Weekend Market

Another weekend market passed and
stored away in memory; tables stacked,
the bins and trays all neatly packed
in spaces traded over places
where they used to be.

Taken years to be at ease with any
sense of permanence, we try to see
an order larger than the mess, more
subtle than the claim this spot is mine,
functionality more than design,
and it appears to satisfy.

Although I couldn’t say specifically
just where the ripest fruit would likely be
my guess is sure. Next week we’ve planned
an early pick to balance quirks and irksome
glitches that our orchard likes to yield –
but hitches never make our sense of fun
less than appealing.

There is time to rest, digress and
reminisce; laughter is a good release,
we’re not remiss in letting down our hair
to dance an orchard jig.

For lunch today a ripe and tasty avocado
lightly laced with lime and spices on the
Lauke bread we freshly baked,
glass of wine to celebrate.

We wouldn’t trade this place or play a game
of chance with simple cheer, a currency of
faith our orchard life enables us.
© 30 June 2008, I. D. Carswell

Multisyllabic Charm

Not much point in fooling yourself is there?
A version of popularity you buy by playing
“the game” is the sole measure of worth
here. Rules haven’t changed, if rules they
ever were; a statement of fact over anger,
no standards worth a damn exist beyond
sad, pointless edicts changed by the day.

So you wrote commentary on 150 poems
yesterday – the truth’s there for all to see,
while Shakespeare did nothing; he probably
didn’t need to, to gain readers anyway. A
few hardy souls braved your meek offerings
leaving either stale or commonplace words
but you’re reprieved with warm serendipity.

Yet suspicion lurks like cancer. Having paid
your dues you’re entitled to improved status;
you know it – crusade with increased vigour,
cruise cyber waves with ego inflated, riding
rough-shod over speed bumps until sated by
excess blandness – ‘til Captain Courageous
lays intriguingly eponymous complaints...

It may take years but eventually you’ll see
popularity has nought to do with so-called
poetic acuity. It is all a numbers game with
dollars for clicks fated to ablate any creative
use of words. And beware which dictionary
you consume – the flatus called censorship
is unimpressed by chic, multisyllabic charm.
© 28 June 2008, I. D. Carswell

Night’s Sentinel (rev)

Even tonight will pass into memory’s
oblivion, doomed despite an ardent
reunion of once estranged yet precisely
matched parts – to a guiltless verdict –
a foregone conclusion.

As you dissolve twice-blessed in a
kaleidoscope of dreams, claimed by
the deep, curdling sands and sink,
absorbed in self-suffusion, I sense
hard-edged awareness balefully
prick, dredging insomnia, haggardly
thick with past phantoms relating the
fates of all vast and antique storms
that ever menaced our skies, a raging
suspension of consensual lives which
all but passed into nothing; wise and
implausible storms that calmed hearts
in thrall, teased wrinkles from sad eyes
before falling easily upon our sore
and thirsting land.

Even tonight will last only as long as
eponymous night can last, decreed
by blindness and a beggar’s mask to
beg in the darkness ahead of the light –
and when it is all said and done,
perpetually follow a transient path
under an old and intransitive sun.

And in the evening’s ritual dying and
before tomorrow’s dawn flies this
night’s unguent shore I am more awake
than trying to sleep, at last alive in glory
steeped, encased in a mould of your liquid
embrace where I fuse with the dew from
your sleep-used face, rejoice in the scent
of your fragrant hair; united in sum and
not caring to part, suborned, a transfusion
of wearing your heart.

Yet I desert you again in a dilettante swoon,
atoning for deeds, bleeding with sins, an
amateur whom while knowing his trial,
self-mutilates in thin pledges and bogus
denial, unable to render or stomach his
fate… I won’t be reborn, it’s too late
and too long to the innocence of dawn

As the light from a new day splits the
anxious night along its softened seams
and spreads a filigree of lucent threads
to gleam in my mired eyes, I am alight;
the clouded cold ebbs to journey’s end
and tangles in the bends of broken sleep,
and though I’ve only strung a line or two
of odds and ends where meaning’s clear
I know I can return from here; night’s
sentinel will wait good-naturedly to place
my fate. I can rejoin your warm embrace,
thrill in the joy of your wakening face;
comforts abide and time has stood still
in a blaze of enlightenment; I know what
is true – as I always will, my comfort is You,
Forever is true; You are as you are,
and You are as I see you.
© 2003, I.D. Carswell

The Law Is A Ass

Actually, the Law is a Ass is what he
said, as in Equus asinus, the donkey,
or perhaps Equus africanus, African
Wild Ass; although he could’ve meant
Equus hemionus onager, the Onager
or Asian Ass, but it would have been
a bit too confusing.

Thought of the Law being likened to a
nice piece of Nubian Wild Ass however,
rather intrigues – pseudo-erotic hints,
jocular reference to ancient history. And
not too bad an idea it would seem. The
black and white of it had to have a start
somewhere back there.

But alas, he referred to Charles Dickens
character in Oliver Twist, the Mr Bumble
who replied, “If the law supposes that…
the law is a ass—a idiot.” And it was all
to do with coverture – the condition of
being a married woman. It has changed
of course – you see, Bumble was right.
© 28 June 2008, I. D. Carswell

The Price Of Parting (rev)

Will they be there for you when you die?
Will they hold your hands and cry until
you’ve breathed your last? Is it too much
to ask? While love is free in tearful task
the price of parting wears a mask of pain
which none would feign to gladly greet.

Yet love abed with death is said to ease
the way to timeless bliss, but just for those
departing. Or would you rather quiet instead,
the dignity of night and sleep alone abed,
no waking dreams? It seems the beggar’s
choice; a route into the wilderness,
departure lounge without the crowd.

And then there are the grieving scenes that
follow in your wake, you’ve gone beyond
the reach of mind, crossed the vague and
tacit line into a deep of endless sleep. Your
light has been extinguished yet the light that
fires your heirs burns bright to bode the
leaving of your flight.
© 10 February 2004, I.D. Carswell

Real Underwear

A clothesline kind of day,
one where underwear displays
insouciance that you were
never duly gifted to
begin to emulate.

Sure, you used to wear them
with a hint of flair – but here
their sinuous display midst
dour and stolid towels a-sway
is breathless flippancy.

All you can say is, “Thanks for
making me aware,” – ‘tho knowing
you were volunteered to clear
the line before a chance of dew
arraigned all those accused.

So may this glimpse be insight
true that keeps your love alight,
for you’ve been there to see
reality in underwear right
where it’s wont to play...
© 27 June 2008, I. D. Carswell

Essence Of Intimacy (rev)

Formerly: We Reflect This Day On The Essence Of Intimacy

We reflect this day on the essence
of intimacy, from its origins in the
spring-tide of youth to an afterward
secured in distant mist – in awe for the
reason and to what end it endures.

We weigh the consequence, keen with
up-welling sentiment, sense new love
spring before the old has run its course
(‘tho its course is never run); each day
adds its weight to the sum we bear this
day, to solidify with days gone by in
an endlessness of summer’s inheritance.

Today we take time for ourselves to
renew our vows and return to the
mood of youthful love with the same
tremulous excitement as beset us
when we danced on its eve ‘til dawn.
© 3 March 2005, I.D. Carswell

Limited News

It came to a head last Sunday,
for years buying The Sunday Mail
was a treat from me to the spouse
who complained living in Peachester
was like being in a news desert.

Never took her to task over it –
the Mail was literally as good as any
I have ever used to start a fire.
But actually read it, no way!

Glanced at an item unconsciously
yesterday, eyes strayed from sports
page to feature article is my excuse.
Expletive, I say, that’s the same sort
of shit as Sydney’s pejorative style.

Any chance it’s the same rotten rag?
Least for a name it is; News Limited,
which means “limited news” literally,
of THE News Corporation, owns it.

Now whatever else you say about
Rupert Murdoch – owning so many
multimedia entities worldwide
indubitably feeds an irreverent ego –
but not as much as it ensures
complete immunity against the truth
for those who he decides need it.
© 30 June 2008, I. D. Carswell

Settled Dust

Dust settles ceaselessly around
this place we live – the air alive,
though clear, bears particles we
rarely see until its signature is
sprawled indecently on floors
and furniture-surrounded walls.

The surface is effaced by random
scrapes and smears my passage
has recorded over time; I write
my name irreverently in lavish
script with flourishes that say I
couldn’t give a damn.

Whoever chases dust obsessed
appears to miss the ancient
claim; from dust we came,
and thence always,
are destined to return.
© 27 June 2008, I. D. Carswell

The Beans Were Exciting (rev)

I’ve tried cooking in my new Quicksilver jacket,
just an affectation I assure you – no, not the
coat or the cooking but me in the wearing of
it, a distorted form of appreciation.

When I think of it, the gag was fitting. It was
not new but a barely used, zippered surfers’
jacket bought at the Market for five dollars,
waterproof, hooded, lined for lousy weather.

Not a substitute for a chef’s tunic, however it
was warm and reassuring with its embroidered
logo huge on the back, like a doffed personality
peer approved, familiar, somehow inviting.

And thus appropriate for an innovative recipe
of zesty beans with chilli & cheese – spiced with
grated ginger, smoothed by yogurt. Like my
wearing the jacket – the beans were exciting!
© 5 April 2005, I.D. Carswell

The Last Unicorn (rev)

The last unicorn was never free
to chose another ending, the
plaintive melody entrained
with sweet orchestral strains
enlivening was sundered
in a soured rendition of our
cruelly slewed dominion.

We were never set to let her
free from facile bonds, we
fondly loved mythology too
much to let her go – kept
her chained beyond a dream
of sessile permutation.

It chained us too, we never
knew her beauty but within
the constructs that we drew;
we made her so and when
composer Johnny Webb
expressed it in his song we
cried and said it isn’t so,
she never lived and never
really died, we lied about
forever-after –
but now we know…

“In the distance hear her laughter,
It's the Last Unicorn,
I'm alive... I'm alive”
© I.D. Carswell

Quoted lyrics from ‘The Last Unicorn’ composed by Johnny Webb.
America’s version of the song ‘The Last Unicorn’ is my inspiration;
I have never seen the 1982 film and don’t specifically remember
reading Peter S. Beagle’s book (though I must have, it certainly
strikes a chord)… Perhaps I should if I haven’t.

Forever Alight (rev)

Were meetings destined then this
one would take a leading place; the
oracle decreed it fate in a matrix of
moving matter, the signs all clattered
with chance fêted as a sweet benefactor.

When we were separate entities in clear
air on a fair breeze of sailing pleasure,
scheming elements drove us together in a
coincidental confluence of paths, a meeting
in innocence. But unlike ships that pass in
the night sharing glimpses of distant but
unknown consequence – and sail on free in
an unaltered conscience to reach detached
destinations, our passage through life was
irrevocably changed, our courses aligned
by forces beyond our power to deflect.

Do you remember it now? Do you reflect how
it was? In the mornings – in the clear light of
day the freshness of evening stars still brightly
burning remains – heavens forever alight.
© 2005, I.D. Carswell

A Mad Disease

They’re ha*ry, scary days my fr*ends,
plague *nvades w*th v*rulent *nsan*ty –
*f you’ve felt mal*gned per se compla*n
away to Em*ly; she’s the one th*s s*te
constra*ns to try to keep the peace.

Her role’s no sinecure or light relief,
think of whom she has to please –
could you maintain a database,
equivocate, police, restrain, or ban
behaviours by the disparate?

It’s true that she’s no judge of verse,
that’s okay, who the H*ll is anyway –
but with a strong belief she soldiers on
and neatly meets contingencies that
border lunacy each working day.

I hate to say this ain’t the site it used
to be or wonder why it’s atrophied –
something crawled into the works it
seems, jammed a lever of restraint,
died and spread a mad disease...
© 20 June 2008, I. D. Carswell

.

.

Winter Solstice (rev)

Brevity’s the curse
of a poet writing verse
in Winter solstice:

a sad mendicant’s
acrid medicine, begging
bowl of Winter’s cheer,

seasonal owl starved
of mice-thoughts and winged prey
fallen from Summer’s grace,

skeletal remains
of once fat contemplation
chancing Winter’s ire,

scant leavings of the
feasting in plenitude, bare
bones of Winter’s whim.
© 8 January 2007, I.D. Carswell 2007

Doing Lunch With Charles

I’ve tried imagining Bukowski
seeing the same scenes I see;
wondering whether he might’ve
found it real enough to want to
write ‘em down. That scared Hell
outta me. But I doubt it. I mean
you have to be mostly sober to
see anything real around here –
as distinct from constructs and
boundaries like where he lived.
I imagine our conversation – he
chivvying me for hiding in trees,
drinking too much to make a
statement, me agreeing. I mean,
what else could you do with him
three quarters inebriated.
© 21 June 2008, I. D. Carswell

You Will Claim (rev)

Formerly: And You Will Claim

And you will claim we need more births
to keep our population mix in check while
nature’s truths suggest there are too many
of us yet. And you will make the claim with
good intent, wear the jeers precipitated by
our peers; you’ll blame statistics for the
deed no doubt, you’ll see the figures shout
a raw event, a massive rise in aged percent,
a generation which will dent resources you’ve
restrained through stringent fiscal policy.

Is that indeed official view? So make us breed
to right the scale, create a younger set to settle
up our social debt, a captive gang with time in
hand to pay the way. I wouldn’t want to be a
child whose birth was instanced by a budget gift
of 1500 bucks, give or take, accompanied by an
airy pledge that you would make provision for
me down the track.

On looking back I should have guessed your
game, even noted that your ages tell the same
old story; so it’s the ‘Grow Or Die Economy’,
times are hard competing on a Global plane –
a death or glory scheme, again, so nothing’s
changed in that respect. You must have missed
the lead my friend, young ones still won’t breed
in times’ like yours. The cause? Their values are
estranged, their lives are rearranged as such
which 1500 bucks won’t set aflame.
© 27 June 2006, I.D. Carswell

Rather Sad

To seek an explanation wastes
energies too profligate to contemplate,
best to wait and see what time
will bring – it gives a space for
reason’s beckoning, eases confrontation
and abates the raging dissonance

A gang of zealots, unless you see
hoodlums busy creating mayhem,
whose obtuse behaviour borders
gaucheness so naive it’s quaint,
all of whom stuff up things that
were going okay

While crude and stupid it airs
true sadness, those who play
in the ranks believe they are actually
Saints bringing fabulous gifts –
which were never theirs
to give free in the first place;

the cost is a slew of dated homilies,
ruthless invective and contumacious deceit
spewed in a pit of burgeoning iniquity –
synonymous with raw manure.
All who play the game are equally
shamed for sure. Rather sad, isn’t it?
© 23 June 2008, I. D. Carswell

Of Such Simplicity (rev)

You and me,
the proof is there to see,
our lives are held within the spell of great simplicity,
we’re free of all the shadows in the hall,
seen in awe as pictures hanging on the wall;
was it meant to be, intentionally,
of such simplicity?

The pace of Life
is not predictably
ever free or very easy, from the swift and mad
to cruelly sore and sad, good times were had
amongst the wrenching sorrows, but mostly life
is quietly free of strife, meant to be,
essentially, simplicity.

We have the time
now to reflect about
the things in life that we have surely gone without,
we could fixate no doubt on what we’d never see
or make our lives to be of great complexity,
but it was meant to be, implicitly,
just simplicity.

Here we are
the pantry door ajar
the shelves within are filled with living memories,
stored carefully, thoughtfully, in perpetuity;
it’s where we see a precious legacy,
which is meant to be, uncontentiously,
of such simplicity.
© 6 August 2007, I.D. Carswell

Raspberry Tart (rev)

Formerly: Of The Raspberry Tart (in you)

I love you for your fat.
Your thin intimidates what
attraction contemplates –
and no respite from that.
My avid eyes make peace
with nascent curves that
grew into a joyous, rounded
you from waisted space.

Beauty’s eyes behold,
afire in bounteous sight,
a-captured in the light
of burgeoning desires.
The thin of you recalled
is lost in reverie, buried
in sensual devilry of the
raspberry tart in you.
© 3 July 2007, I.D. Carswell

Zimbabwe

Frankenstein? Why yes, there is a quaint
similitude. Why is it strange that Desmond
Tutu only sees it clearly now? Tutu’s friend
of Liberation years has changed, quantum
shift beyond the revolutionary man. Robert
leads a double life these days – plays with
words and blames the Powers that used to
be. ‘Tho the madness that Mugabe is must
end, insanity intact without a cogent plan
now rules where every action bleeds away
all decent hopes of a democracy; Mugabe
is a victim of addiction to the power of rule.
Swaziland, Angola even Tanzania declare
there is no chance elections will be free or
fair. Thabo Mbeki also fails to see just how
his policies appeasing merely grease the
killers’ tools they wield with such ferocity.
Intervene, the neighbours cry. Mugabe is
a fool, the puppet of his own insanity. He’s
also Bishop Tutu’s Frankenstein, an image
he created and let free to swallow saving
graces that he may have banked upon to
earn a fair reprieve – a faint contingency
unlikely in Zimbabwe’s troubled days...
© 25 June 2008, I. D. Carswell

.

.