Arlene Corwin Poetry

 Finger-less Or Finger-free

I’ve met those I’ve called talentless,
Who, with light irony,
I now call talent-free.
Now me?
Not finger-less but finger-free:
Adaptability
Manifestly
evident.

Big chords are out,
Arpeggios too.
Monk-like bass and base lines do.
Accompanied by vocal runs of dissonance
And lyricism: touching, new.

Then there are the household duties:
Kitchen, bath- and bedroom –
All rooms needing tending to;
Ways to brush, cut, screw a cap:
Just plain old screw.

New talents, yessiree,
For those who may be
Talent-free, or finger-free,
The likes of mastering potentiality
That leave us free.

Finger-less Or Finger-free 2.17.2021 Nature Of & In Reality; Vaguely About Music II; Pure Nakedness II;Arlene Nover Corwin

Whenever I have nothing To write about, but feel that I’m playing hooky if I write nothing – skulking, as it were, I often write about nature. In my bed, surrounded by forest, birds who have established their lives in the insulation under the rooftop and above all windows, I lay there and watched the thick, fine snow floating mindlessly, windlessly down. Voila, a title! Now to find content:

  It’s Snowing Gently, But A Lot

It’s snowing gently
But a lot.
Persistently and softly.
Is that not a metaphor
For …something…
An insistence
Whose importance
I can’t know but sense.

It’s the gentleness that strikes me:
A force that doesn’t force, but is.
An element and facet
And an aspect of behaviour
That could be a saviour
To a person’s happiness
And peace of mind.

The thing or things get done
Looking like fun
But with an impact on all things around.

An almost silent path
With not a sound of wrath,
But just a bath of H20
We’re calling snow,
Knowing that the whole will go in time.

I guess I’ve found my metaphor in rhyme.
It’s snowing,
But while snowing going.
If that’s not an emblem
Of life’s semblance
And a trope
For spirit’s power and hope,
I don’t know what is.

It’s Snowing Gently, But A Lot 2.17.2021 Circling Round NatureII; Nature In & Of Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin

   Becoming Braver

Turning thought to poetry,
Trusting that it’s worth conveying;
Turning impulse into input;
Turning input into form.
Becoming braver as your norm
Is to be distanced from result:
The very meaning of release;
Of taking on the difficult;
Of being an adult.

Becoming braver does not mean
To throw all caution to the wind.
You still must care.
It means ‘to dare,
Guided by inherent gifts,
Its freedom sifting through
The need for house, home, life: just you –
Risk-takers oft-times gone adrift!

That said, one can come back:
The failed business, loss, love’s bed –
But simple things: a recipe, a book,
Shifting round the furniture to freshen up the look,
Unhesitant and unafraid
Of testing, trying and applying;
You will still have faults.
There in the vaults of gene ad cell,
Heredity, the ancestry, the body shape, the temperament;
Activity, passivity,
The tendencies to act and be,
To always have;
They never leave.

What you have as genesis – your pre-born base,
Becoming braver can’t erase,
With not have a need to hate or praise;
But you can weather, persevere,
Develop better, actions freer:
That is you, unfettered, braver.

Becoming Braver 2.16.2021 Nature Of & In Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin

The Striving After Truth

I always strive for truth in verse,
Seldom using or ab-using license
Granted to us poets:
Metered rhyme half of the time,
Essences of substance:
Those are one key.
Non-superficiality, honesty,
Non-weirdness in the here-ness.,
Nearness to the self its pelf:
All these are in the processes.

Striving not that easy –
Not as simple as you think!
No squint or wink can help you think.
No pain, no strain and no technique
Can leak the truth from inside out
From brain to paper, plain A4,
There being some mystique
That tweaks the mind
So that without a whine, it finds
A thought not ever thought about,
A light turned on by some deep wonder,
Some ‘cool’ processes down under.

Does it pay?
I would say
It’s more like play than labor.
Hour by hour one may babble,
Scrape the barrel of ideals,
Using up scraps of ideas…

Processing it endlessly,
Grappling, struggling to apply
One’s theme insistently.
All to get the truth-in-me
Into a form called poetry.

The Striving After Truth 2.14.2021 Pure Nakedness II; Arlene Nover Corwin

This is for all, any or few who use the computer to give, get or find some kind of comfort or fulfilment.

 The Penny Dropped*

This penny dropped minutes ago:
That those who read the po-
etry I write –
Who take the bite by tapping out
A Like or Heart –
Emoji showing taking part –
That they, or she or he
Is somewhere on this round, round globe
Alone and bound
To isolation’s empty ground –
For some a prism in their prison.

Rewarded with a new respect.
In twenty second’s new reaction;
Realization not to share
For any other reason
Than to know that some are there
Under the most extenuating circumstance:
Pandemic’s viruses,
Computer the main avenue
To reaching him, her, you
(Which may be all they see
Throughout a lonely day)
Makes motive purified,
The ego minimized.

The Penny Dropped 2.13.2021 Revelations Big & Small; Arlene Nover Corwin
the penny droppedinformal, chiefly British used to indicate that someone has finally realized something: I was about to ask Jack who it was, when the penny suddenly dropped.

While not directly having music in mine (although I suspect I did (subtly or indirectly, I don’t remember), I do mean style in the broadest sense. I should think it fits then jazz bill well.
Warmly,
Arlene

Finding Your Style

There is a You that is;
That’s at the center of all that you do.
It’s formed, changed often
By the wind, the season’s whim;
But once you know and let it,
There’s an inner conflict
that no longer is;
No longer there;
It gives and is a freedom free of care.
Restraints that held you disappeared.
You carry on, the same old you,
Doing what you’re used to doing,
Knowing what you’re born to do
Doing it in, throughout the day –
From deep within your way.
Taking place with every breath
You step into each hour with depth;
The outward inner veil revealed,
You’ve found a style
To make you smile,
For it is only you who sees it,
Knowing you don’t have to freeze it,
It’s just there!
It’s You –
The flexible and true
To carry on mistakes and flaws,
The inner doors
Consistently ajar.
You are!

Finding Your Style 2,11.2021 Definitely Didactic II; Arlene Nover Corwin

 Finding Your Style

There is a You that is;
That’s at the center of all you do.
It’s formed, changed often
By the wind, the season’s whim;
But once you know and let it,
There’s an inner conflict
That no longer is;
No longer there;
It gives and is a freedom free of care.
Restraints held once, dissolve then disappear.
You carry on, the same old you,
Doing what you’re used to doing,
Knowing what you’re born to do;
Doing it throughout the day –
From within your ‘ordinary.
Taking place with every breath
You step into each hour with depth;
The outward inner veil revealed,
You’ve found a style to make you smile,
For it is only you who sees it,
Knowing you don’t have to freeze it,
It’s just there! You –
The flexible and true
To carry on mistakes and flaws,
The inner doors
Consistently ajar.
You are!

Finding Your Style 2,11.2021 Definitely Didactic II; Arlene Nover Corwin

I’d been thinking about this a long, long time.

Wondering What Would Happen

Not a futurist, apocalyptic pessimist,
But I’ve fantasised,
Imagined what it would be like
If by some fluke, some evil act,
Some karmic sequence of events,
The lights lost power:
Hour when the sky grew dark
We had no lightbulb to turn on,
No stove or oven,
Instant water from a valve
Wired heater there to to solve,
No recourse to the digital:
No things at all
For comfort and convenience
We’ve grown used to.

Me, I’d have to write in pencil or
What ink or lead was there.
I’d have to learn to grow –
Cultivate and plough to live;
Contrive a greenhouse to survive.
Learn where, how to find the carbs,
The protein, fat…
What to have and where they sat.

That’s only me; No family
To feed with nutrients they’d need.
I have someone who chops the wood.
For goodness’ sake, I have the woods!
Dependency on things electric
Is approximately half of the world
(hurling out a random number)
Members of the global race
Seem to be laced with ruination…
Nation after ruined nation.

Answers lie not in religion,
Not in -ism,
But in thoughtful and reflective -ation:
Contemplation, meditation;
Intellect and heart and action.
Wondering what would, could happen
But a step.

Wondering What Would Happen 2.10.2021 Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Nover Corwin

My beloved Kent is 83 today. Here’s what I wrote to him:
Saying Goodbye To Eighty-Two
We’re lying here. It’s nine p.m. Nine p.m. exactly!
Three more hours to eighty-three.
Do you feel different?
Much less ignorant than yesterday?
Feel that years have run away?
Or maybe you don’t mind
The wrinkles that you find?
Don’t care that hair is thinner
Or that whether it is there
Or not.
Three more hours.
In the morning I’ll give you a poem I’ve framed.
I’ll let you come and give me breakfast.
Everything will be the same
Except that you are one year older.
Once again, we are
Three years, three months apart.
Dear heart,
A happy wish for years to give
You health and vigour.
Years to live twenty years longer –
Maybe twenty-four years more.
Say goodbye to eighty-two
And I will say, “Sweet dreams” to you.
You’re tired and I’m inspired
So I’ll wait until tomorrow
Till you read this.
Here’s a goodnight kiss:
(Puss, puss)

*
“puss, puss” means kisses in Swedish
Happy, Happy Eighty-Third
Are you really eighty-three today?
In weighing time, the climb of time
It seems a fancy fantasy.
As if not many moments past have passed,
And last year I was forty-eight or so,
You forty-four or five, the glow
Of youth still in our faces,
Space of time not closed.
Who knows how long the years are likely?
Time’s been good to you and me:
incredibly, we live like royalty
And lovingly, to boot.
We’ve rooted out the key to what
A good relationship should be.
You’ve made me happy,
And so, in return, I wish you too,
This final word:
A HAPPY, HAPPY EIGHTY-THIRD!
Happy,Happy Eighty-Third 2.8.2021BirthdayBook; LoveRelationships; ArleneNover Corwi

       Joy, Love, Truth

What do you think your brain is doing
When you’re sad, depressed or screwing?
Lots! When sad or in a mood
Amygdala and hippocampus glued
To memory’s emotions tied,
Sensations not forgot!
When you’ve got the hots for someone
And that one is non-responsive
Do not let depression in.
Turn a sadness into gladness
And remember, hippocampus
And amygdala are slingshots into hindrance,
Solving blocks impediments;
A cross to bear you do not want to wear
Life through.

To continue:
Are you full of cheer?
Do you like people
All around whomever and wherever
You come into contact?
Do you strive for truths and stick to fact?

My advice is but to focus!
Deal with body/mind detail.
When you hit resistance, stop
The movement in the middle;
When you hit insistent pain,
Plain sense and yogic counsel
Is to halt smack in the middle of its riddle.
You will soon feel feel well – or well-er
Than the hell before.

When feeling low, illusionary concepts flowing
Going into brain, mind, soul,
Into the feel of wholeness
Is to know the stealing big fat lie:
Illusion passing for reality.

Through the trick of nothing’s nowness
(you could never start with less)
You secure the greatest motivation
To escort you to salvation.

Fortune, fame; misnomer’s lame and empty crown
Ties you up and ties you down –
When you see the sin of daily longings, basic wrongings,
Throngs with faith in spectre choices,
From profession to the newsy voices,
Know these are not real truths
But grounded themes on schemes and dreams
To lead one far from happiness to emptiness and being fooled.

Let your ‘down-ness’ be your tool
To push and lead to real seeing,
No more robot in your thinking, but a being
Meant for more.
Joy, Love, Truth 2.6.2019 Circling Round Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin