09 Jan 2009 Leave a comment
in 1994, to the child mystic Tags: 1994, to the child mystic
Where Is The I?
Where is the I behind the eye
I’m looking for right now?
How to spy my little I
Somewhere behind the brow.
I’d like to feel my I
The same way I can feel my thumb.
But all I feel when feeling for
My I is something numb.
I plumb the depths and scan the brain.
Split second spark, it’s come!
It’s there! The me as clear as rain;
A wave against a window pane –
And then it’s gone again,
A grain of consciousness gone dumb.
©Where Is The I? 94.8.24
To The Child Mystic;
Arlene Corwin
09 Jan 2009 Leave a comment
in 1994, circling round nature, pure nakedness Tags: 1994, circling round nature, pure nakedness
When I’m Allowed To Roam Around
When I’m allowed to roam around
I become like everyone else:
Full of ambition, indecision,
Anxious, scared,
Ill- or over- prepared
And nervous –
Not thinking of service to anyone
Other than self and pelf.
But thanks to fate I stay alone;
In the country on my own –
Well, relatively on my own –
Surrounded by a trillion pine cones,
Thirteen species bird, one sky,
Occasionally wondering why.
Out in the world,
(I used to be out in the world)
I hurled myself at everything in all directions,
All at once.
I’d bounce my skirt,
I’d flirt and pounce.
I’d pounce and bounce
Flounce upon flounce,
Full of desire, breaking hearts,
Aiming higher than my parts
Were meant to. When I roam around
I’m always bound, and lose my way.
But thanks to kismet-karma’s role,
(Forces out of my control)
The ‘country’ force directs the play
Enlivening the peaceful day,
The greenery of scenery
A bar-less cage of freedom.
Here I sing, a star alone;
Engagement: bird, lake, sky, tree, cone.
This from a girl from Brooklyn.
©When I’m Allowed To Roam Around 94.11.19
Circling Round Nature; Pure Nakedness;
Arlene Corwin
09 Jan 2009 Leave a comment
in 1994, birth death & in between Tags: 1994, birthd death & in between, special people special occasions
A celebrity dies. You feel cheerless and bad –
Tear in your eyes and a lump in your throat.
A jolt in the gut,
And though you’ve never met, you are sad,
Really saddened –
And then you forget.
You stand at the dishes, washing each plate
The radio tells you we’ve lost someone great:
Great career, greater life –
And you brillo the knife.
Why is it hard to remember to suffer?
It’s hard to be cheerless as long as you’d wish.
You feel base, superficial, a hypocrite, shallow.
The man had a gift. He was also a dish.
He ought to be hallowed –
But five minutes pass and the pause is aborted,
Unless you remind yourself sometime that morning.
Gone is the mourning – already so short.
Your living goes on –
And his ship’s gone to port.
Birth, Death & In Between; Special People Special Occasions;
Arlene Corwin
*on the death of Burt Lancaster
09 Jan 2009 Leave a comment
in 1994, definitely didactic Tags: 1994, definitely didactic
What You Want
What is it you want?
Good food? Nice figure?
Skip the figure – just food?
Big house? Stable mood?
One dollar? One million?
The
job? no job? Just fun?Something to do?
Husband? Wife? Baby? Two?
Time to putter with the flowers?
Hours puttered on the green?
Ecstasy? A vision? Insight?
Hiring someone else to clean?
As high as you aim is as high as you’ll get.
The such-ness of wanting
Depends on the bet you are willing to place,
The debt you are willing to pay
For the backlog of errors still milling about.
There once was a peasant who,
Asked what he’d do
If the crown of the czar were to land on his head,
Said, “Man, are you crazy!”
His voice coarse but level:
“Steal ten rubles and run like the devil!”
He thought he was free. (His level, you see)
All he would do is to steal and flee.
The most you’ll possess
Is no more and no less
Than the thing that you want.
© What You Really Want 11.14.1994
Definitely Didactic;
Arlene Corwin
09 Jan 2009 Leave a comment
in 1994, definitely didactic, lessons to be learned Tags: 1994, definitely didactic, lessons to be learned
What You Really Want
What is it you want?
Good food? Nice figure?
Skip the figure – just food?
Big house? Stable mood?
One dollar? One million?
The
job? no job? Just fun?Something to do?
Husband? Wife? Baby? Two?
Time to putter with the flowers?
Hours puttered on the green?
Ecstasy? A vision? Insight?
Hiring someone else to clean?
As high as you aim is as high as you’ll get.
The such-ness of wanting
Depends on the bet you are willing to place,
The debt you are willing to pay
For the backlog of errors still milling about
in the mind.
There once was a peasant who,
Asked what he’d do
If the crown of the czar were to land on his head,
Said, “Man, are you crazy!”
His voice coarse but level:
“Steal ten rubles and run like the devil!”
He thought he was free.
(His level, you see)
All he would do is to steal and flee.
The most you’ll possess
Is no more and no less
Than the thing that you want.
© What You Really Want 11.14.1994
Definitely Didactic;
Arlene Corwin
09 Jan 2009 Leave a comment
in 1994, the processes creative thinking meditative, to the child mystic Tags: 1994, the processes creative thinking meditative, to the child mystic
Watch The Mind
Watch the mind, it’s really quirky.
Let it go and watch it work,
For when you see what it creates
(I don’t see how ‘cause that’s a secret:
‘How’ and ‘why’ the hidden states),
You may discover what a neat trick
To stand back, let go and watch.
Letting go, a chance to snatch
At fantasy creative:
Courage by encouragement.
Fantasy invents by fancy
Giving order to what’s left.
Creativity can steal from nature’s bank
And it’s not theft,
The dancing arts all mind expanding –
Honey way to jar the door
Of quintessential being –
Just by watching what goes on
And doing what needs to be done.
©Watch The Mind 94.7.8
The Processes: Creative. Thinking, Meditative; To The Child Mystic;
Arlene Corwin
08 Jan 2009 Leave a comment
in 1994, nature of & in reality, to the child mystic Tags: 1994, nature of & in reality, to the child mystic
I am a monad, a unit, an entity;
Seed of myself, unrelated to time.
Nomadic monad, a watery sea
Who happens to breed and bleed
By an enzyme collection that passes for me.
Don’t be duped.
Kinetically energized, I can make sounds,
Make the rounds,
Still alone.
A monad, a unit and clone
From an ancestor I’ve never seen,
An ancestor I’ve only heard about, read about, known
About all of the life that I’ve been.
So I sit here waiting for something to happen,
Knowing that I am a monad expecting
The trappings of clappings from heavenly
Creatures unsown:
Waiting for something to happen.
To The Child Mystic; Nature Of & In Reality;
Arlene Corwin
08 Jan 2009 Leave a comment
in 1994, the processes creative thinking meditative Tags: 1994, the processes creative thinking meditative
To Write A Poem
What does it mean to write a poem?
Rhythm?
Rhyme?
A meditation?
Content?
Substance?
Exploration?
What’s it mean to write a poem?
Deepened layers?
Self-confession?
Session on the doctor’s couch?
Gain possession
Of the ways to get in touch…?
What does it mean to write a poem?
An urge to purge the problems
Of a weakened mind?
A seek? A find?
A beauty or an ugly?
What is the Poem Correct?
Perhaps the funny side abstract.
What does it mean:
Abstract/concrete, an in between?
Technique is something in your genes
To serve itself and what self means.
It knows itself when it should stop.
It chooses form as words show up.
It preens its own inherent being,
Gleaning, cleaning mental seeing,
Spoken silence, written sound.
All the senses hang around
To gather up the things it takes
To build a poem whose meaning shakes
The world potential.
Potent art to steer the cart
From age to age.
© To Write A Poem 11.27.1994
The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative;
Arlene Corwin
08 Jan 2009 Leave a comment
in 1994, circling round reality, definitely didactic Tags: 1994, circling round reality, definitely didactic
The Truth Is All Around
The truth is all around, I swear.
By the I mean the absolute.
Not to be cute,
But accurate and fair.
There is every form:
Noble winner, noble worm;
Every cell, its parts, its all,
Center, space, contiguous cell wall.
Each with absolute.
I don’t say “each” to just be cute.
On the many-layered plane,
Each situation: sane, insane;
Each book: the sacred, light or trite
Contains a truth exact and right
For whom?
The answer lies in mother’s womb,
In nature’s possibilities affixing receptivities.
Each thing that’s taken in through sense
Containing cause and consequence,
Method, set of values, trick,
Shortcut, message and technique:
Truth and there for one to seize
On levels simple but not easy:
Live and act with mind and heart,
Sincere, intense and taking part
In every meeting. How I feel
A fool whose zeal
For rules can sound like prattle:
Pompous, ponderous, maybe gall.
Lest this sound a wee bit pap- py
T-R-U+T+H means happy,
And it’s all around.
© The Truth Is All Around 5.3.1994
Circling Round Reality; Definitely Didactic;
Arlene Corwin
08 Jan 2009 Leave a comment
in 1994, the processes creative thinking meditative, vaguely about music Tags: 1994, the processes creative thinking meditative, vaguely about music
The Trick Is To Stay Fresh
I heard a band four decades old.
“Good God, I thought, what a good band!”
How do they do it? Forty years?
What do they think night after night
When each man steps up to the stand –
Night after night his horn in hand,
Old licks, clichés
Takes his solos even on the days
His wife is sick?
And still they’re slick and stick it out
Night after night, year after year,
Internal tensions always there.
It must be like a factory job,
To entertain the drinking mob.
Or maybe not.
Maybe jobs have been a ball,
A chance to leave four walls,
Create, maintain a freshness,
Make some music on the spot,
Feelings tapped, without pretence;
Spontaneous, and proud of what
The dents he’s chalked up on his horn
All signify.
Perhaps, instead of blasé scorn
He manages to like the crowd –
The drunks, the dancers raw and loud.
Maybe the leader has charisma –
Makes each guy feel that he’s good;
Shows respect for solos
Drummer, sax or trumpet blows;
Drumming, blasting, bellowing.
By hook or crook, the trick’s eternal:
Keep the kernel of renewal growing,
Tapped and showing;
Ever crowing.
The trick is to stay fresh.
© The Trick Is To Stay Fresh 11.30.1994
Vaguely About Music; The Processes:Creative,Thinking, Meditative;
Arlene Corwin
Arlene Corwin Poetry 