17 Feb 2009 Leave a comment
in 2009, circling round nature, circling round vanities, circling round woman, circling round wrinkles Tags: 2009, aging, circling round nature, circling round vanities, circling round woman, circling round wrinkles
Interpreting Signs
The pluckéd eyebrows still grow back;
A secret symptom only we,
The caged in age, perceive.
We watch and sometimes grieve.
We know our bodies
Singular- collectively;
We see what’s stopped,
What’s slowed, what’s new;
We know what we inhabit but,
We feel what we have always been.
We know how to interpret.
© Interpreting Signs 1.15.2009
Circling Round Wrinkles; Circling Round Vanities; Circling Round Nature;Circling Round Woman;
Arlene Corwin
31 Jan 2009 Leave a comment
in 2008, circling round wrinkles, vaguely about music Tags: 2008, circling round wrinkles, vaguely about music
Employable And Still Enjoyable
Over seventy and got a gig.
A blessing in this age-ist day
When pensioners are sloughed away
Funneled into categ-
ories;
Shoved or gently eased.
I’m pleased.
© Employable and Still Enjoyable 2.21.2008
Circling Round Wrinkles; Vaguely About Music;
Arlene Corwin
30 Jan 2009 Leave a comment
in 2008, a sense of the ridiculous, circling round energy, circling round wrinkles Tags: 2008, a sense of the ridiculous, circling round energy, circling round wrinkles
Broken Sleep
Insomnia.
It’s noon.
Lying in bed,
A gossip mag
My sister in-law buys.
Here, because
At seventy-
(poetic license)
Sleep
Is dear
Wakefulness cheap.
So here I sit,
MacDonald’s tray of red,
Milk, honey, bread
Balanced precariously
‘Tween multi-pillowed head
And glossy magazinéd
Thigh,
The daily start retarded.
Fallen angels fall, most likely,
From a lack of discipline.
© Broken Sleep 12.5.2008
A Sense Of The Ridiculous; Circling Round Energy; Circling Round Wrinkles;
Arlene Corwin
29 Jan 2009 Leave a comment
in 2008, circling round vanities, circling round woman, circling round wrinkles, I Is Always You is We Tags: 2008, circling round nature, circling round woman, circling round wrinkles, I Is Always You is We
Beauty Gone
It isn’t that I was a beauty,
But the mirrors and the date remind me:
Youth has beauty.
Grounded in the supple,
“You’re the apple of my eye”, says Nature.
Ageing’s mystery,
The muscle mass,
Proportions nose to lips,
Waist/hips
The elasticity replaced…
Cheekbone, with its hostile lines
That droops a jaw, chin through to neck.
Oh, heck, maybe the wick
Of beauty really comes
When youthful beauty goes.
© Beauty Gone 10.29.2008
Circling Round Nature; Circling Round Woman;
Circling Round Wrinkles; I Is Always You Is We;
Circling Round Vanities;
Arlene Corwin
29 Jan 2009 Leave a comment
in 2008, birth death & in between, circling round wrinkles Tags: 2008, birth death & in between, circling round wrinkles
And The Wrinkle Deepens
And it deepens.
Showing some condition
Unaware
Somewhere.
Time, carefree or uncaring
Knows the secret handshake
Testing
My detachment –
Should I say “attachment.”
Skin deep health,
Or weather vane of death,
The wrink-/barometer
Goes its cryptic signpost way.
Never gives a thing away
Except to point one way alone:
Way, way, way, way, way
Alone.
©And The Wrinkle Deepens 2.18.2008
Birth, Death & In Between; Circling Round Wrinkles;
Arlene Corwin
14 Jan 2009 Leave a comment
in 1998, birth death & in between, circling round nature, circling round reality, circling round vanities, circling round woman, circling round wrinkles, the processes creative thinking meditative Tags: 1998, birth death & in between, circling round nature, circling round vanities, circling round woman, circling round wrinkles, the processes creative thinking meditative
Going, Going, Gone
You’ll think that I’m a wimp,
This, lamentation.
This is not a whine or ‘wingeing’ –
This is for the women
Just to show we are one breed.
Besides which, I am scientific:
Deep inside I need to measure.
I succeed in looking good with color from the pot,
The dew is definitely gone.
Pose, clothes achieve a lot,
But lines above the lip define
What hairs betray with deadly aim –
That estrogen has passed away:
Estrogen has stayed its time.
Cropping up and popping out on eyebrow, chin
Where corners of the mouth cave in,
Unpredictable as blight.
Fifty-six was nifty-six.
Flaws would go back overnight.
Now muscle, ligaments within
Need more protein:
Wrinkly, crinkly
Thigh king-post twinkly.
Sanity or vanity –one’s more and one’s reduced,
This warp insidious
Yet nothing-ness.
Perhaps we’re really walking minds;
Organisms old as now,
Young as a nineteen thirty-four,
Youth-eating time, the omnivore
Where body’s going, going, gone.
If one is not to give a fig,
But keep on digging
Out of scientific interest,
Dressing up until the interest dies away,
That’s quite okay.
It’s just a game. I’ll play.
©
Going, Going, Gone 98.10.26Circling Round Woman; Birth, Death & In Between; Circling Round Wrinkles;
Circling Round Vanities; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative; Circling Round Nature;
Arlene Corwin
13 Jan 2009 Leave a comment
in 1998, circling round vanities, circling round woman, circling round wrinkles, I Is Always You is We Tags: 1998, circling round vanities, circling round woman, circling round wrinkles, I Is Always You is We
Changing Forms
Over lip hair,
There unwanted creases;
Helpless watcher’s silent whine.
Every noticed day’s new shock
Which doesn’t block the clock
But forces one to love what’s mineThrough love of self.
Changing Forms 98.1.27
I Is Always You Is We; Circling Round Woman;
Circling Round Wrinkles; Circling Round Vanities;
Arlene Corwin
13 Jan 2009 Leave a comment
in 1998, birth death & in between, circling round nature, circling round reality, circling round time, circling round vanities, circling round woman, circling round wrinkles, I Is Always You is We, lessons to be learned, life, special people special occasions Tags: 1998, birth death & in between, circling round time, circling round vanities, circling round woman, circling round wrinkles, I Is Always You is We, special people special occasions
But Now You’re Seventy
But now you’re seventy,
And fifty-six seems young.
At eighty, seven decades will seem juvenile,
And you, the wee marsupial,
A worm in mommy’s pung.
For such are our perceptions:
Relative and without substance.
Now you’re seventy.
Repeat it!
See the troll for what is:
Foolish, impish chimera
Whose scornful aim it is
To move the goalpost back and forth,
East to west, south to north –
Making you a little you:
What rot! What poppycock!
A crock of shit!
With each new decade you are it!
More refined.
It’s all a trade-off:
Seeing time and what it’s made of:
Pain’s long trip from breath to breath
Where something ‘fab’ awaits.
©
But Now You’re Seventy 98.2.16Circling Round Woman; I Is Always You Is We; Birth, Death & In Between;
Time; Special People, Special Occasions; Circling Round Vanities; Circling Round Wrinkles;
Arlene Corwin
10 Jan 2009 Leave a comment
in 1997, circling round nature, circling round time, circling round vanities, circling round woman, circling round wrinkles, I Is Always You is We Tags: 1997, circling round nature, circling round time, circling round vanities, circling round wrinkles, circlng round woman, I Is Always You is We
Everything Gets Old
Oh, those lips, they were lovely.
The outline firm, the bottom lip full;
The skin itself crack-free,
The color like roses, or wine that you mull
With cinnamon stick from a kiss someone stole.
The corners went naturally up and a little bit out
So that lipstick could follow the contours
Without any effort or pretence at pout.
Oh, those lips! They were mine,
And I took them for granted:
The moisture, the shine,
The smoothness, the wrinkle-less upper lip line.
Foolish girl that I was!
If I knew what I know –
That all beauty must go –
I’d have gazed at them at them just that little bit longer;
Exercised muscles to make their tone stronger.
Something –
Done something!
But what did I do?
Nothing! The youth and the dew
And the rosy pink hue –
Well, I hadn’t a clue.
I blew away kisses and suitors alike,
Never dreaming that loveliness ends. Now the night
Of maturity, autumn, – the older years call;
And I feel just a little bit sad for neglect
Of the gifts that I scarcely acknowledged at all.
©
Everything Gets Old 1.19.1997
08 Jan 2009 Leave a comment
in 1994, birth death & in between, circling round nature, circling round time, circling round vanities, circling round woman, circling round wrinkles, pure nakedness Tags: 1994, birth death & in between, circlig round vanities, circling round time, circling round wrinkles, circlng round woman, pure nakedness
It’ll pass, but sixty’s almost here upon me,
Brand-new set of clothes to don me.
In my heart, my mind, my soul
I keep expanding, never landing.
Never standing still, rising
Even as the tissues wizen.
Even as each sense descends
Going crying, toward its ending.
Old gets older. Who feels well?
Heart in heaven, form in hell.
No more five before the digit,
Bones more rigid,
Tendons stiff or fidgety.
Hormone, ‘old reliable’
Has ceased to gel.
The spell of age divides the cell.
Sixty years have taken hold,
The smooth begun to fold,
Shine lose its gold:
Skin, shape, the easy movement;
Lust subsiding – one improvement;
Pain free days, nights fully slept
Now kept at bay. Old normal pep
No longer taken (as in granted);
One can waken half past three –
A pain, an ache and forced to pee,
Flee down the stairs like frightened hares
In nightened mares.
Yet, midst the fading flare
I want to see how sixties fare.
It’s possible there’s something there.
Pure Nakedness; Time; Circling Round Wrinkles;
Circling Round Vanities;
Arlene Corwin
Arlene Corwin Poetry 