They were not his words,
he never wrote the ones
he couldn’t spell
– even though for sure
he knew their meaning.
You feel the words,
he said, the sounds
are either right or
wrong when read.
Read them out aloud.
I was bored by his
delusions, the words
were shit – alliterative
I’ll grant you that but really
lacking omnipotence.
Our falling out was easy;
I left, and when he died
I read his verse. I must
confess – when read aloud
they never were his words.
© 7 March, 2007 I.D. Carswell
Lesser and lesser,
a fading like paint on grand façades
never noticed except at first and last,
the one when bright and new
and the other as an unsettling absence
of rich lustre you once knew,
or a peeling or a cracking or a flaking away
of what may have been.
The years could be many intervening
between the two recognitions
or too feebly few
and there is no comfort in knowing the change.
It would seem the ask to grasp years
and hold onto change has always failed,
the histories dull and lifeless, the pictures
floating in a disloyal inner stream
of disconnected awareness.
So when I turn
to kiss your hair, or smile in my sleep it is
where I have returned to beginnings
freed of time’s restraint, able to
connect and be aware again.
© I.D. Carswell 2007-02-10
Portentous – perhaps, I had
just teased the 500th poem
from the tangled mass of utter
cluttered chaos, the raw, un-
rehearsed verse which contrives
my cranial filing system,
read it through, changed a
word or two, cursed the missing
phrase – thoughts move faster
than flying fingers, paused to
linger on the doubt it caused
within the line – decided, no,
doubt made more sense, was
less pretentious than its actual
spelling out. And posted it.
That day we had a mystery lunch.
I was amazed at where we were
and how at ease, the you and me
in this classy Maleny restaurant with
views from Noosa to Pt Cartwright,
a bottle of Marlborough’s best,
a cheery waitress and the
finest sea food on the Coast.
It was a seminal day, that day PH died …
© 2007-02-16 I.D. Carswell
* PH is the Website ‘Poem Hunter’
He hath spoken. There will be no second
coming. To save our sorry arses we must
patch up what we’ve broken.
This is what it really means – for our
salvation and to be redeemed,
you & I, we need cooperation.
There is no godlike foundation or
eternal soul coming down to take
the lead, there’s just you and me.
Praying for a sign may make you
feel involved but there are real things
we need to resolve immediately.
Take a hierarchy of needs – clean the
air, then the seas; time to dither when
or where is passed, so let’s start here.
Earning $500,000 every year is not a
solution, it won’t save the Planet, but
listen man, you WILL inherit pollution…
© 2007-02-18, I.D. Carswell
What challenges you more than telling
the whole and absolute truth? Can
you release yourself from the bounds of
fiction, from that affected dress of distinction,
from the tattoos, the hand-made shoes?
Who were you before you became You?
Anything? – say an innocuous low-level virus
breathed with languor into the concourse,
the simulacrum, the conception of being –
that feeling where Who-It-Is matters…?
If you have found where the truth is you
are free to choose. Else-wise you are the
shadow of your own doubt; get thee
threepence, the best prize without a
second guess at who came second.
© 2007-02-16, I.D. Carswell
Tis an uncommon thing this specious imagining
which has him reeling from the drink ‘specially
since he hasn’t had a glass (or thinks he hasn’t
had a drink) in weeks, feels a queasy feeling of
a thing come loose inside and tangled in the other
bits. Tis gas or love he doth opine. Burps, and farts –
it’s not the shits, the feeling stays, then love it is,
he canalises, of course I should have realised.
Who is to be the lucky lass? He staggers to his
feet to join the world and tell the girl who’s won
his grand desire. I’m yours, he sez, with fierce
intent, just pour me Luv a generous drink!
© 2007-02-17, I.D. Carswell
Don’t want to live it again,
make the same breathless
mistakes in the same wide-
eyed way; can’t say I wont
do it over either ‘cause I
naturally function that way.
There in the corner stands an
illusion of a brighter, smarter
mannequin of me, half concealed
in a shadow of regret; won’t
ever get out to play, won’t
never be lent such a chance.
Ain’t worth pondering the
who’s and the how’s and
the wherefore’s of why, the
answer is easy, can’t risk being
shown up for the dunce I am
by that glossier version of me…
© 2007-02-17, I.D. Carswell
Even the platoon buffoon in him was
shamed by a character trait that showed
up late. He didn’t ask for a second helping,
he demanded another plate as if he’d
never been served in the first place.
Maybe he was amazed when Servery staff
deferred to the demand. I suspect no-one
could understand why a man of sane mind
would want more of the most god-awful
slops ever served – probably thought he’d
gone mad and deserved to suffer of it.
When he returned with the food we made
more space than he needed. He rated
our mute protest with his own brand of
cynicism, ‘Y’all recognise the man among
yah then,’ he said. When laughter abated
our leader laconically conceded, ‘Yeah
mate, and less of your vomit will reach us!’
© 2007-02-18, I.D. Carswell
The first byte to resolution
is a seed – plant it where its
chance of growth would
seem impaired by human
greed and rank despair
plant it where we wont
restrain our manic growth
plant it in the barren earth
we soured by sloth and
indolence for easy gold
plant it where our bold and
anxious leaders have their say
help them find another way
to lead – they claim there is no
other path but that which
brought us here – a path
destroying atmosphere they
will arrange to palliate by
change to nuclear energy
which doesn’t heat the air.
We can’t sustain a future
based on annual growth
no matter what philosophy
substantiates our strife – we
need a change for life…
© 2007-02-22, I.D. Carswell
Resolution is the frame
that makes the picture hang
without a lean; if you want –
a fantasy, an empty end we’re being
framed to live our lives without.
To find a simple out. The threat we
face is our acuity for sheer success,
what else compares – is as magnificent,
and yet, indeed, a greater tragedy?
I wrote about a need to plant a seed
to seek solution, but not one born of
this kind of financial revolution.
The phrase to go comes clearly
from those halls of power, pleases
eyes that pare the bottom line,
debases hedonism, disgraces claims
determinism in economies embrace
all of humanity – yet the free market
plays with boundless vagaries.
Let ebb and flow in world-wide trade
invade its greater good. If it weren’t
for greed it could efface the mess we
face each day of gross excess. And
greater good you must believe is key
to our success as much as necessary
lies for our complete demise.
We predicate our current view off
future growth – we can’t maintain the
rate we desecrate but grow we must
until the dust of history chokes. We need
a change of pace and change of view,
one that will sustain a human race.
© 2007-02-22, I.D. Carswell
The dilemma is this,
we live here and now
and plan on tomorrow
being at least the same
with increased inflation:
- meaning how to live in
future as we do now
needs just a little more
put away plus some
for a rainy day.
We need our elected
leaders keep inflation
under control - more fool
any who fails, and our
governments fall on
fiscal performance.
So they play the game.
Meantime you can’t
breathe the air, drink
the water or grow
food in the ground.
And look around -
fiscal growth and population
explosions are one and the
same. On the good side
it does mean you won’t be
lonely.
© 2007-02-22, I.D. Carswell
It was the day of the bog-boys
clandestine feast, charcoal
roasted potatoes blackened
brutally in the heat but sweeter
than any fruit imaginable.
With burnt fingers and hot buttered
breath we praised intrepid thieves
who stole the spuds – rabbited from
rows in our neighbour field,
hunched beside a fire burnt low,
a billy of tea, six spuds each
and you and me filling our guts.
When we’d had enough
the rest went back into the fire,
no dishes to wash, utensils to dry,
no damning evidence.
Dinner that night and magnificent
scent assails bog-boy miscreants –
minted new potatoes (boiled in
their skins) in a heady welcoming.
We budding thieves quailed to find
our game shamefully exposed, the
rows we raided were our own, and those
boiled and buttered mint-flavoured
potatoes tasted the magic they were.
Say, brother, who’s dumb idea was it
to ROAST new potatoes?
© 2007-02-20, I.D. Carswell
Leaving in a foul mood doesn’t
defuse the sad legacy, but you
know that. In fact leaving mad is
just as bad – although you allude
to a leavening in the brew’s mix,
an easing of volatilities; what I
don’t see is anything changed.
Sure, the exchange of another
round of hostilities is alienated,
perhaps ‘estranged’ is a better
way to state it – but it remains a
possibility with your fixed view,
and only from you. I’ve said my
bit, I rest bruised but free of it.
So there you go, driving out the
gate in a grey mood under a
thunder cloud. I am to believe
I’ve been given this space to
see the error of my ways, redress
in haste and regret impudence,
guilty assigned to Coventry.
I can agree that you chose the
simple line of least resistance with
implacable wisdom, to work out
your overburdened angst on a
therapeutic shopping trip in a manner
befitting a lady, but you can’t fool me.
I knew you’d planned to go
shopping today anyway…
© 2007-02-20, I.D. Carswell
On the back of a few well-read poems he
felt free to give other writers advice, saw
nothing dishonest in it, and what if he was
full of sh*t – at least it was honest sh*t,
not recycled ancient tripe relabelled original
thought supposedly by a new-age sensitive
guy masquerading in legendary, deadbeat
street-poet's rap
No-one round here knew him like that - he’d
kill anyone who did, blow 'em away without a
second thought, you can’t have that sort of
accusation hanging over your rep,
too huge an investment to risk compromising
its Kevlar protection from wipes & wide boys,
sneakers with lies, sycophants, connivers &
omniscient glory thieves.
Next thing I’ll need to get is comprehensive
insurance for identity theft he complained
bitterly - this f***ing fame is already killing
me.
© 2007-02-20, I.D. Carswell
