Kiss From Invisibility
October 15, 2008 by arlenecorwinThe Living Game: Variations On A Theme 1997
January 10, 2009 by arlenecorwin
The Living Game: Variations On A Theme
I’ve written about everything:
Politics, the politic,
Religion, creativity,
Love, the mind’s activity,
Music, art, the self as critic,
Life and death and birth and age,
The accidents of war and rage,
Nature: mushrooms, dogs and cats,
Local mice, the local rats,
Local duck and local lake;
Cheesecake, earthquake, heartache, mistake.
I have even written that
I‘ve written about everything –
And what is the conclusion?
All one’s done is change the name.
Underneath it’s all the same.
If you understand the rule
Of commonness, difference,
Varied theme and cadence,
Then you’ve life within a capsule
And you’ve won the living game.
©
The Living Game: Variations On A Theme 97.10.17Nature Of & In Reality; Circling Round Reality; The Processes:Creative,Thinking, Meditative;
Pure Nakedness; Revelations Big & Small;
Arlene Corwin
Lying On A Hammock Handling Existence 1995
October 23, 2009 by arlenecorwinI make myself an empty ball;
An empty tube, so that the All
Can pass right through; can fill me up –
A couplet speaking oracle,
A sage who hints at miracle,
Mystically receptive, empty,
Dim and sharp, deliberately,
Partly intellectual, partly automatic.
See: a sanded, gardened beach,
A hammock twined ‘twixt fir and birch,
A body, panty clad and glad
To be alive and lying;
Privileged. Sun high in high July;
Wind that’s plying sun and heat.
Sun plus wind -
Body’s pleasure almost sinful.
In an hour, waffles at the neighbors when -
With tiny boat from gardened beach,
We’ll row across the narrow stretch,
Be whip-creamed, waffled, berry-stained,
Coffeed high, this sun-high sky,
Hot day, wind dry: an hour till then.
But now I’m here upon a hammock-
Empty empress, calm inside.
A lake of space winds down the taste for exaltation
Caused by thought and inspiration,
Leaving thought and inspiration
To the masses.
© Lying On A Hammock Handling Existence 7.11.1995 Circling Round Nature; Circling Ropund Reality;
Arlene Corwin
Listen To The Silence 1995
October 23, 2009 by arlenecorwinListen To The Silence
Listen to the silence.
What do you hear?
A plane from far comes nearer,
Overhead, then
Gone again.
No airplane.
Listen.
In your head the ear is ringing.
Nothing’s dead.
A thermostat is going on
Or shutting off:
The click is gone.
Listen carefully,
For in the silence comes the thought
That blocks out hums,
The nineteen-hundred’s omni-sound.
Silence too, is all around.
It feels, it thrives;
For in the hive of thought,
‘Tween cells and pulses there is peace;
No taking in, yet there’s release:
Song without a pulse or wave,
Nothing to achieve,
No system to believe in.
Listen.
©
Listen To The Silence 95.3.22 The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative; Arlene Corwin
Faith Is A Chemical Dynamic 1995
October 23, 2009 by arlenecorwinFaith Is A Chemical Dynamic
Faith is a chemical dynamic
Affecting cells, making them fresh:
(The celestial and flesh)
Not a dogma, cant –
More pledge, a pact;
The brain engrained in wish and want
With roots spread out in waiting
For a door to open wide,
And you a bride inside.
Faith sanctifies.
It unifies.
It systematizes without system,
Sees the thread in things uncommon,
Making fractions into one:
It always gives an added power,
Energy beyond the hour;
Puts a slant on everything,
(Which is its strength and shortcoming.)
You never go beyond its vision,
Never get beyond its zone.
No clever man or master plan
Or great endeavor pulls the lever.
In itself a friendly law,
It is specific to your wishes.
Faith is bound by its tradition.
Nothing great can be erected,
Nothing lasting be affected.
Leave the hills, reach for the stars:
Faith is chemically dynamic.
©
Faith Is A Chemical Dynamic 95.7.17 Nature Of & In Reality; To the Child Mystic;
Arlene Corwin
.
Covering The Arguments 1995
October 23, 2009 by arlenecorwinCovering The Arguments
What does it do
To the personal you
If I blaspheme or blast off?
Do you think that God minds,
Is insulted by minds that are blind?
God is bigger than that.
He laughs at the ill-behaved brat
‘Cause He loves a good joke.
He loves the whole earth
While he waits for us patiently birth after birth.
He’s such a nice bloke
You can talk to Him any which way that you feel:
Feeling is only like smoke.
©Covering The Arguments 95.2.24/05.4.23
A Sense Of The Ridiculous; To The Child Mystic;
Arlene Corwin
All At The Same Time 1995
October 23, 2009 by arlenecorwinAll At The Same Time
I like to start the day with coffee:
Half black power, half au lait,
Turn on the Beeb, begin a poem.
Taking down a favorite tome-
A little read – I clean the bedroom,
Roam downstairs and get involved.
The menu solved, I wipe the floor
Then jump-rump to piano where
I sit, playing a tune or four.
Go back and start a bread. Then yoga
In a toga or a sweat suit,
Standing on one foot I eat a fruit
Then fetch the radio and go outside
To clip a hedge
And while in motion find I dredge
A title, line, a word or two
From deep within the conscious. Whew!
I saunter back because I’m haunted
By the drive to write it up,
So then, undaunted, drink another cup
(I know it’s bad) of caffeined brew.
(It’s such a pleasant thing to do).
Then turning art toward starting lunch,
Poetic hunch aside, I stretch -
A bit more yoga. Oh, the post:
Walk up the road –four hundred meters.
Smell the air. What could be sweeter?
Well, that’s taken care of most.
It’s flame October, mushrooms wanting to be picked.
I’ve time to rove o’er hill and ditch, bog and moss.
I’ve no success.
Through trudge and brook and mushroom book
I know no longer where to look
And bear my bucket home again, no worse for wear,
Free from care, lungs filled with air.
Resuming chores, my song, my rhyme,
My coffee, yoga – ah, it’s time
To greet my husband, feed the cat,
Giving all my warmth to that.
Feeding husband, cat and me – triple-sided chat for three -
I fall from grace and watch TV
Awhile, then go to bed and read -
Perchance to sleep, to dream – or maybe
Stand ten minutes on my head,
Tell God I want to do His will,
And then at twelve, lie quite, quite still.
©All At The Same Time 95.10.31
Circling Round Nature; Circling Round Woman; Our Times, Our Culture; Coffee Book;
Arlene Corwin
A Serious Artist 1995
October 23, 2009 by arlenecorwinA serious writer writes daily – or not.
A serious painter paints daily – or not.
A serious painter or singer or player
Paints, sings, plays, takes part
In the art of his heart,
The Processes; Creative, Thinking, Meditative; Vaguely About Music;
Arlene Corwin
The heart of his art.
Whether doing or gazing
Or lazing about
With his snout in a book,
His foot in a brook.
If motionless days upon end,
Still he is no schnook,
For in rest is a growth, in stillness a fount,
An upward intention the senses can mount.
Without any force is how art forces through,
Through veins that the gods have imbued
With vitality, gifts and endurance.
Art is endurance.
But there’s no insurance;
An artist is never secure.
In a way, he is pure.
But the gift is to ride out the day
And then stay.
Atomic Network 2009
October 22, 2009 by arlenecorwin
Atomic Network
Not anti-
Nor asocial;
I wake, walk, work , wok –
My wick alone.
Perceiving that collaboration
Gets things done.
But dharma choosing slow and long.
Deficiency or built-in song?
That there are multitudes like me,
Means I is always you is we,
That in the multi-layered groundwork
The diminutive atomic network.
Is discovery
Of self.
© Atomic Network 10.3.2009
I Is Always You Is We;
Arlene Corwin
Still Developing 2009
October 22, 2009 by arlenecorwin
Still Developing
Sigh!
I
Had to turn on lights this morning.
Out of bed, pajama chilly.
August was the grand finale.
Now it’s fall with chums commending
Autumn’s scene,
A curling up with some good book,
The taupe/red/green,
And Halloween’s
Supposed to compensate for what the summer took.
I
Sigh.
© Still Developing 10.11.2009
Circling Round Nature;
Arlene Corwin
The Time It Takes 2009
October 22, 2009 by arlenecorwinYou cannot cheat.
To do it right, you meditate.
But purity, devotion, faith
Have subtleties that hide
Till they decide
To take on meaning
In a knowing that’s a flowing
From conception to revealing:
Self-disclosure’s evolution
Is a time dictated aggregate.
Revelations Big & Small; Time;
Arlene Corwin
In The Void of Vanity 2009
October 22, 2009 by arlenecorwin
In The Void of Vanity
A young and pimply boy,
His only joy
In lifting weights,
Finds muscle forcing,
Tossing weights for
Bicep, tricep, pectoral and dorsal,
Teasing, testing gristle
In the void of vanity;
In the wake of youth not yet awake,
He chases what he doesn’t know
For what he thinks is true.
And when I think of all the suffering
He’ll have to go through…
I’m annoyed with vanity.
©In The Void Of Vanity 10.10.2009
Circling Round Vanities;
Arlene Corwin
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