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

This may be the first poem of my next book to be called “Circling Around Ageing” - a subject that applies to all: each and every.

   The Aim Of Living

The Thinning Skin Or, I Never Stopped To Think

I Do Not Read, I Write

I do not read, I write!
It’s like the principle of jazz:
A theme expanded single-handed
With no benefit in sight.
And with no benefit in sight
I carry on this inborn rite
With pronoun “i” seemingly right.

Not egotistical
But leaning towards the universal,
For we all are “I” behind the eye,
Its goal, the “i” up in the sky,
And  what I write mid-day or night
Comes from a seeded, seeding thought
So pressing it demands first place,
Computer space
All but ignoring those who think,
Getting their peace by pen and ink.

Others do what they do do:
Jogging, menu-ing or chewing
It’s the inward pleasured *******
Pushing unavoidably
As recreation, situation notwithstanding.

Thus I write but do not read!
(i lie, but need to boast)
Of course I read the most I can,
Loving the words of child and man)

It’s just that sitting in this sun,
Pen, paper handy, gives one
Stimulation, motivation, means and - fun.

I Do Not Read, I Write 10.18.2020 A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Arlene Nover Corwin

A quick look at the world around and you understand the theme.      

    Issue: Change

How can one progress
From feeling ****** to slaphappy,
Sourpuss to silly goose.
Powerless, to one empowered
In a second or an hour,
Humdrum life humming along
Where nothing can go wrong,
Cause/effect singing its song.

The laws of life inscrutable.
The only thing assurable is change.
Its mysteries whose histories
Can, one day to the next,
Both enter, exit,
Borders touching or contiguous.
So strange!

As planets move in rings of space,
Galaxies and stars their place,
All you need’s a straight kept face,
Knowing that you absolutely can't erase
An earthly thing.

Change will happen as it will.
It’s just for you to act with inner stillness,
Taking in and on what happens,
To convert it all to happiness.

Issue: Change 2.23.2020; Circling Round Experience; Circling Round Reality; Nature Of & In Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin

Reflecting again and taking note.  Kisses, Arlene

It's the' little plastic brain' that keeps coming up with endless ideas, inspiring and producing. In fact, it seems to me that it is becoming deeper, more creative and bolder. Everything inspires me!

Everything Inspires
Everything a source;
Every little thing an inspiration.
Got a compliment today.
Mind raced, computer handy -
Boom, I’m here
Scribbling away.
(well typing anyway).
Now I must go away,
The day still light,
To use this body for its sake.
Pushing age, delaying ache
Until my tired hands come back
To what, I do not know -
Not yet.
You bet it will be something.
Everything Inspires 8.15.2020 The Processes: Creative,Thinking, Meditative II; Circling round Everything II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

No Idea Comes Out Of A Vacuum #2
(When I Say I, I Mean You Too)

I was discussing this phenomenon with a friend. Then, coincidentally, I found this on Duanespoetree.com (a great site, by the way) today. Like many of my 4,000 poems, I'd forgotten all about it. Suddenly, it seemed awfully relevant.

      I DON'T THINK I WANT FAME

It’s Suddenly ’In’

We’ve had to wait until it’s ‘in’.
Why must we wait
Until it’s late…too late
To get the message to not care
About the skin -
NOT be aware,
Period.
It is absurd
That grisly ******
Must take place
Before we register the obvious:
Oblivious to face, to race
Without excuse or cause
Or any justifying basis.
Unattached indifference once expressed,
The chief compensation and success.

If evil has its origin in ethics and morality,
Dis-pathy (I made that up)
Vile, injurious;
Stinking, *****, ruinous
Where  all rejecting ‘-o u s’
Are harmful in the end,
Then hatred of the pigment
Leads the trend.
Mindless hatred, mindless rage:
It it to represent our age?

In any case, I’ll join the group
Of ‘hoopdehoopers.’
Silently, I’ll  do my bit,
Writing a little,
Saying to the world, “i love you all”.
Even if I too,
Have miles to go.

It’s Suddenly ‘In’…6.19.2020 Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Nover Corwin

It’s Your Decision

It’s your decision, right or wrong.
You go along without dimensions of an understanding,
Ever standing under instinct.
Moment’s instinct driven by and based in sync-
With genes, upbringing, circumstance:
All of these the dance of life
That will forever lead and follow.

Your decision, every moment.
Your voice, your choice,
You the instrument but not the cause.
Who knows what the sources are?
“It’s in the stars”, as often said.
And yet, what’s in your head
Is there,
The leader/seer,
Atmosphere and backdrop notwithstanding.

It’s your decision, yes and no.
You can decide to let it go
If time is wrong or intuition’s song
Is sensing that the time is wrong.
Impulse in life’s small complexities
Paradoxes.

Is the will free as a bird - or burden?
You decide!

It’s Your Decision 11.29.2020 Nature in & Of Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin

I was reading Jazz Wax (a great site written by Marc Myers: highly recommended) where he was telling me that two of the ‘famous’ clubs I worked in in New York were ‘long gone’. I thought ‘long gone’ was a perfect title and so set immediately to work. This may not be the best of poetry. It only took me 20 minutes or so. But I like it anyway.

LONG GONE

An Urge Is Not A Wish

I have no wish to write.
It is an urge I can’t resist,
And so,
Not only do I not desist -
Not slowing down, but speeding up,
The whole accelerating,
It invigorating,
I encourage this particular urge large!
(syntax queer, I’m aware.
rhyme peculiar, but it’s there!)

An urge more subtle than a wish,
Ranging from the brush to flesh.
I urge you all to keep the wish,
Examine urge.
If good to let it surge,
Become an act that serves,
I wish the very best for you.

An Urge Is Not A Wish 12.11.2020 A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Arlene Nover Corwin

To all my cynical, fear-filled, skeptical friends.  And all the others, whatever variety of category you find yourself in.
Love,
Arlene

How Can I Resist You?  
(based on a true story - as they say in films)

“How can I resist you?
Says the husband to the wife.
You are the treasure of my life.
I can’t desist.”
“How can I ignore the body next to me?
A body that I love to watch and love to see,”
Says the husband tenderly.
After many years of nights together,
Days deciding whether such and such is right;
For him the very sight of her
Excites his eagerness to please,
Put her at ease
In any way he can.
There is no plan,
Just following the fancy of the moment.
“Will it be potatoes, eggs or rice?!
Without thinking twice,
The meal a catalyst
Anything can taste as nice
When fancy’s fantasy takes part,
The mind and heart allied.
For both of them, no whim or hunger is denied,
Including pride in what the other realizes and attains.

How Can I Resist You? 5.23.2020 Love Relationships; Circling Round Eros II; Arlene Nover Corwin

How Quick It Goes

How quick it goes to eighty-six!
(Excuse the grammar, deviation its deluxe,)
When rhymes delight
Their author in a wakeful night.)
How quick it went, how quickly gone;
The present sent each second on.
Went, sent, lent from heaven
Both to time and human.
Quick is this phenomenon!

How Quick It Goes 1.6.2021 Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

I hope this isn't too terribly abstruse.  These things come into my head and I can't let go:      Words To Love

Karma:
What a charmer!
A main player by design
Being hard-defined,
A simple overlap of layers
Is this karma’s nature.

Karma:
Panoramic drama;
Kernel of the daily
And  eternal of the kernel;
Methods, messages and meanings
Both external and internal.

Anyone who ’s told of it,
Grabs the bit, takes hold of it,
Doesn’t quit, yearning to learn more of it,
Is one, who burning, benefits.

Karma:
One, two, three: Cause, effect and destiny.
Four and five: Work and motive.
Pure intentions lead to good,
Flawed intentions lead to bad.
What you do in moments
Is a fragment of the morrow
And a judgement of the future.

Karma is the deed, the work, the action.
It’s both principle and law.
It says, actions make a difference,
Every feature of significance
With outcome and reverberation.

Karma is the causal chain
Encapsulated in your very own
Synaptic brain.

Words To Love 5.18.2020 The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

I  just came across this, a poem which I had completely forgotten, having rather recently written another poem about beards (as well as tattoos). And even one before that in yet another year.  Gosh!  I guess I must have stronger anti-beard feelings than I am aware of.
Anyway, it's quite good, so I'm re-presenting it.  Comments of all kinds are welcome!😍🙋‍♀️🤩
       The Men In Sweden…🤔
The men in Sweden and elsewhere
Are looking older than they are
With whiskers, stubble, ****** hair
Of every kind.
Beards, moustaches find their place
On almost every male face
These days.
I’ve bet you’ve never heard
Of pogonophobia. A funny word
That means a fear of beards and beard!
Yes, there are such mental health conditions.
So I ask, why hide the manly jaw or chin.
A chin that’s manly out and in.
I fancy ego based on fear,
Vanity that’s always there.
Affectation, ostentation, airs and show -
All the traits that go along
With fear of judgment and rejection.
Don’t they know it’s all illusion,
And the only thing that matters
Is completion of the heart and mind
That shatters all?
Finding out who, what you are
And working to complete it.
If you’re twenty-one or two,
What can beat it?
If you’ve got a double, triple chin or none,
An open face is wonderfully
To be preferred.
Lose the beard
And keep the face.
You are a much loved member of the race -
The human…
Besides, a naked face is best to kiss!
What person would not favour this?
Shaved and clean is what I mean!
I mean a face that’s smooth and clean.
Dear men, don’t hide
The face inside.
Nature’s pride is there to share
With those who at the moment stare
And wish that there was someone daring ‘nough
To face the world un-twirled, un-curled,
And wholly, perfectly unfurled.
The Men In Sweden 9.8.2018 A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Circling Round Vanities II; Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Partners In Rhyme✍️

This is a standing consideration of mine:

Detachment

I only wish that I were smarter.
Smarter is a starter
That can help in dealing with a matter;
Bring awareness to the whole.
(be it bowl or foal or jowl or vowel).

Yet I’m smart enough to roll  
Around inside my head
Things read, things said -
And without knowing where I‘m going,
Using synthesis and heart,
Get to some conclusion
I’d no inkling at the start.

With detachment
But not distant or aloof,
It becomes a state where mind dictates
With fairness, and then, ****!
Seeing sides that I’d not guessed were there,
There they are, staring me right in the face,
The space filled with but one desire:
To write an excellent poem!

Using homely word formation,
Something in me tackling issues
From the street talk of my childhood station.
To cues taken the abstruseness.

With the first idea a preconception,
And a gift for self-reflection.
It’s a doubly living counterpart:
One not-really-smart facade  
Echoing the outside bard,
And one that always  looks inside
And finds a chord
That’s fresh and new (or one or two).
A movement of improvement.

Being cool is part
Of being smart.
A clue
To an innate IQ
That doesn’t always show
Until you grow into it.

Detachment 7.19.2020 Definitely Didactic II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Hello!  

When I Was, So Long Ago

When I was young I thought that fame, the famous
Was and were to aim at:
Constant, stable, durable and permanent.
Never dreamed fame came and went.

At the end of Grable* films,
The musicals in Technicolor
Leading ladies got the part
They thought they’d never get;
The men they disliked at film’s start
Became ‘the one’,
Love, applause and confirmation!

illusion, fantasy, appearance, dream!
Any/all the synonym.
Yet the young are out there
Sharing all the four above.
Five years later most shoved aside,

The false dream but delusion,
Forced by fame’s real pain,
Groom, bride divorced
To glide into a normal trade.

When one is new and in-the-making,
Ipod, tv, thousand apps,
Mental processes taken over
By the ‘happenings’ competing for
This so-called glory, popularity and stardom -
Oh, my goodness, time will come
When what and who
Is young and new
Will have, like me, a ‘long ago’
To refer to.  Then they’ll know.
Like me, they’ll know.

When I Was. So Long Ago 11.21.2019
Circling Round Ageing; Circling Round Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin

*Look up Betty Grable

I noticed how people argue, and how what should be a win-win situation often goes off the rails.  I got me to thinking...

Yup!

     The World Is Full Of Words✍️

To Only Deal With What You’ve Got

To only deal with what you’ve got,
Not what you had,
And seldom think one step ahead,
That is the art.

To start each day
With not a hope that it will stay,
But use each sense of consciousness
With might and care:
Sight, smell, touch, taste, aware
As second authorises.

Seconds shrink to nano-points,
Muscles, joints awaken
For the sake of mind and spirit.
To give in to mind lets spirit grow,
For mind knows that you’re doing right;
Doing what you’re meant to,
Sure of what you’re meant to
Nano-hour by nano-hour;
Pure and purer, power by power.

To only deal with what you’ve got,
With what’s been handed
Where you’ve landed
Is the license of consent
To the whole science
Of existence.

To Only Deal With What You’ve Got 6.30.2020 Circling Round Experience;  Circling Round Existence II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Talking To The Brain

I sometimes take the initiative
Taking, talking to the brain,
As if it were a representative
Of good and God, silent, present.

With no answers, no response,
I know each synapse is no dunce,
Transmitting neurons no morons
But batteried intelligence.
I’ve no solutions, but It has: Brain jazz!
And so I trust, with each new thought,
Each new idea, impulse or not
That something in the mono-ation’s conversation
Is productive, non-destructive.

With analysis, this mono-business
Is an enterprise filled with surprises;
Answers come each in their kind,
Blindly showing up in weeks, months, days
In ways I scarcely recognize:

Answers to a thought once prized,
I do not intellectualize
But go on with the one-on-one,
Knowing that it’s being processed
By some clever chemi-physicist
Up in-the-skies.

Talking To The Brain 10.22.2020 The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II;  Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

It’s So Much Easier To Say Yes

You Can’t Beat A Book✍️

Self-Doubt

I sometimes wonder, try to picture
Men like Mr Trump, sitting on the ‘loo’ or ‘john’
For really, he is one
                               of us - just human,
Doing what we humans do.
I wonder he’s ever plain unsure,
Plain insecure.
I wonder if he has self-doubt.

Sceptical about ideas that come to mind,
Understanding that the mind can find
The craziest of thoughts to think.
Myself, I waver, do not savour every Corwin blink.

And here we have men of the hour,
Men with power
Postures, faces, hands and fingers
Giving out their unsound signals,
Accusations unconditional, wholesale and total.
Do they never have self-doubt,
When I the lowly writing poet
Try to deepen virtues that I am without?
Analyse and question
Layers, sides unseen?
Look for ways to harmonise the pieces and the one,?
Smooth out the rougher parts
While at the same time being soft at heart,
Broad and kind, well defined
Wise and well-informed in mind?

Self-confidence has bits that disavow self doubt.
To learn to recognise, discern the two
Is good to do,
Of value to
Your future
And by definition,
Everyone’s.

loo, john are English slang for toilet.
Self-Doubt 10.2.2020 Our Times, Our Culture II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

( I was not sure if You Can Be Sure Made it to print, so here it is again if it didn't the first time).

I’ve decided to respond to those who sweetly ask how to write a poem.  I’m not the best.  There is no best.  Arrest your own particular talent and bring it to its crest.

         You Can Be Sure

A Reader Commented

“it can get repetitious
When you write about the brain.
The same refrain again, again.”
I answered:
“Variations on a theme, that’s all it is.
Not repetitious, but delicious."

With so many things that need attention.
Variations in an endless fund,
The emphasis on fun and essence…
But just now I am in body mode,
Brain unfolding
Undercurrents sensed and flowing
In a stream of consciousness
That feel almost blessed
Because I don’t know where they're coming from,
Not really.

What I do know is, there is a train:
Ideas starting in the brain
And through the hand,
Their end a piece of paper,
As if life was cutting some sweet caper,
In the art of understanding.

A Reader Commented 7.20.2020 The Processes: Creative,Thinking, Mediative II; Arlene Nover Corwin

The Things We Take For Granted

The tastes and that we taste,
The smell and that we smell.
The sight and sights themselves;
The fact of silence, how it feels.
And touch?
Is velvet like our bristly toothbrush?
How asleep we are
Though eyes are open.
Who is it, that real person
Inside you?
And who is you?

The Things We Take for Granted 11.15.2020 A Sense Of The Ridiculous II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Note: I could have called this “Some Things We Take For Granted”, for I well understand the limitless extent of what we do not think about or notice. But as one who has lost the sense of taste and smell, who has had fingers amputated due to sepsis, I know and am beginning to deeply understand the before and after of what it means to 'take for granted'.

Two Looks At The First Reality
       (or What or Who creates it all)

Depending on one’s leanings,
And assuming one is interested,
I, myself am all-enthralled
By themes self-vested in.

One view is that Reality, the Primary
Is really One, without a sun - just one Entirety.
The second is the same Supreme
With arms, legs, body, plus an aim;
One which we address by name.
Who often spotlights sin and blame
But calls on us to love our neighbour -
Finely tuned through daily labor.

I find I prefer the former:
One which says that causes good in motive, act
Result in good-ness as a fact;
And causes whose intents are wrong
Though mind is rational and sharp
Will end in ends that taint and warp.

Each theory is complementary.
Depending on how you are born
(with preferences pre-natally ‘learned’)
You can arrive one early morn
At one with It-The-Energy,
Free from all impurity.

These little stanzas simplify
A lifelong try
At transformation.
Drawing on our *******-up best
At wrestling with the gifts and mess
We’re born to guest.

Two Looks At The First Reality 6.7.2020 Circling Round Reality; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Feeling frisky!  I love this!

The World’s Best Lovers

Musing on a thing I know,
A thing I know a thing about,
The trick is not to mention names.
Think: name unknown - the names anon.
The traits are what illuminate;
When it becomes an education:
Theory to academic and didactic;
Not the least bit pornographic
(even graphic, for that matter.)

Mr X climbs into bed with Ms XY.
No sly ardor but good will,
They lie quite still.
A good beginning and an intro.
No big ego runs the show.
Start is slow, no expectations.
With no goal, the ***’ awakens.
One is passive, one is not.

Cool and hot, yin and yang,
One receiver, one with spring.
This can vary in the doing,
Cupid’s arrows, sightless, blind,
Innocence and eros blend.
The tactile governs.
Thigh to thigh, hand on hand,
Eye to eye, and, and, and…and

A motion, whispered groan;
Skin on skin, the moans begin.
Step by step and far from finished,
Visual, olfactory, the beating heart,
The swelling heat, the two best lovers taking part,
A start, an end, two friends united in
Spontaneous combustion
(which they say cannot be found,
but silent causes can resound.)
In any case, all ceased and feasted,
Lovers rise. A second breakfast.
Lovers who have had the most -
Juice and oatmeal, buttered toast…

The World’s Best Lovers 11.21.2020 Circling Round Eros; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Asking For Monies

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,  we have the permanently
                                            same inside,
The rest a mutable: ephemeral
And seldom in the know
Things come and go
As quickly as they do.

Things Come & Go 2.4.2020 Birth, Death & In Between III; Arlene Nover Corwin

Perfect

I thought for years t’was no such thing,
Believing in the ongoing of everything.
I now believe quite differently.
Fast or slow, the mind in Now.
Testing my discovery.

Details count, perhaps the most.
Every detail is its moment.
Thoughtful practice - years, perhaps.
It all becomes a lapse-less care
Combined with skilled improvisation.

Like the movement in a symphony,
The stanza in a poem:
Complete within itself,
Each segment but a leading
To the next and next
Until the text and form
Feel finished, polished: done.

To do it is the privilege,
To carry on the duty
To reach it is the satisfaction.
(perfectio; the Latin for completion.)

Perfect 7.19.2020 The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Mediative II; Definitely Didactic II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Ego

I am ego.
You cannot survive without me;
I can help you give, by helping give you
Your identity.
I help you know yourself
So, do not **** me off
But know when I am there
Giving orders
When I ought to be sub-ordinate.
I am ego - not I AM.

Ego 11.12.2020 I Is always You Is We; Arlene Nover Corwin

Just finished tinkering with this old thing from 2013 (editing my "Swedish Book")        
          Mister Cause

This started personally, turned philosophical, then existential (or vice versa) but ended with the current pandemic!  
Fondly, Arlene
The Benefits Of…Having Been, Becoming, Being
Once you have been comatose,
Been handicapped, come home and started life.
There is no pre-supposing.  
It’s a door.
You pay attention so much more.
You notice other’s posture,
Belly, maturation, stature.
On yourself and on the other -
And say nothing.  
Judgement gone
It’s but to carry on.
All mankind is afflicted.

You are functions and non-functions:
Need to buy a button-hole-der, buttoner (they do exist!)
Set in motion one more ‘trick’ or sleight of hand;
Leave the left, to write with right
Hold the knife without self-wound.
When standing up to feel heel first,
Be wary when foot's bare, ground's wet.

Yet, what you notice even more’s, the gifted
And the giving, all the love around,
The boundless care
When your own hair is falling.
People are so kind,
So hard defined.

As for every passing day.
Creative in its way,
With pandemonium’s pandemic,
You now frolic in the kitchen,
Train and try new, fewer gimmicks,
Mimicry from TV inspiration one's own new found brick.

Oh, the things you learn from having been.
Most of all, that you remain.

British informal, dated a generous, helpful, and reliable person: ‘You are really a brick,’ Gloria said.

Dear Diary #1

Dear diary,
I’m getting oh so clever.
Washed my hair,
Took a bath and clipped my toenails
Scraped and shaped the cuticles.
Tiny miracles indeed:
Tiny miracles in need.
Tracking down these daily wonders,
Dealing with the ‘going under’
May become a daily task,
Inspire the rascals to desist:
Rascal stiffness and discomfort,
Rascal bother, pain and strain.

Simple rhymes to rule the roost,
Give my warmed-up self a boost;
Easier to jot, oppose the rot of
Mind and hand,
A brand name for the ones who can’t.
Amputees.comPensate.
(Any dot you can create).

Dear Diary12.7.2020 Pure Nakedness II; Arlene Nover Corwin

A Really Silly Moment

I get so bored when I can’t write.
It feels so wrong when I don’t write.
(Get it?. Write, wrong?) ****! Ding ****!
Among the songs I’ve ever sung
(I am a singer, after all)
The throng that’s hung around
That sound like music in my head,
The syllables that bubble forth,
A babble like a gaggle of slim glossy geese -
(Not the least bit schmalz obese
And definitely not for roasting)
On this shoestring of a playful thread
(Line six to see the rhyme to ‘head’
This poet (me)
Is off to see awful TV.
Anyway I’ve had my ‘fix’
Of perky, quirky tricks today.

A Really Silly Moment 12.1.2020 A Sense Of the Ridiculous II; Arlene Nover Corwin

Signs Of Maturation
   (Or, You Don’t Need A High IQ)

I notice time and time again
I’m not the smartest on the block.
And yet, and yet,  
My art is smarter than the poppycock
Set down by others.

Trying to avoid cliches, banalities;
Striving to go deep; concrete
As every Brooklyn street I walked,
I still fall into traps of slickness,
Fear revealing cowardice.

Then pluck returns, turning
Weakling into un-concealing
Rhyme & meter, candor, frankness,
Frightened youth turned madame Truth:
Nakedness, no underwear, aware, yet baring all:

I try to use a thoughtful wording:
Criticize an oversized dictator;
Cruelty, unfairness, ******,
Herding reader into paths that further,
To the murkiness which lurks in secret.

Paradoxically, and never knowing what to say
Until I’ve said it, concepts, insights coming out
From God-knows-where, I let it shout.
Draft by draft, refining, re-defining,
A conclusion whispers, “That’s enough!”
It isn’t tough.  I stop.
And hope
           I’ve reached you.

Signs Of Maturation 9.5.2020 Pure Nakedness; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

Married, unmarried, with children, without - this reaches out for all in one or other .

      There Are Daughters, Sons

There is a daughter and a son
One or more to almost everyone.
And when we’re gone
We want to leave a sign
That we were here.
A legacy, a benefaction
Some provision
Carried to a future, a hereafter
With a memory or memories
That we were here,
The seed in us that brought them where
They are right now.

Some symbol
In a form tactile;
Visual (a picture, books)
Aural (music)
Journals, diaries or cash.
Reminders in moments of flashback.

We love our progeny,
We think of them as prodigies,
Love so miraculous and strange.
Phenomenon we cannot, would not change
For all the tea in China.

Read this, sons and daughters;
Be respecters, benefactors of your own
To carry on and far beyond
The life on loan.

There Are Daughters, Sons 2.26.2020 Love Relationships II; Arlene Nover Corwin

To Jonathan & Jennifer

At  this time, Wednesday, November 4th, 2020 5pm Swedish time, still glued to the TV, not knowing yet who’s in! This was written in October.

               Self-Doubt

I sometimes wonder, try to picture
Men like Mr Trump, sitting on the ‘loo’ or ‘john’
For really, he is one
                               of us - just human,
Doing what we humans do.

I wonder if he’s ever plain unsure,
Plain insecure.
I wonder if he has self-doubt.
Skeptical about ideas that come to mind,
Understanding that the mind can find
The craziest of thoughts to think.

Myself, I waver, do not savour every Corwin blink.

And here we have men of the hour,
Men with power
Posturing with face, hand, fingers
Giving out their unsound signals;
Accusations unconditional;
Wholesale and total.
Do they never have self-doubt
When I, the lowly writing poet
Try to deepen virtues that I am without?
I, who analyse and question sides unseen?
Seeking ways to harmonise the pieces and the one,
Smooth out the rougher parts
While at the same time being soft at heart,
Broad, kind and well defined,
Wise and well-informed in mind?

Self-confidence dissolves self-doubt.
To recognize, discern the two Is good to do,
Good for you, of value to your future                
And by definition,
Everyone’s.

loo, john are English slang for toilet.
Self-Doubt 10.2.2020 Our Times, Our Culture II; Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover Corwin

When I read this to my husband, no, discussed the thank theory, he mentioned a whole list of things I would never think of…sun, nature, family, friends, sky (not in that order) and I realised more than ever, it’s all about priorities and whatever takes first place in your mind and heart.
       I suppose as long as you feel a thanks at all, that is the essential, for so much of life is suffering.

                Thanks

Thanks for the consciousness
Of vitamins
And maintenance
Of health;
Things keeping me alive
At eighty-five.
We will not mention the mistakes
Made out of ignorance
And vanities.
But anyways,
Thanks for the consciousness,
However small,
Of learning concepts:
Words that smell of wrongdoings and weaknesses
That lead to nothing gained
                                          and pain.
Thanks for brain, mind, love,
The mysteries shaped from above
Revealing selves from day to day:
Gifts, middling or developed, held up;
Musicality, culinary, long-time waiting;
Gifts from genes and fate
For which one can’t claim credit.

But with gifts come debit:
Karmic debts that must be paid from insight,
Dis- illusion, self-deceptive strengths and loss
Of will and energy to toss them out,
Swapping every wrong for right.
Thanks for seeing through the scrap, the traps
To late night insights.

Thanks for indispensables at fingertips:
Food, clothes, warmth, which list goes on
An endless on and on:..
The value of philosophy - of having one;
Of having fun, but seeing through it.
Thanks for/to the comfy bed I’m lying on,
The pillowed back support for writing from,
The little knowledge in this bank, this little think tank;
For this writing - Thanks!
And Thanks!
Thanks 3.6.2020/edited 12.8.2020 Pure Nakedness II; Circling Round The Universal; Arlene Nover Corwin

Something Always Tips The Scales

It is, will always be:
Something tips the scales.  You die.
We read, we see that most who pass away, I.e.
The older in society
From virus in modernity, contemporary
(virus C so anti-trendy);
Those with underlying illnesses, sepsis, so on,
Ills potential, known, un-shown.

Life’s end always has a cause,
The time between your birth and death but pause;
It’s no surprise: sunrise to -set,
Scarce discussed but always met.

Death comes at will;
Lying still or sitting, walking,
Making fervent love or talking,
Even taking food and such,
The unavoidable the touch of fate.

Corona’s crown, not crown but ‘downer’
(see corona’s origin: medieval Latin word for crown)

Starvation, war, lopsided Nature,
Technology and fire, water…
And the vices - greed and anger,
Traits unconquered…
Slowly building wind in sails
To some finality
That tips the scales.
Something Always Tips The Scales 3.10.2020 Our Times, Our Culture; Nature Of & In Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin

Thank you Kent for spouting out the suggestive phrase ‘up above the clouds’.      
       Up Above The Clouds

You never think
That up above the clouds
Sun blazes.
Though we know it’s dazzles,
We so easily forget
When day is dark and wet.

(Today is one such day,
As I sit typing ‘way
Shrouded by the dismal cloud outdoors.

Ah well, one manages to execute
The tasks that one might skip
If day was dipped in dripping sunbeams.

As the pearl of wisdom goes,
“Be thankful for small blessings”,
For who knows
How many unknown pains
Might be there without rains
As we engage is climate change.

And whomsoever dares complain
(As I have done this soggy day)
Does not deserve a foggy day
Like this specific sun-less Friday
When the future prophesizes ocean’s rise
And parched, infertile, ‘fry’ days.

Up Above The Clouds 2.7.2020 Circling Round Nature II; Our Times, Our Culture II; rewritten 5.2.2020/revised5.24.2020 Arlene Nover Corwin