Arlene Corwin Poetry

Mandy Mercer-Neder, friend, daughter of composer Johnny Mercer for whom he wrote the hit “ “Mandy Is Two” in 1941, died Sunday August 30, 2020, age 81.

  Honoring Mandy

Deep inside
I sighed, I cried;
Internal sighing, crying
So, so hidden and unbidden,
Bringing life’s death to the forefront.
With an unexpressed
Heartbrokenness.

Mandy dear, unwell for years,
Brave and perky,
Generous to kin and peers,
Using what low strength she had
To cheer on others.

A state from fate we all shall share.
We were not there.
We will be there one dated day,
One way or t’other.

In the foremost corner of my mind
I honor Mandy.
Innermost, I find regard
I saw no hint of,
But by dint of her departing
With intention, mind and heart,
An unexpected urge,
A surge of empathy stirs, spurs me on
To honor Mandy.

Honoring Mandy 9.1.2020 Birth, Death & In Between II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Inspired by the story of Petra Kormos.

One Of Forty Thousand

It’s Sweden, 2020.
Population:
A shade over ten million,
Ranking country’s population
By percent of Europe’s calculation
Sweden ranks as ninety-one.

Not many people one might think,
And they’d be right,
and yet,
Forty thousand humans yearly,
Life corrupted by a sepsis,
Interrupted by a virus,
Death an outcome or a nearly…
Limbs that blackened;
Life force slackened:
Source unknown;
And amputation!

I, one of the forty-thousand.
Coma housed, un-rouseable,
Hand defaced,
Erased forever, their profession.
No appeal or cry for pity. No confession
Only fact; a plain statistic:
Unemotional, un-egoistic,
‘Forty thousand’ makes it prime;
Time to make the virus traceable,
Follow up the un-erasable,
Taking sepsis off the table.

A task that’s not too much to ask,
As one sits fingerless
At the piano.

One Of Forty Thousand 9.3.2020 Circling Round Experience; Pure Nakedness II; Arlene Nover Corwin
*sepsis| noun [mass noun] Medicine
the presence in tissues of harmful bacteria and their toxins, typically through infection of a wound.

This could have been written with different pronouns (you, one, we etc.) but I have no hesitation in using the confessional I, since I’m pretty sure that I is you is we all.

     The Older I Become #3

The older I become
The more I need to meditate,
The date with death come into sight.
Not all people have, feel, need this need,
The quandary multi-sided:

Disliking the idea of ceasing,
Vanishing, not knowing
If we go nowhere, somewhere or anywhere.
And as perplexing:
Loving living,
Loving what each breath is giving
Even though the world’s in downfall,
Twisted egos big and small;
Endless ills and kills banal.
Saddest and regrettable,
Gifts that die, disposable.

The basic problem may be fear:
Deep and cold as one grows old;
An angst and anger at no longer being;
Feuds between the bad and good;
The sense of global threat and danger;
Scared of losing what comes closer…
God knows what…

And so I meditate.

The Older I Become #3 8.3.2020 Birth, Death & In Between; Circling Round Experience; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Circling Round Ageing; Arlene Nover Corwin

A quick look at the world around and you understand the theme.

Issue: Change

How can one progress
From feeling crappy to slaphappy,
Sourpuss to silly goose.
Powerless, to one empowered
In a second or an hour,
Humdrum life humming along
Where nothing can go wrong,
Cause/effect singing its song.

The laws of life inscrutable.
The only thing assurable is change.
Its mysteries whose histories
Can, one day to the next,
Both enter, exit,
Borders touching or contiguous.
So strange!

As planets move in rings of space,
Galaxies and stars their place,
All you need’s a straight kept face,
Knowing that you absolutely can’t erase
An earthly thing.

Change will happen as it will.
It’s just for you to act with inner stillness,
Taking in and on what happens,
To convert it all to happiness.

Issue: Change 2.23.2020; Circling Round Experience; Circling Round Reality; Nature Of & In Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin

 When I’ve nothing to write about, I look at nature and I’m there!  Somewhere the mind binds to this observation which then turns into a meditation or a contemplation.  Below is one such occasion which turned into an opportunity.

   Picking Lingon In The Sun

Sitting on a heather-filled and rugged hill.
Ground abounding in a million lingonberries,
(Simply called in Sweden, lingon)
Weather still, some breeze and sun,
If pleasure is a word for fun,
This is a perfect definition.
Who could want more?
This is Nature in its glory.

Oak standing near
With tiny birches there like weeds.
And I, on knees squeeze in between
To separate the fruit from green
To find the bitter/sour berry
Growing most prodigiously
Five and six per stem.

Mindful and relaxed,
A wee bit taxing,
Climbing in, out, up
Focussed on each future cup
Of jam-to-be
I cheerily fill up my oblong plastic cup
Short of the top
For fear of dropping my collection.

Once at home
This sweet reflection
Will end up a poem.

Picking Lingon In The Sun 8.24.2020 Circling Round Nature II; Arlene Nover Corwin

This is the 2nd poem I’ve come upon written in 1999, so woefully up to date I feel I must send it out. Called Gone In A Minute.

                Gone In A Minute

An avalanche, a mud slide ,
Every meter drenched and plastered,
Gliding and colliding, guided
By terrain alone,
And crash, boom, clang,
The whole shebang is gone.

People! Yes, of course!
Their words and art;
The future’s start.
Centuries of minds,
Mines of thinking gone:
In a non-thinking wink.

How long then, family name?
The worked for fame?
Volcanic ash, a lava stream,
Centuries of verse, and worse,
Memory all creamed away.

Fire, flood, the drowned, the charred:
Things no longer anything;
The best and worst on equal footing.

Wars: the scarred, disfigured, marred
And all the future Bachs, Picassos,
Jenny Linds, Carusos,
Shakespeares, Einsteins,
(not to mention Arlene Corwins)
Never to expand a wing,
Create a thing,

The crux is, what we bring to mind
How easy and complete,
How fast defeat
Comes to a globe
Once calamity’s in orbit.
And we wonder what is worth it, what is not,
Ask what lasts when pasts wiped out
Leave nothing.

Gone In A Minute 8 22.2020/improved from1.2.1999 Our Times, Our Culture II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

 Strangely, “After Coffee" was written after I’d woken and written “Bored with Myself”, which simply confirms my theory that we are more chemically driven than we think. 
 I’d had a pneumonia vaccine shot yesterday afternoon, and during the night experienced symptoms I’d never had before - all during a night’s intended sleep: hip or sciatic pain, sharp and nagging, 2 bouts of dizziness, general joint pain.  Nag, nag, nag1. Awful.  And when I woke from this ‘awful’ night’s sleep, I was unmotivated, unable to connect with my inner self.  Awful.
 I could suddenly sympathise with the poor souls who take drugs or those who have chronic depression.  
 :
After Coffee

After coffee energy!
Phenomenal!
A marvel, really!
Creativity, originality come forth
From south and north,
East and west,
As if the brain knew best
What stretches under.
What a wonder!

After coffee clarity!
A sharpness present
Where transparency is formed
And shown by honesty, directness,
Plain outspokenness,
A kind of innocence and guilessness.

After coffee: not for all.
For those who benefit –
Well, have a ball!
It might release a core essential.
Finer than you ever knew.

After Coffee 8.20.2020 Pure Nakedness II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

   Bored With Myself

Thoughts, ideas repetitive:
They all feel done and writ;
Not un-creative, yet,
Should one continue writing
Poetry or prose-try, the same old set-up,
Corwin’s format?

It feels as if I’ve said it all,
Ahead of all,
The tragedy and beauty
Side by side,
Observing changes far and wide
Outside, inside this body, brain.
I feel drained.
Yet now, this minute and this moment,
Are what is, one has (“one” being me).

I wait and see,
Functioning as seconds tick,
For tucked away is optimism.
What an oxymoron!

Nothing to say,
But writing anyway

Bored With Myself 8.20.2020 Pure Nakedness II; Circling Round Experience; (new collection) Circling Round The Universal; Arlene Nover Corwin

 Strangely, “After Coffee" was written after I’d woken and written “Bored with Myself”, which simply confirms my theory that we are more chemically driven than we think. 
 I’d had a pneumonia vaccine shot yesterday afternoon, and during the night experienced symptoms I’d never had before - all during a night’s intended sleep: hip or sciatic pain, sharp and nagging, 2 bouts of dizziness, general joint pain.  Nag, nag, nag1. Awful.  And when I woke from this ‘awful’ night’s sleep, I was unmotivated, unable to connect with my inner self.  Awful.
 I could suddenly sympathise with the poor souls who take drugs or those who have chronic depression.  
 :
After Coffee

After coffee energy!
Phenomenal!
A marvel, really!
Creativity, originality come forth
From south and north,
East and west,
As if the brain knew best
What stretches under.
What a wonder!

After coffee clarity!
A sharpness present
Where transparency is formed
And shown by honesty, directness,
Plain outspokenness,
A kind of innocence and guilessness.

After coffee: not for all.
For those who benefit –
Well, have a ball!
It might release a core essential.
Finer than you ever knew.

After Coffee 8.20.2020 Pure Nakedness II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

   Bored With Myself

Thoughts, ideas repetitive:
They all feel done and writ;
Not un-creative, yet,
Should one continue writing
Poetry or prose-try, the same old set-up,
Corwin’s format?

It feels as if I’ve said it all,
Ahead of all,
The tragedy and beauty
Side by side,
Observing changes far and wide
Outside, inside this body, brain.
I feel drained.
Yet now, this minute and this moment,
Are what is, one has (“one” being me).

I wait and see,
Functioning as seconds tick,
For tucked away is optimism.
What an oxymoron!

Nothing to say,
But writing anyway

Bored With Myself 8.20.2020 Pure Nakedness II; Circling Round Experience; (new collection) Circling Round The Universal; Arlene Nover Corwin

NonsensePoetry á la Corwin

There is a legitimate genre called Nonsense Verse, a form of nonsense literature usually employing strong prosodic elements like rhythm and rhyme. It is whimsical and humorous in tone and employs some of the techniques of nonsense literature.
Among writers in English noted for nonsense verse are Edward Lear[, Lewis Carroll, Mervyn Peake, Sukumar Ray, Edward Gorey, Colin West, Dr. Seuss, and Spike Milligan.
I myself seldom write nonsense poetry, but a friend sent me an email with this phrase:
“Each little bench
Is amazingly French….
I had no idea why he sent it, but was instantly engaged and inspired to write this back to him:

However, each wench
Who sits on that bench
Has a stench
That could drench
Every river and trench
But not quench
Any watery branch
Or prevent any mulching
By belching.
If you agree much,
Have an itch to get hitched*
Keep in touch!

*get hitched; marry.
Nonsense Poetry á la Corwin 8.16.2020 A Senses Of The Ridiculous II; Arlene Nover Corwin

It’s the’ little plastic brain’ that keeps coming up with endless ideas, inspiring and producing. In fact, it seems to me that it is becoming deeper, more creative and bolder. Everything inspires me!

Everything Inspires
Everything a source;
Every little thing an inspiration.
Got a compliment today.
Mind raced, computer handy –
Boom, I’m here
Scribbling away.
(well typing anyway).
Now I must go away,
The day still light,
To use this body for its sake.
Pushing age, delaying ache
Until my tired hands come back
To what, I do not know –
Not yet.
You bet it will be something.
Everything Inspires 8.15.2020 The Processes: Creative,Thinking, Meditative II; Circling round Everything II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin