I Cried Last Night 2011/2012
05 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment
in 2012, birth death & in between, birth death & in between II
I Cried Last Night
I cried last night – a different cry.
Reading where the character –
An old man, rabbi –
Lays down, dies;
The long term cause, old age,
The short term, cancer.
Age and sickness notwithstanding,
It was I projecting certainty,
A time foreseeable -
All our times expected. Mine.
Just then.
Unwillingly, I cried.
I cried. He’d died.
I cried. I’d died.
So sad and unexplainable.
I Cried Last Night 6.15.2011 (re-written, conclusion new 2.5.2012)
Birth, Death & In Between; Birth, Death & In Between II
Arlene Corwin
We’re All Gonna Do It 2011
07 Jun 2011 Leave a Comment
in 2011, birth death & in between, birth death & in between II
We’re All Gonna Do It
Watching someone
Interviewed
With ALS
Incurable
And fatal.
Thirty-eight;
She cries
We cry, and when
She laughs we smile -
We empathize,
Although
We know
She’s clad
In mourning.
How to comfort and be comforted:
The answer, that we’ll all be dead.
The question:
Are there answers? Do we need them?
Yes, to both.
There are. We need them:
Philosophical, religious;
Abstract in our daily-ness;
We need them.
They exist.
But under answers notwithstanding
Stands one fact:
We all will fall…
All.
We’re All Gonna Do It 5.3.2011
Birth, Death & In Between;
Arlene Corwin
Life, Death & Love 2011
16 Mar 2011 Leave a Comment
in 2011, birth death & in between, definitely didactic
Life, Death & Love
It doesn’t seem to be
About another thing but three:
Life, death and love,
Its billion permutations;
Anarchies of combination;
Breakings up, solutions
Solved with luminescent love,
Refined,
Examined,
Mastered.
Read the masters.
Read the good;
Practitioners who understood
Defenselessness; life without secrets:
Yes,
It doesn’t seem to be
About another thing than these.
© Life, Death & Love 3.8.2011
Definitely Didactic; Birth, Death & In Between;
Arlene Corwin
Two Husbands & A Manager 12.11.2010
29 Jan 2011 Leave a Comment
in 2010, birth death & in between, pure nakedness
Two Husbands & A Manager
Three deaths this year:
The probability when getting old.
I thought that eighty was statistically
The modern seventy.
Karmic preparation detaching me
From those held dear;
Does Time do me a favor,
Taking savories away
To dull the taste buds of existence?
Preparation? Possibly.
Different roads that lead to Rome.
Correction: I meant Home.
© Two Husbands & A Manager 12.11.2010
Birth, Death & In Between; Pure Nakedness;
Arlene Corwin
Calendar 2010
20 Dec 2010 Leave a Comment
in 2010, birth death & in between, CirclingRoundTimeII
The night before last, as I lay in bed writing small notes in my almanac/diary/daybook and noting that the little book was coming to an end, I was moved to write something/anything to commemorate the fact. You see, I’m always interested in the passing of time, the repetition of patterns – the in between of birth and death.
Calendar
Coming to an end
Between two covers;
Buy again/begin again.
Small, leather registers;
Diaries, memoir’s squeezer-in;
The daily note, the planned appointment,
Observation. Holidays in tiny print.
Lives arranged in line and font –
And empty!
Possibility’s potential.
Optimism’s hope between two covers.
This year
Will be better.
© Calender 12.19.2010
Circling Round Time II; Birth,Death&InBetween;
Arlene Corwin
Two Husbands & A Manager 2010
13 Dec 2010 Leave a Comment
in 2010, birth death & in between, pure nakedness
It isn’t often that I write directly about myself, but I am a kind of historian. I’ve noticed that. I write to record lives, insights, events – and always in poetic forms. The other day I received a mail from the wife of my onetime manager, (my profession being music) who had died on the 5th of December.
In this year 2010 two of my former husbands have passed away – and now my manager. I hadn’t seen him in years – but still, an absence is precisely that – something that was there that is no longer. and an absence of those who have been in one’s life is an absence felt in that mysterious compartment in the brain that records personal existences.
So I wrote. Partly to examine, partly to honor and partly to make sure that I remember. Poetry is my mnemonic aid par excellence.
The poem: still a little raw, parhaps.
Three deaths this year.
The probability when getting old;
I thought that eighty was statistically
The modern seventy.
Karmic preparation detaching me
From those held dear;
Does Time do me a favor,
Taking savories away
To dull the taste buds of existence?
Preparation? Possibly.
Traveling different roads
That lead to Rome,
Correction: I mean Home.
Birth, Death & In Between; Pure Nakedness;
Arlene Corwin
Every Day That Passes 2010
02 Dec 2010 Leave a Comment
in 2010, a sense of the ridiculous, birth death & in between, our times our culture
Every Day That Passes
Every day is one day closer…
TVs going day/night long
Kinships growing global round – not stronger -
Weaker.
Bags of sand that weigh us down,
We are conditioned beings
With no meaning in
The breadth of meanings;
Non-constructive, non-productive days
To steer us towards a netherworld…
We dither
And we wither.
It’s just me the poet
Talking from my room – a nightime gloom –
A silliness. All death and doom.
Don’t share it if you won’t.
Each day may open faith to one.
© Every Day That Passes 11.28.2010
A Sense of the Ridiculous; Birth, Death&InBetween; Our Times, Our Culture;
Arlene Corwin
Leaving Numbers Seven Five 2010
02 Dec 2010 Leave a Comment
in 2010, birth death & in between, birthday book
Leaving Numbers Seven Five
I’m not supposed
To give it meaning;
Not supposed
To say what’s waiting
Round the corner,
Give or take twenty-five years.
No peer alludes to it; dear
Friends don’t mention it.
Alone in a neurosis
That the rest don’t share?
There is no sentiment there,
(though I once said that I’ll miss myself.)
The thought is hard to grasp –
It doesn’t want to feel –
Not real
For the moment.
© Leaving Magic Numbers Seven Five 11.4.2010
Birth,Death&InBetween; Birthday Book;
Arlene Corwin
Fooling Father Time 2008
11 Nov 2010 Leave a Comment
in 2008, birth death & in between, circling round nature, circling round time, circling round vanities
Fooling Father Time
Is Father Time a father?
Really, truly a creator?
A protector?
If it’s true, why do we trick
And flatten out new wrinkles – use the
Twinkly toes on rows of cream and salves?
If he were father, everybody’s kindly father,
Why would life be linear?
Smooth, chubby bodies
Turning skinnier,
Men and women readier
And ready for…their graves?
But we’re ‘worth it’,
Buying l’oreals and restylanes
And product lines to shave the lines
That so-called Father you’re-so-vain Time
Lays on us for what?
The point? There seems no point
In fooling ‘round with, fooling time –
And you don’t have to call him father.
© Fooling Father Time 9.21.2008
Birth, Death & In Between; Circling Round Nature;
Circling Round Wrinkles; Time; Circling Round Vanities;
Arlene Corwin
