Arlene Corwin Poetry

  Biography In Verse 2014

What a way to hide: a life in meter.
Details you might choose to lose,
Conceal under bedclothes;
Essential to your memory,
For you to see inside the eye of memory:
Neckerchief presented by an ardent student:
Dedicated, grated and appreciated;
Compliments from lovers long, long years ago;
Facts ashamed or guilty of;
Events repressed that once were truth,
Belonged to youth,
Almost buried.
Then comes rhyme
To bring the time out into daylight,
Clarified and universal –
Life’s approving praise in verse.
One may elect to write in code,
Record the Brooklyn streets one strode,
The lost rewards shrouding the days –
Rosebud days of silent angst,
The crude, nude, many hued inquietude
of men withstood;
All of that in meter underscored. 
Biography In Verse 4.1.2014 (started11.12.2012) revised/6.12.2021 Pure Nakedness II;Arlene Nover Corwin

 Tail But Not The End 2021

I read the verse written above;
So very strange to see the date;
Life’s summary continues without waiting –
Carried on, dissolved, evolved –
Ever moving while resolving.
Suturing each thought to deed,
One takes action,
Each act leading toward a future
Sanctioned by the laws above:
Hope & goodness, global love prioritised.
One hopes but does not know.
The tail ends but not the tale,
For everyone who’s seen the show
Or sung the song
Knows that the ‘show goes on’…and on…and on.
Tail But Not The End 6.12.2021 Pure Nakedness II; Autobiography; Arlene Nover Corwin

       Adapting & Adjusting

When I sing, I will do any thing
To get the sound I’m looking for.
Sometimes sacrificing text and lyric.
When I walk I let the ground
Shape foot to fit,
And not the other way around.
It is a ‘must’ to self-adjust
By trusting that a necessary requisite
Is to be able
To make living comfortable,
Adapting each step of the way,
To make the most of every day.
Why aspire through suffering –
Blood-offering when you can be
Creative,
Going boldly ‘native’:
Hands instead of forks and knives,
Rice and beans on which to thrive;
Any means an instrument
With which to implement
And reach a goal which may be small or trivial –
Any thing that feels important.

So, singing, walking, eating, talking
Do whatever feels right,
Not being blocked or curbed by balking,
Being stalked by stiff tradition.
Sing your song and carry on
Without the fear of singing wrong.
Rout out, take note,
Take not single step by rote
But going freshly into action,
Each a fraction of the whole,
The satisfaction deeply real.
Adapting&Adjusting 6.9.2021 The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

   Sounds Of Pleasure

I made a few of those this morning.
Made some yesterday.
“Umm” and “Oh”, and “Wonderful”!
Non-intellectual;
Worldly, fleshly. In-the-moment-spontaneity
“Epithalamium”
Whose meaning is a song or poem
Honouring “the bridal chamber”.
Such a place to spawn a claim for,
Hatch a name for.
Magical, delightful!

There are endless episodic exploits,
Chapters, sets of circumstance,
Variations on all things contributing.
Versions of existence that have pleasure as their ground:
Boundless pleasures that assure
The welcoming that life insures:
Music, seasons, sex and motion
Resonating observation,
Catching hold of all and each;
All the senses’ wheels and gears;
All the processes on offer.

Sounds that go into our galaxy,
The galaxies, there to please
And gratify.
Sounds Of Pleasure 6.10.2021 Circling Round Experience; Circling Round Everything II; Arlene Nover Corwin

noun (plural epithalamiums or epithalamia | ˌɛpɪθəˈleɪmɪə | )
a song or poem celebrating a marriage.
DERIVATIVES
epithalamic | ˌɛpɪθəˈlamɪk | adjective
ORIGIN
late 16th century: via Latin from Greek epithalamion, from epi ‘upon’ + thalamos ‘bridal chamber’.

       Collapsing In On Itself

A week-dead pike on local stone wall,
Probably dropped there by some passing seagull,
Meagre and dull, once fresh and full;
Almost the same as the moment it came,
But entrails have started to go.
(Are they ‘entrails’? I don’t really know.)
There are still the innards; the liver, gall, roe
I’d’ guess there’s a stomach;
It think it’s a pike – maybe perch but not haddock!
What is essential, its cardinal what-ness
Is something that shows every time i go past it:
Heading that way in shrivelling decay;
A body of glorious splendour that rots
Still falls in upon inglorious self in terminal rot-ness.
Collapsing In On Itself 5.26.2021 Birth, Death & In Between III; Circling Round Nature II; Arlene Nover Corwin

  Making Use Of Scraps 

Bookmarks all,
My scraps consist of paper.
(i cannot throw a thing away)
Chanced on today,
One that read, “We grope for all we hope for,
Never stopping…” “That is worth the copying” I thought.
So here I sit,
Hoping something gold will come from it;
A poem, a tome perhaps.
The thinking never stops.
Morning’s coffee, bread, cheese culprits.
(Energy, you know, the key).

With nought to write about,
But trusting something ought come out
From streams of consciousness.
The trove of rich experience,
Intuition’s secret knowledge always there,
Never gone, ever growing.
Past, a storeroom and a flowing of
Idea combined with
Form, control and discipline,
Rhyme and reason skeleton.

What a mix, this bunch of tricks
More meditative than one thinks.
(In jazz) to play some licks:
Condensed from motif’s genesis;
Enriched by soloist, his gift to improvise.

Same here: theme near, cell’s main member:
Now if I can just remember…
Ah yes, making use of scraps;
Treasured fragments oddments, remnants;
Bits and pieces of one’s genius.

Rubbish, litter, wasted matter – scraps are not!
Scraps are: individual as sunlight’s glitter.
There, It’s out!
From horse’s, my own mouth to yours
With hope it doesn’t bore, but bores
Its way into some part
Of reached, enriched intelligence
And your collective heart.

Making Use Of Scraps 6.11.2021 Pure Nakedness II; Circling Round Experience; Circling Round Everything II; Arlene Nover Corwin

An expression of the loss in some way. It’s such a painful challenge: how to grieve.

Our Friend Erna

Memorial;
A testimonial reminder
And plain statement:
Way to not forget
The person who was dear to us,
Whose leaving we regret
With tears we have no way of showing.
Erna’s going unsuspected,
Unexpected.

Dear Erna’s in eternity.
Every memory we have intact:
Lunches, visits overnight;
Our attempts at writing
What we hoped would be
The greatest ever deckare!
How we laughed
At what we could, could not achieve,
Half believing what we wrote.
Erna, taking careful notes.
Eie’s vote imperative.

We mustn’t leave out Eie,
Erna’s most beloved husband.
Eie/Erna two-in-one.
A complement from start to end,
She never quite got over.
Now it’s Erna,
Joined perhaps with her dear lover.

With no place to send this
And no way to end this
There is but to say,
We’ll miss you.

Our Friend Erna 5.16.2021/6.11.2021 Love Relationships II; Birth, Death & In Between III; Arlene Nover Corwin

    It’s So Much Easier With Yes Than No

It’s so much easier with yes than no.
One doesn’t often think so
When at times, one has to put aside,
And childlike, give up one’s pride and preference.
So, depending on the mood, it’s but to choose
Until the saying yes becomes a habit.
Grab it!
When you understand you cannot lose,
Truth’s proof within the pudding,
Let yes be the budding.
Test it!
Acquiescence and compliance;
Sweet docility and pliability –
Not necessarily passivity
For yes must sometimes become no.
In time you know when it is so
And rest in it.
It’s So Much Easier With Yes 6.10.2019revised 6.11.2021 Definitely Didactic; Arlene Nover Corwin

   Planet Tellus*

The planet wants to tell us
With its principles and measurements,
Apportioned out by nature’s sense,
Balanced and divided, its intents
To boost and serve,
Its animating force give verve
To planet X we know as Earth
Its birth, its ageing, death and worth.

Planet Tellus, Tellus Mater
Molten iron at its core;
Years in zillions boring into
Multiverse of multi-stars;
Solar systems, massive quasars.
All around, exo-tic planets not yet found,
Members of their own sun’s orbit;
Grasp of numbers too profound –
Four or forty-thousand thousand more…

Super telescopes that probe,
Piercing the sky-filled fluff
With mirrored hope.
Gaseous dusts that stuff the ‘skies’ –
(‘sky’ a word to pluralise)

Celestial bodies shoot, reboot
With non-robotic loyalty to nature’s tootle:
Glimpsed effects, with un-glimpsed causes;
Mystic black & floor-less holes
Imploding and devouring,
Scouring ageing, failing stars for flaws.

Gallant planets Them and Us:
Existence by persistence for existence!
Theory:
Black holes open endlessly
To start a new infinity – oxymoronically.

*Tellus: Planet Earth
Planet TellUs 1.6.2021revised 6.12.2021Circling Round Reality; Nature Of & In Reality; Circling Round Nature II;

 I ‘know’ a man who writes like a dream; fine poetry, deep, erudite - but suffering. Oh, how he suffers in his verse!  And so, I felt myself forced to reply in kind - my kind.
 I start off by quoting one of his weaker adjectival descriptions and base my response on his picture of life.

Verse To An Unhappy Person

Man is ‘weak’ but man is strong!
The ego always plans to stay,
But strengths and insights
Can and want to rule the day.

Do not dream, do not desire.
Aspire to maturity, the spirit’s liberty.
Leave childhood memories behind.
Continue climbing into mind
Where you will find
The optimistic peace you dearly, daily long for.
Be strong for this.
Its not far off – a kiss away.
You do not want to miss its entry.
Have a nice and healthful day!

Verse To An Unhappy Person 5.11.2020/renamed, revised 5.12.2021 Circling Round Experience; Circling Round Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin

I ‘know’ a man (if one can ‘know’ anyone on a Mac) who writes like a dream; fine poetry, deep, erudite – but suffering. Oh, how he suffers in his verse! And so, I felt myself forced to reply in kind – my kind.
I start off by quoting one of his weaker adjectival descriptions and base my response on his picture of life.

Reply To An Unhappy Verse

Man is ‘weak’ but man is strong!
The ego always plans to stay,
But strengths and insights
Can and want to rule the day.
So do not dream, do not desire.
Aspire to maturity, the spirit’s liberty.
Leave childhood memories behind.
Continue on with climbing into mind
Where you, dear * will find
The optimistic peace you dearly, daily long for,
So be strong for this.
Its not far off – a kiss away.
You do not want to miss its entry.
Have a nice and healthful day!
Reply To An Unhappy Verse 5.11.2020 Circling Round Experience; Nature Of & In Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin