cultureII, small stories book, Uncategorized Tags: , , ,

Dead Horse

 

Euthanized: that’s what they call it.

Broken leg

(its burst of energy first on the course,

Ahead of all the other horses)

Crack!

Drawn to the side, the track a blur.

 

 

Scene shifts: a prostrate horse,

Its patient eye expressionless,

The jockey hovers, stroking, whispering

While vet prepares a needle –

A gigantic needle, shot, jab, dose.

We, watching have no idea what’s going on.

“Must be a painkiller” we comment.

“He’ll be put to pasture”

Slowly, while the stroking lasts,

The jockey murmuring sweet loving nothings,

In it goes.

The eye, the gorgeous eye-

It doesn’t close.

Oh no, it doesn’t close.

A nothing stare. The light’s gone out.

The mouth shows teeth.

What had we thought?

Were we so crazy as to think ‘it’s just a film’?

Oh no, it was a death end-breath.

And HBO

Has cancelled “Luck”,

The pro-

gram

I would never freely watch again

For all the tea in China.

 

Dead Horse 1.30.2014

Small Stories; Our Times, Our Culture II; Birth, Death & In Between II;

Arlene Corwin

 

 

 

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