It isn't often I write wholly optimist poetry, BUT today was one!
        Lucky Days

On Facebook

Gladdened and astonished
At the countries that are reached
By writing simple verse;
That old and young
Whose native tongue
Is manifestly not the English one,
One’s filled with admiration.

We should all be grateful
If, by easy clicks we set a ball a-rolling,
Sharing, seeing commonality
In all humanity.
My tears, fears theirs or bared,
My hopes, the insights, all I’ve earned
Shared, learned by all the yearning, scared globality.

Wars come and go.
But flows of longing, kindness, information
Are the highest trophies reaching nation
After nation
From this windy, rainy Swedish morn.

Inspired, un-tired and breakfasted,
Looking forward to the Mac,
Face-booking, and the fact
That there will be somebody out there
Somewhere in Antarctica, Australia, Africa or Papua…
Who will be made the happier by stanza,
Or plain utterance .  

On Facebook 11.2.2020 Our Times, Our Culture II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

The Love Of Money

This was sparked off by watching a documentary last night on Leonard Cohen & Marianne both of whom I knew wall when I lived in Hydra.      

    The Goal

There are those who can’t
And those who can
Become what’s called ‘a family man’.
Those who must live solitary.
Those who must have friends a-plenty:
Women, chums, amusements, ***;
Many current, many -ex.

There are those who roam the earth
Without a faith,
Looking, looking, never finding,..
Never binding self to one:
Finding none.

Those who run and those who search;
World-weary urchins*
Existentially un-gladdened, burdened,
Mightily or slightly saddened.

No one thing that’s best for all,
No inner voice, choice, norm of form;
Then, waking one day to a call,
It settles all.

Rising, falling with a grin,
Settling in to nature’s cycles,
Sizing up the grand delusion,
Each day’s challenging illusion.

Inner joy reflecting off a shining face
Now well defined and more refined,
They help without a conscious motive,
Simply by a way of living.

In order to find inner peace,
“Know yourself”, said Socrates.
Where under decrease hides increase
Which then in turn feeds happiness -
The ultimate in goals that please.

The happiness infectiousness,
Is  virus kissed and truly blessed.
Conclusion from this authoress:
“They’re not all baddies I would guess.”

A Reference to Noel Coward’s song “World-Weary” (1928)
The Goal 2.29.2020 Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Hello everyone on this January 3rd! Lend an ear

This was written for a teeny tiny contest offered on Facebook.  It offered no reward, no money was asked for.  It was just a teeny tiny contest that had one rule: no more than four line each which could have no more than 10 words.  Theme: Truthfulness.  A cute challenge, we’ll see how it went.  It only took 11 minutes.
            Truthfulness

Tychism*the doctrine that account must be taken of the element of chance in reasoning or explanation of the universe.

         Cause vs Chance & Chaos
                  (an intro into…)

Nothing winds up accidentally,
Nothing is an accident
An arithmetic; from some all-hidden source.
A mathematic not yet solved, but real nonetheless,
With causes, laws that do not pause
On earth and in the universe.

The chases, choices
Numberless conditions
With their endless combinations
Make for every present moment.

Causes vs Chance & Chaos 6.17.2020 Circling Round Reality; Circling Round Experience: Arlene Nover Corwin

I was watching my beloved Kent sanding a lamppost he'd just put up outside.  The day was warm, the light was just right and there I sat noticing what a fine head he had...      

                 Love

Everyone Must Do What They Were Born To Do

Everyone must do what they were born to do,
Obeying inner tendencies.
Laws of good and bad in mind,
The chore will always be
To go beneath the impulse
To beyond the false
To true —
Perhaps the new
Inside of you.

The doctor who
Was born to be a farmer,
Who through courses of
Bad choices
Chooses what he does not love
Will always feel dissatisfied
And not know why.

Vocation notwithstanding,
Rules of karma and pure luck,
Without the will to chuck the choice,
The small, small voice that tells you
Who and what you love to do — well, you
Had better listen.
The essential you lies there.

Everyone Must Do What They Were Born To Do 2.25.2021 Revelations Big & Small Arlene Nover Corwin

This is the kind of spontaneous nonsensical thought that shows up out of nowhere.
        
       Beauty’s Tide
      
I watch a certain TV lady;
See her daily.
She has reached the peak of beauty,
But
She doesn't know it.
Doesn’t know because
She doesn’t know its opposite -
Not yet.

Still there are signs to spot:
The thinning hairline;
Traces under eyes when she’s been working hard;
No sign of crepe-y neck.  Not yet.
No jowl-y chin, skin smooth and tight;
No ******* falling;
Waist still small.
One of a certain age can tell.

The menopause that takes no pause -
Facing just the right decade,
Beauty’s manifested light will fade,
But she, her gifts
Will probably not choose facelifts  
Or any kind of lift at all.
Her mind will shine - charisma too.
She will reach out to the ones who view
Until she decides - not to.

Beauty’s Tide 5.3.2020  Circling Round Experience; Circling Round The Ego; Circling Round Vanity II; Circling Round Woman; Arlene Nover Corwin

Being Remembered

I’ve written about doctor care before - two or three poems.  My back is hurting and I don’t know why.  I’ll try once more to find a reason and/or treatment.  

      Just Thinking

Such doubts
About
So many things -
Shadows, bags, those awful rings;
Answers one seems to not get
Concerning age’s yet debated issues,
Thrown around like used up tissues.

Falling hair, backbone hurting -
Here and there uncertainty.
Is it a kidney?  Old or recent?
Every enquiry to be decided
While one feels derailed, derided.

Lots of, loads of telephoning,
Steps before one
                           reaches someone;
No one seems to own or loan a way to ask.
You’re in a casket prematurely,
(which means much too, MUCH TOO soon).

What’s this? Substance and significance?
What, the chances of a cure?
“I’m not sure”, one sometimes hears.
“It’s not my specialty.” The doctor bears
No blame, no shame.
C’est domage!  
The damage does not have a name.

One knows that doctors have great stress.
That they say “Yes, I’ll help”, and try.
Meanwhile one winces, yelps or cries
When pains unknown are thrown up, shown up
To be borne with courage,
Taking age as it will come.
** hum, just thinking.
JustThinking 2.11.2020 Nature Of & In Reality; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Just Plain Old Words

No metaphors, just plain old words:
A bunch to delve, dive into
For contentment’s sake,
Rummaging for further knowledge,
Contemplating, taking
Into cells which in themselves
Have not a gauge
But are a gauge in which to
Fit a language
Which, by some unworldly process,
Influences what we are, what we become
As hours pass,
Floundering and pondering;
Wond’ring at their wondrousness.

Metaphors and other symbols;
Explicating parables;
Simple, concrete; toys to play with,
Stay with day to day
Until their meanings stick.

The mystery
Is how the words,
Compiled, piled up and side by side
Get to be our poetry.
Inscrutably a mystery,
Verily!

It’s easy to believe, receive,
The starting point was Word,
A sound  whose purpose was to spread,
Promote, communicate with,
Circulate mankind.

That he’s not always kind
Is yet another theme
For other times
In other poems
With words in herds
Or one or two
From folk like me to folk like you.

Just Plain Old Words 10.17.2020 The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditating II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Just Another Day…(Or Not?)

You’re Not Alone
                      
You’re down.
Unhappy as a clown
With painted mouth and painted eyes:
A main disguise.
Inside you’re isolated, insulated,
Loveproof, heatproof and cocooned,
Marooned.  Then ****,  
The roof falls in, you’re introduced.
From being ‘down’
You’re not alone.
Propped up and bolstered,
Heartened, fortified and reassured;

I need not say what, where or how.
Certainly not even who.
The thing of import is the ‘that’.
‘That’ you, besotted, mad about
A club,  a hobby, a religion. Stuck
On something you can shout out loud about.
You’ve learned, have known
One need not be alone, not great, not clever.
There is always some one thing to focus on:
Aloneness gone.
Forever.

You’re Not Alone 10.15.2020 Love Relationships II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

She Was A Hippy

She never smoked, never drank,
Never joined a cult or sect.
Her hippiness, her happiness
Found itself in waist length hair,
Patterned tights,
Bra dismissed
And short, short skirts:
Her expression of new freedom.

Fifties beatniks never reached her,
But the sixties found a new awareness
Which addressed her heart,
Unleashed a part she only guessed at;
One which dressed her mind.
Convention could not bind her
As behavior took a shape unstudied,
Natural - hardly touched before.

Maturity without hashish, Rajneesh,
The itch of spirit bringing in a shift in old priorities.
A little bolder, somewhat older;
Hippy of a different sort.
Mother, wife, musician, poet
All and each each supportive
And escorting her some steps to standing,
Understanding and continuance.

She Was A Hippy 3.13.2020 Pure Nakedness II;  Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

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 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

When I write poetry - anything really, I try to express essences of the fiercest kind in a respectful way.  Online is an especially ‘exposed’ medium.  It’s about being honest and detached at the same time.  A hard thing in the easiest of times. When it’s about someone you especially dislike, hate and ferocity have to be handled artistically up front without the hate or ‘ferocity’ standing out.  I assume my readership is an informed one who can draw their own conclusions.  I’m neither adding to nor taking away feelings that are already there.  Just reinforcing...
     Still awake at 5am last night, (coffee too late in the day, I suspect) this  odd idea came spookily into my head.  Scribbled it down in the dark and worked on it, refining and completing it this evening.

                    Mr Trump

Will you die having denied your whole term through
That climate change is factual?
The floods, heat waves, intensive fires,
Melting Arctic, water higher?
Will you keep detaining children behind wires
Never calling, naming it for what it is:
All in the name of business?

Misogynistic haters of the female role,
What kind of deadly symbol is a Mexican?
A woman doing all she can
To have a life as rich as yours,
Who works for peanuts scrubbing floors?
Mr Trump, she cannot hurt a single soul
Except to help the whole.
Instead, you mine for, mine more coal,
Employment a most unsound goal.
We’re all in danger
And you seem to see yourself as guardian angel
Or some kind of Texas ranger.

Mr Trump, you’re on the throne, you’ve got the crown,
A folk has put your name down.
Have you made the world a safer place?
Stopped the race for rule by force?

You’re tough,
But you’ll pass through this bad world soon enough.
What will you leave that’s not been thieved?
I must say, in some way you are a strange one.
One whose legacy, I pray will be a good one.
When we add it up and deed is done
I see you golfing in the sun,
Monetary interests first.
Do you quite understand this thirst?

Mr Trump, I wish you well.
With hope my native USA is not for sale
Or on its way to concrete hell;
That some transcendent hand has planned
To help this land
To interests that will help us all
Before a global fall’s
Upon us.
Mr Trump 1.3.2020  Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Christmas  Face

Looked once again
At the face in the pane.
Lines up, down, long, short.  
More than or…more than before.
Is the mirror telling lies?
Does the looking glass disguise?
Beastly age upon the face
Like an old and rotting carcass.

Rubbed, scrubbed clean in the tub,
With Christmas near, a new New Year,
It needs some makeup.
Careful not to fake,
I thereupon take up the day
Smile away,
And leave the Christmas face to stay.

Christmas Face 12.22.2020 Circling Round Vanities II; Ageing; Wrinkling;  Circling Round Experience; arlene Nover Corwin

Keeping Up

You’ve heard the phrase
“to keep up with the Jones”,
But have you not yet heard of
‘Keeping up with new smart phones’?

Every time I see an ad
There seems to be another fad,
Another model, new technique.
You take a peek.
There’s more finesse, more flourishes,
The whole thing polished…gosh, oh gosh!

Technology, the things I see
Are running way ahead of me
Completely and confusingly.
One’s hazy in the fog of it,
Queasy at the sight of it,
The height of keeping up’’ a drain
On the most brainy of consumers -
For there’s coin involved,
Revolved around.  Who knows?
Consumers - that is us,
Gobbling up and keeping up.

Technology is self-propelling.
Experts telling, sales folk selling.
Where the dickens is this heading?
How far up can ‘up’ go up?
Electronics smaller, stronger,
Slimmed until the skin
Contains the smart phone fitted in,
One more component in the whole.
Will computers gain a soul?

Just a pup
Who can’t keep up.
That’s me.  

Keep up: keep pace, keep abreast, be aware (of developments).

Keeping Up 8.13.2020 Our Times, Our Culture II; A Sense Of The Ridiculous ll; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Once again I’m sending this out to a) friends I’m seldom in touch with, b)  people I only meet on my email site who I suspect are interested or touched by this topic, c) friends who don’t have Facebook or never look at my site Arlene Corwin Poetry both .com and net, d) people I’m fond of who have Facebook but who anyway, I like to keep in personal touch with.  In other words,  all kinds of relationships I want to stay in reach out to.  
      As for the poem, I love it.  (You now how it is with a new baby).  That’s why I’m sending it at all.  Besides which, vanity, ****** makeup or not, affects us all, and we shouldn’t be fooled by it.  It’s not a good thing.

    TRYING TO MANIPULATE VANITY

Sometimes One Needs A Personal God

Once again a mini- wondering has pushed me to the keyboard (not the piano this time).  Three hours have passed and here is the result:

       Can One’s Meditations Influence The World?

Hello!  

You’re welcome to share this usually ignored truth with the world.  And for those spiritually oriented people who think I’ve left out ‘soul - even soul has to take a body before it can function. Otherwise, it’s just up there somewhere in the skies.

Arlene

             Body  

Everybody is a body:
Underneath it all, a body total.
Big or small, broad and ample,
Slight, but never trivial,
Arrival on this planet
Nothing short of miracle;

We’re meant to love it, but without
The pride of vanity,
For we know, vanities
Are valueless,
The body, paradoxically,
A  transiency;  
One could just say,
A moment’s instability.

We’re born to care
And not be fooled by armpit hair,
**** and cheek.
Soon or late all parts are weakened.

Tooled to grow, unroll, unfold:
It is a body, after all.
A million, zillion cells
That only ever wish us well.
Dimply, pimply, faintly smelly.
When each jolly quirk is tallied,
Everybody but a body.

Torsos weak and torsos strong
See us through the whole lifelong;
All of you and all of me.
This solely one and only body.

Body 7.22.2020 Circling Round Nature II; Nature Of & In Reality; Circling Round Experience; 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

Maturity

What was one thinking then?
What was one thinking when
One did the darnedest things
Ringing of naivité.
Or did not do things of substance;
Choices based on ignorance
And make-up’s many-sidedness.

Looking back today
They seemed so brainless,
Some foolhardy, irresponsible and thoughtless.
“How could I?”  And why, you sigh -
Tear-filled eyes the only prize.

Sizing up with clearer powers,
Time has passed, transgressions paid.
New sown flowers replaced errors.
Karma’s laws have laid the end
With just results: some good, some pained.

That’s what growth is all about -
With rings on trees the perfect symbol;
Narrow, wide, but growing still;
Even now (the adjective)
In silence and tranquility (the noun)

The coming of maturity,
The blossoming sagacity.
One hopes and prays
It comes and stays
Through lasting days
           of wine and roses.

Maturity 11.1.2020 Circling Round Ageing; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

The Whole Trinity

We are a brain that has a body,
And a soul that has a brain:
A trinity, foreordained; pre-destined
With design and specificity, tendency
Both dark and light.
What a mixtur-ed mystery!

The most of fixtures:
Cells like batteries,
Organs, hormones, anti-bodies,
Arteries and veins through which red liquid runs
To carry precious oxygen to all the tissues in the body.

What a list to get the gist of!
So encyclopaedic, google doesn’t stand a chance.

Even synapses connecting all the billion bits of detail:
Nerve cells with a tiny gap where particles can mingle.

We are a brain that has a body,
And a soul that has and is the whole,
Examining which you’’ll
Comprehend.

The Whole Trinity 10.18.2020 Nature Of & In Reality; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Still Needing Reminders #2

THE DEFINITIVE BOOK

Everyone Is Asking For Money

Performance Mantra

In answer to those who might not get the hang of it.

Words To Loathe:  -Ism, Dogma

Time and again I wrote of -ism.
(Criticism, witticism doesn’t count)
Coming at the ends of words
-Ism turns to hardened turds,
To be followed by the herds
Who seldom understand a thing
In its entirety.

-Ism makes a word into its specialty.
Takes a system or philosophy
And breaks it down to dogma’s ideology.
There’s always something wrong with dogma.

Dogma says “i’m right, you’re wrong.”
A hackneyed song.
Dogma takes opinion,
Makes it fact, actively
Turning people into minions,
Underlings and servile
To the prominent, the dominant and vile,
Screaming all the while,
Each gosh darned night
“You’re wrong, we’re right!”

Guidance to the prudent:
Don’t become a rodent.
You are you with views original,
Authentic, actual, primordial.
Conventional or not, they are,
And you, an individual -
Undivided and your own.
There is no need to ban or loan,
Prohibit others or exclude.
It’s downright rude, crude,
Not to say, misleading and deluding.

Words to shy away from, fly from:
Words omitting possibility,
Emitting sheer hostility, dishonour and discredit…
Words that say,”We’ve got the secret.”
All those words that separate
The small from great.
Who is to say what’s small, what’s great?
That’s it, the last and little bit!🙋‍♀️

Words To Loathe: -Ism, Dogma 5.21.2020 Words To Love; Arlene Nover Corwin

Seeing God In  Everything

Make it a habit to see God in everything.
To go inside the biologic brain
And train.
The practice simple but not easy
Time and effort: key.

Repetition means repeat;
It also means rehearse.
It has the power to reverse
What feels a curse to grace,
A sense that everything is in your favour,
Savouring its flavour
In Itself a nice affair.  
It needs a run-through every day
Or else the feeling gets away.

It’s hard to not take note of pain
Which comes again, again, again…
A something you can’t comprehend.
The man I live with renders
                                       thanks
Each morning when the body wakes,
Though there is pain he cannot shake.
Perhaps that is the way to solve
A problem unresolvable:
Wait, translate, try to love an obscure It above.

Faith: a puzzle all its own.
A koan. A hurdle.  Complication.
Yet we take on faith coin’s worth;
A sun, moon, star
Which always have been always are…
We trust the unseen power source:
Atoms, protons just because
We know they’re laws.
                    
If one can take a a blind belief
Finding that it gives relief-  
A circumstance wished for
Has been dished up suddenly.
Why not start to practice seeing
God and good in the entirety
                       of your existence,
Giving in without resistance
What comes fleetingly each moment
And what comes fittingly to be!

Seeing God In Everything 2.10.2020  God Book II; Circling Round Reality; The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II;  Circling Round Meditation; Arlene Nover Corwin

Old Is Old

One phenomenon weighs me down:
Humans killing humans -
It a thing that never ages,
Being at the top of sinful wages.

Ebb and tide does not die out,
But we too soon glide from this planet
When we ought to all live out our days
Until the very final phase  
Of nature’s meaning
As was meant in Eden.

Oblivion, as Shakespeare says,
Arrives anon.  In any case,
Soon or late, fate has its voice,
The thing we call free choice erased.

Old is old.
We cannot scold the unpreventable,
Determined and unshakeable,
Regimented by laws born
In every momentary bubble.

Old is simply to observe.
Old is simply to accept.
The script all tightly written.

Old Is Old 5.24.2020/7.18.2020 Birth, Death & In Between III; Circling Round Aging; Circling Round Wrinkles; Nature Of & In Reality; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

What Shall I Call This?

Body: A Chemical Factory

Fascinatingly exciting and perplexing,
Process wondrous:
Neurons, synapses
To shoot off sparkling energy the eye can’t see:
Electricity!  And we,
So lucky there existed a Galvani
And his twitching frogs..

We can measure states of consciousness,
Assess the contents,
Name the highs and lows,
With means to influence
Or understand surprising Wows!
The brain so layered,
Bodies calibrated
For a life of capabilities:

Jokes to coax a smile,
Brawn to run a mile,
Lusts to make a child,
Strength enough to lift a car,
Brains enough to get to Mars.

Body! Such a factory
Of complex, interacting chemistry;
The greatest and the  subtlest mystery
Of species Man.

Body: A Chemical Factory 7.12.2020 Nature Of & In Reality; Circling Round Reality; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Year’s End Poetry

             Moments

It’s always you,
And all you do
Consists of moments:
Breathing, eating, acting and deciding -
Moments, nothing more;
The moment’s store
Become the whole of you
And yet continue.  
Think about it and take care,
Aware of every undertaking.
Brush each tooth for life and death.
Save the earth with each decision.
Leave derision
From,
And to,
And of
The mockers and the Trumps at home.
Each moment is your own.

Moments 12.30.2018 Our Times, Our Culture II; Nature In & Of Reality;  Arlene Nover Corwin

          Lazinesses

Have you ever noticed
How abstract and hard it is
To recognise a laziness;
So sneaky is the quality.
You’re fetching something from the pantry.
Purged a shelf from unused cans,
Pushed a dozen tins aside
When you decide,
“Well, I’ll leave this and that and t’other.
Too much bother!”
So the custard powder stays as is:
Is front just where you didn’t want it.
This means that the new baked beans
Which bought en masse, the price reduced
Are shrouded and obscured - again.
The daily looked-for hard discerned and
Doubly hard to lay one’s hands on.
Laziness has won.

Lazinesses 12.30.2018 Nature In & Of Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin

One Day Before A New Man Comes Through The Door

I was just wondering:
Where are the children Trump detained
In nineteen hundred seventeen,
Or eighteen/nineteen...?
Do they still remain
On floors and mattresses both here and there?
Oh, where, oh where, are they today?
Back home in Mexico to live, laugh, play?
Or here alone in ye olde demos- USA?
One Day Before A New Man Comes Through The Door 1.17.2021 Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Nover Corwin

A Useful Note

The eyes - they’re seeing what they see,
Which at the moment is to watch tv.
The hand is tapping out this poem
Which at the moment is more pastime
Than a paying job or métier.
Each part is doing its small bit
While ‘I’, the ‘I’ behind the eye
Is there with brother/sister mind
And steering, cheering on
Each object that it finds
For concentration and attention;
Each function filled with unction
One can but applaud.
As for we and me inside this head,
We can and ought to spread the joy
From using what the body lead to,
(What felt true and what felt best)
Leaving all the rest
To it and to the whole of you.

A Useful Note 1.30.2021 Definitely Didactic; Arlene Nover Corwin

Do you believe in signs?⏳

What a coincidence!  Just found this:
                The Particles Of God II

The particles of god are falling on my head.
They’re falling on the living, probably the dead;
On believers, non-believers; equal particles they fall –
They’re always falling on and in and through the body wall.

God is particles of oneness.  There are parallels galore.
When the atom showed its kernel and revealed there was more
To meet the eye, a kind of onion-layered door
Was opened there inside the mind as just the metaphor
For simpletons like me;  
God energy,
With big or little G;
Living, knowing particles that have no personality
But which, if I’d clean up my act,
Would mystically reveal the fact
That they, the particles and I, have one identity.

I’m trying to arrange and rearrange my head instead,
Make it more receptive than a means for daily bread –
A conscious sponge, a large receptor,
Image-making faculty a particle collector.

Each impulse must be pure,
For we’re in areas of justice
And the realm of pure reward -
Particles with qualities inherent in our race:
Areas of mercy, all the virtues, love and grace.
I’d rather not involve them - just assume that they exist.
It’s the God without the person that this poem has gently kissed:
Ever-present particles that are the living’s gist.

The Particles Of God 3.26.1994 /10.4.2018/ 2.20.2020 To The Child Mystic; God Book; To The Child Mystic II Arlene Nover Corwin

Found On Backs of Envelopes

Talent helps, but at the end
A chain of forces gives intent
Its form whose links
Are luck and karma,
Perseverance as its armour.

Pushing doggedly against the odds:
Time’s cycles, ups and downs,
Fenced in or pushing back or at
Rejection, vanity, the blocks
Of dailyness-es, laziness-es,
Each a hindrance stealing time.
Yet talent is the ground
Fed by the virtues which turn destinies around.

I’ve had this scrap since twenty four: two thousand four,
Which means it’s been
A household tenant fourteen years,
(I date my scribblings),
Its poetic siblings coming after
Several thousand crafted rhymes.

A lesson here somewhere:
Save bits of paper,
Be they toilet, pamphlet, poster, letter…
Keep each ballpoint you collect -
Guidelines you will not regret
But laud, applaud one day
When someone reads the stuff you’ve had to say
And says “Hurray”!
All from not tossing out the scrap
Or throwing crap away!

Found On Backs Of Envelopes 12.17.2018/revised7.27.2020 A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; The Processes: Creativity, Thinking, Meditative II; Arlene Nover Corwin

This is serious business, series stuff!  I hope it’s not too long to hold your attention. I don’t wish to try your patience.

        Days After: Post Birthday

Things Come & Go

Things come and go:
Lightening bright and sudden
Over in a nano-second.
Dew, its job completed,
Lost in air, evaporated.

Forms diverse;
A shared non-substance: emptiness.
A single thing the ring of truth is that we are illusory.
Still paradoxically,
But for a shape, look, name
We are the permanently same inside;                                    
The rest a mutable ephemeral,
And seldom in the know
That things come and they go
As quickly as they do.
Things Come & Go 6.4.2020 Birth, Death & In Between III; Arlene Nover Corwin

I Like…

It is November 5, 2020, 3 days after the presidential election.  This is perhaps the most unfamiliar poem I’ve ever been impelled to write.

         Let’s Face It or Perhaps He’ll Never See The Point

Let’s face it,
People do not like the Prez.
When I say ‘prez’
I don’t mean Lester (Young).
It’s hard to give support
With head and heart
To one who seems so nar-
                                         cissistic.

Even weak political emotions
Set in motion bitter potions
Of the toxic kind,
Taken over by a mind aggressive:
One usually meek and pleasant.

But this present president
Evokes an ire
Wired by a man who fits the classic liar.
It’s pathetic one’s own character
Is challenged thus;
Burning like infectious pus,
The psyche’s plus turned to a minus.

Here’s a man who wields great power.
Here is we, who yield to anger
Like a stranger in a field of danger
With our only weapon
Ethics, thought, determination.
Hope born of conviction.

Let’s FaceIt 11.5.2020 Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Nover Corwin

I Can’t Tell A Joke, But…

Tonight's a full moon so I thought I'd leave you with this, written in 2003.
Mister Moon Looking In The Window