No Background Music 2012
07 Apr 2012 Leave a Comment
in 2012, birth death & in between II, our times our cultureII, vaguely about music II Tags: birth, death, music, our culture, Our Times
No Background Music
There’ll be no background music then;
Valleys that refuse to sing,
Glens that ring out nothing -
Dales too.
Only
Quiet.
How to get used to the mute
Unqualified;
No angel choir,
No Gabriel to tootie toot.
There being so much music
In the background -
Does that frighten you?
No Background Music 2.11.2012
Vaguely About Music II; Birth Death & In Between II; Our Times, Our Culture II;
Arlene Corwin
A City Without Stress 1997 (found 2012)
05 Apr 2012 Leave a Comment
in 1997, 2012, our times our cultureII Tags: city life, Our Times, stress
A City Without Stress
I dreamed I was mayor of New York City.
I ran on the ticket “Take Out The Stress –
Take it away, reduce it or lower it –
Vote for my program with “Yes, oh yes, yes!”
My program and slogan was “Clean, Calm & Pretty”.
First came step one, aimed at the mess.
It involved every citizen doing his bit:
Man-spit or dog shit,
Pink, speckled, brown
The only requirement “Look and bend down!
Convinced that with cleanliness
Follows an ordered and temperate manliness;
Eye seeing everything back in its place,
Trash in the trashcan, litter in bin,
Drug taking gone, half the alcohol intake.
Flowers and trees in that space of decline,
Two, I’d instruct all my staff of the joys
That result from the process of cutting out noise.
“Staff, I would plead, here’s the funding you need.
Restore the tranquility, quiet and poise
That has seeped from our town,
Brought the soul of this prospering lovely town down!”
Then I’d reward anyone in a queue
Who was willing to wait for an hour or two;
Wait, meditate ponder life,
When a bus or a train was that hour overdue.
A city unstressed could send waves
Of the best…
Waves on the crest of a world full of pestilence.
Corny or shallow, truism or dream:
A city unstressed is a powerhouse team.
Egos and sorrows – in spite of them both,
A city unstressed could change many tomorrows.
City Without Stress 1.18.1997 (found in an old diary. I must have been visiting NY at the time) 4.1.2012
Our Times, Our Culture II;
Arlene Corwin
Tired Of Collecting 2012
08 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
in 2012, a sense of the ridiculous, our times our cultureII Tags: acquisitiveness, our acquisitive nature, squirrels
Tired of Collecting
I know it’s wonderful to buy, amass.
Such fun!
So won-
derful!
The floor to ceiling shelves with books.
(and then and when you die. those left look
at those books and say,
“My God, we’ve got to give this stuff away –
It’ s just too much!”)
Who else will love their smell, their touch?
Clothes of different sizes, drawers full, folded
Smooth, all ironed, waiting
For that right occasion.
Oh, I’m sated.
Poet, artist, mate and human being
Tired of collecting
For the sake of vain, illusionary
Aspirations gobbled up by goblins.
But tomorrow, woebegone,
I’ll be back buying.
And acquiring
Squirrel to the marrowbone.
Tired Of Collecting 3.3.2012
A Sense Of ‘The Ridiculous; Our Times, Our Culture II;
Arlene Corwin
No Secrets & Other Thoughts 2012
15 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in 2012, our times our cultureII, the processes II
No Secrets (and Other Thoughts)
As paranoiac as the next;
It is society –
The cameras watching me.
Not exactly,
But you get my gist,
For there is nothing on my laptop
You can’t see.
I have no secrets.
Simple with veracity,
I haven’t got a hundred passwords
That would make me crazy,
Bending over backwards
To compromise
With fear.
Overlaps:
Modern life, expansion, fullness,
Plethora to taking from
And no way to be rid of it.
Somewhere In the pile
Lies a good’un.
Well, It must.
Friends dying:
Feeling:
Nothing.
Thinking,
The immediate.
Response glib, searching,
Saying yes to being, breathing
Torso, limbs and senses
Animated,
Here.
No Secrets (and Other Thoughts) 1.8.2012
Our Times, Our Culture II; The Processes; Creative, Thinking, Meditative II;
Arlene Corwin
Zope 2012
15 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in 2012, our times our culture, our times our cultureII
Zope
Zope is at the end
Because
It is the last thought sent
From in the range
Of our resources.
Zope is hope
For something good;
Faith-filled optimism
Wanting, nay, expecting.
And it does not measure time:
It’s open.
In our times, our culture
Lies the worst of rhymes: a vulture
Waiting…
Which itself may be no longer…
Carrion that’s it, she, he
May be no longer.
But there’s zope
Which clings to possibility.
The last poem on the list.
Zope 1.15.2012
Our Times, Our Culture;
Arlene Corwin
