Arlene Corwin writes

How Much of Life…?

How much of life is fear determined? 
Wakeful days, the sleeping nights
We know so little of,
Fear when even friends are near,
Invaded, oft pervaded by its ambience,
Its atmosphere –
How to transcend it?

Fear -- Maciej Hoffman

Arlene Corwin writes

Keep That Lipstick Going 
                (It’s Never Finished)

Can vanity
Ever be
A good thing,
Always there
In one form or another?
I wonder ‘bout its essence;
Ponder over properties.
Does it have a function partly unction?
Does it help keep us alive a little longer,
Or
Keep up illusions,
Nourishing our views of beauty
In a body always rotting, wrought with pain?
Solder man to Man?
Although St Augustine
Considered vanity a primal sin,
Perhaps it can.

Le rouge à lèvres [Lipstick] -- Delphine Kreuter

Arlene Corwin writes

People Get Tattoos

People get tattoos because 
They think that there’s no change, 
Because they’re vain, in love: 
They think they choose, because 
They’ve no idea at all 
The rain in Spain lies mainly  
In the plain,  
That muscle turns 
And what was breast or chest and firm,  
De-firms, deforms 
With budding bicep rose 
Becoming wrinkled, wilted posy of-the-elbows.

I suppose it’s all to do 
With time and how we throw 
Away our energies, with time 
Outgrowing side- and peepshow  
We all worshipped once with gusto.

Oh, tattoo, you are a symbol 
Of myopia and youth, 
A cockeyed view of truth 
That lets us down.

Still, people will demand tattoos, 
Refusing all discussion 
Until gusto gets to be disgust. 
Nothing one can do 
Except boo-hoo  
This triste refrain to all who’ll listen; 
Self abstain, and be a witness.

[Given the popularity of tattoos, beards, shaven heads, holes in the body...et al,  I'm enclosing this highly relevant observation written first in 2002, revised in 2004 and now again in 2018.]