Haven’t felt alive
haven’t reached the endless skies
– mired in regret
and yet the sense is
that enormous press of
blue is but redress
for letting gloom
decide which way to wear my
scarcely fancied hide,
which way to tie a
non-existent tie, or doff
a hat to eminence;
harmony ensnared
in ochre dreamings waits where
I have yet to fly
© 2007-02-25, I.D. Carswell
Nothing is greater than
this causal chain of
event reality.
What you see is
sequenced progression into
sentient harmony.
No matter where you
stand or what you believe
this is veracity.
History is grains
of sand playing mistral
tunes from antiquity.
© 2007-02-21, I.D. Carswell
Where the mountain
stands clear of the plain
and the tussock waves
ripple in wind-wood applause
the seagulls praise a bounty
of sweet water, wings raised
in salute, circling, circling
in slow-patterned search.
There where I wander
in breathless amaze,
eyes drinking, drowning
in a visceral scene seeping
through defences, breaching
senses used to beauty,
transfixed to the moment.
There – where I closed my eyes
and shunned my senses to survive.
Here – where I close my eyes
and try to breathe it again.
© 2007-02-21, I.D. Carswell
When do you have enough crap to fill
an Aussie cricketer’s baggy green hat?
When the stuff comes out his ears the
saying goes. This year we’ve seen
The Ashes meekly handed back to its
rightful place of trust by a lack-lustre
bunch of Pommie tourists bent on making
cricketing comedy of wicket endeavours.
Deserted even by a Barmy Army imported
at great liquid expense to enliven the Tests,
the same Pommies hand out the best and
most spirited thrashing in a one day series.
Our World Champions then gave themselves
an uppercut and conceded the Chappell-Hadlee
cup to the Black Caps Kiwis. You’d think the
comedy ended, but think again! It seems
the team shouldn’t have even gone to NZ,
didn’t have the best crew with Punter rested,
and now that they’ve lost our admiration -
it’s we who are to blame!
© 2007-02-20. I.D. Carswell
Pipiwharauroa of my youth
shine on me with your voice 
sing your sweet notes clear
dream me into summer days.
Shining cuckoo, come again to
prey on Riroriro, the grey warbler
hosting your baby while you play
your tunes deep in the forest.
March takes your wings and
you fly away, East to the
rising sun, while Riroriro cries
for another lost child.
© 2007-02-21, I.D. Carswell
When you stop
genuflecting
I’ll stop farting.
Until then my excesses
will match your excess
– each for each.
I regret I know
no other way.
And for fuck’s sake,
look me in the eye
when you
shake your head!
© 2007-02-17, I.D. Carswell
Deluded into assured belief by signs complete
with distances travelled, arrows pointing
the way to named destinies, histories discrete,
obscured neatly beyond that last bend turned.
Included by default in the ostentatious
schemes of larger things dreamed by
bearded thinkers, ordained, sublimated,
died years ago frustrated by movement
too slow to defeat their own deaths.
Consummated in acts of casual callowness,
poisoned and addicted to shallow creeds,
breeding discontent and narrowness, feeding
without restraint and hating it. A feel of despair
reeks in the eyes of the hearer, sours the skin
and bleeds freely from the tongue.
Defeated in situ by commonplace events
on a scale hitherto unimaginable, castigated
by cosmopolitan views too liberal to pursue, in
fear of new ideas chained to causal change,
lost and deranged, clinging to a vestige of
sanctioned madness.
Escaped to a rural peace of mind, a sanity of
open spaces, room to fall free of dimensional
confusion and hard-edged solidities, blind to the
cries, deaf to the signs that bay mass-delusion,
wound down and played out, fasting in clean air.
The journey begins here.
© 2007-02-19, I.D. Carswell
A splen-
did isolate
sited inchoate
outside the walls
of cognate thinking,
whose precepts imbue
although they are used in
a diametric temperament,
other-worldly views alluded to
as stultifying and unclear in tones
of repugnance, operates without the
mandate to represent, except in his own
odd view, with perpetually renewed license
to prevaricate – devoid of a point of origin
to measure departure from or closeness
to an implied state of relative grace, a
boundless and non-inclusive truth &
all forms of essential meaning.
And YOU expect
ME to listen
to YOU!
© 2007-02-18, I.D. Carswell
Bigots don’t have a colour Mosiuoa,
but like you they’re known to attack
out the of dark alleyways they lurk in.
Racists are colourless too, preferring
to hack their victims with racial hate
expressed in effete epithets disguised
as rational discourse. Your amazing
tirade directed at an old white lady
preferring to live in Australia, where
she was born, says you are less free of
the same racial prejudices you claim
motivates disaffected Whites to leave
the Republic of South Africa. It would
have been reasonable to keep your
invective free of slurs against Australia,
but that didn’t occur either. So we have
to share in the old lady’s ‘crime’ where
your cure is worse than the condition.
As Defence Minister your role surely petitions
even-handed duty-of-care for all South Africans?
Or do you only defend the Black ones?
© 2007-02-20, I.D. Carswell
The dust lies like truth
spread too thin to reveal all
interpretations
it reveals nothing
in a blanketed expanse
but sad finger marks
epithets of gloom
fake messages in plumes lead
horizontally
I am torn between
admiring the gladdened scene
and cleaning it away
the dust is not me
but it does glean things about my
personality
© 2007-02-25, I.D. Carswell
He’s droll this Scottish man, he reads
and lets imagination feed his pen,
and if I had the same ability we’d
fight, no doubt, to out the dandy
weeds we both abjure – but Jim (so
far) is happy to agree with me.
He writes with easy antique breadth
of word and phrase – rolling names
and places off his tongue with
Gaelic grace, glimpsing vistas
great of realms he’s seen, dresses
each with reverence and clarity.
And when the humour is in him like
the drink he goes the whole 'Hogg',
lets th' scurrilous urchin in him dog
plastic Lords, run free and poke the
snoot, tying victims with dextrous
ease, dour Laity with erudite praise.
Thank 'e Jim, you’ve made my day!
© I.D. Carswell 2007-02-10
Try this slice of life, it’s like an Irish
greeting – can’t buy it from a
retail chain which claims it’s got
it right; the product’s not the same.
This slice is free of over-priced
franchise, unique and clean
of contra-deals although discretely
licensed to a pretty face –
without a trace of brand-name
celerity – she’s real, her fame is worth
a Reference Site for truth alight and
never fails to please; Tara McHale
is worth the time to read and know
about. She’s made a contribution in
the ethos of the game; her wares in
poetry can stand alone in rare proclivity.
If you’ve received her sanctioned words
you’d know; she keeps it light but shows
polite and unmistakeable delight in every
breathing word. You are assured you’ve
made the grade when she confers...
© I.D. Carswell 2007-02-13
For Tara McHale who deserves the recognition…
Find the voice before you sing
he always said. And all those years
I thought I knew just where he lead.
Find the range and strike the note
with purity – in verity the music
flows, easy comes as easy goes.
I can’t sing to save myself and this
he knew, but he had read my fledgling
verse, didn’t laugh or censure me,
said instead that I should read with
breadth and depth, find the themes
which captured me.
And this I did; at least I tried to keep
the capture far and wide, sought
familiar names and new, wrestled
with ideas that grew in foreign fields,
heard the plaintive notes of tunes
without a graced accompaniment.
Find the voice before you sing – can’t
hold a tune, find the words or find the
ring of resonance in what you bring
to every verse; still didn’t seem the
special thing he meant. Queried him, this
voice would be – the “Message” then?
And he agreed.
© I.D. Carswell 2007-02-12
Two yearling magpies in the bath
chortle free and easy, a crested
dove is asked to leave – given
the arse if you ask me but with no
obvious acrimony. These two have
grown up the yard from awkward
fledglings to striking birds just short
a season of their plumage.
The dogs pretend not to see, a
peace of mind prevails, not the
mindfulness of respect or gentility –
perhaps an idleness of the early
hour. The heat is gathering relentlessly
along the ridges, humidity seeps
into the valleys; why rail at the world
while it is still cool enough to sleep.
© I.D. Carswell 2007-02-11
A listless mirror-ball, a pair of limpid
ceiling fans is what I can recall, there
were some random streamers hung
defying age and gravity more than
creating atmosphere – and balloons
in cheerless clumps, wrinkled and
deflated cases numbered more than
those still plump with air.
This was where I learned to dance.
The gramophone was ancient but it
played with power and clarity, our
patient dance instructor well aware
the adolescents in her care impressed
in meetings of the flesh at heart,
and dancing rarely intervened to
damp that flame. But even then
I learned enough to dance.
For years I heard the music played,
heard her voice as it conveyed
essential beat, the placement of the
feet, the movement of the hands
and where to face our heads; for
me although I never made the
grade with any of the girls I can
still place my feet with dancer’s care.
© I.D. Carswell 2007-02-05
The question arises, who am I
writing poetry for – and why?
My readership sees incongruity
on the one hand ensnared with
a sense of intrigue on the other.
It amazes them, fazes their symmetry
calls for explanation.
But why bother. Why not lie.
Why not seem to come clean and say –
really,
no-one!
Does it matter?
Though (to me) it would not be true.
There is no-one but you to write for;
– just you, the ubiquitous you,
the ephemeral you.
If I wrote only for me
it would be a bare-table feast,
lonely, with beer and fries
– and admiring flies.
I sincerely do not care to dine
alone, I like feasts to be
gourmand’s retreats; raucous
with wine and boisterous company
that’s why I’m pleased to
invite you to dine.
© I.D. Carswell 2007-02-07
If I awake without you
in my eyes despise me,
if I try to fake my love
break my back and
spurn my words, make
me wear my faith as
clear as sunlight
through a stream, look
into me where
the depth is free
of cloudiness,
the water pure and
see a rare devotion.
I am there, its where
I want to be.
© I.D. Carswell 2007-02-06
He knew they were not real, the characters
on the screen, he knew where reality began
and where the acting ended. Yet the adulation
rang in his ears, kept alive by fans who wore
their hearts on their sleeves. It was a damn
nuisance and it pained him to see his friends,
normally rational, descend into the realms of
trite sycophancy. But this was the world where
he lived and he had no choices left but to bend
and be damned. His acting was as good as the
best, convincing all who suspected and tested
his faith with endless litanies of lavish praise for
their favoured actors – their histories, their graces,
and he faced off with the rest responding no less
enthusiastically. It should have been a sustainable,
role to play with a costume to wear on the stage
of his peers. But when they began to revere
cartoon characters he gave it away in despair.
© I.D. Carswell 2007-02-06
When does the jagged edge of
personal contest dissipate?
When can one expect a break,
adrenalin stop coursing in,
emphatically impairing wisdom?
I’ve been a combatant,
straining nerves and sinews
in the frantic dash, heated
in the clash of bodies
meeting head to head.
I regret I needed it back
then, a younger man, a
steely lance engaged in fray
for joy of it. But not today.
Surely I don’t need to pace
the floor, daring not to glance
as players are arrayed across
the field, taking on a strong
defence, running into open
space, passing, swiftly passing,
sprinting free to score a try. If
anything I love it more than in my
playing days – don’t have to train,
listen to complaints or sassy referees
who know they own the game.
Yet when the final whistle blows
to end suspense, players disengage
to leave the field, I’m just as
sweetly drained as if I’d played.
© 2007-03-02, I.D. Carswell
It grieves me to see these ideas writ
in a frivolity of bad taste; no fashion
dictates no fashion – this scandalous
commentary of misused and injured
words is yet as ill-met as brute force
is for lame conformity on demand.
Where went the clean words worn as
uniforms in their simple sameness, whence
came the piercing pins, staples and torn
accoutrement to torment these pages?
Who would deign to use the term poetry
in such an insane arrangement?
But the lid is off the can. An ideogram
stands for election and wins on the back
of criterion effects, we’ve become victim
to the sum of numbers where more means
best and less means wasted effort. Now,
if you haven’t heard it before read it here;
– never mind the quality,
feel the goddamn width!
© 2007-02-23, I.D. Carswell
In this case any confidence is too much:
I am assured by events past (or is it passed?)
and these graphic legends of linear progression
I can be 55% confident this sequential ‘Boot to
OS’ test will restore my PC’s operating system.
Something, it seems, is amiss, a glitch, a gremlin
in the warp and weft, a random theft of code
such that the start-up cannot step beyond an
anxious wait for floppy disk response; I dimly
recollect a similar state way back when but not
in common with this late great PC’s supposed
infallibility.
Thus I must attend this system test. A warning
placed beside the ‘run test’ button suggests
it might take 20 – 40 minutes if you please; it
doesn’t elaborate that means for each HDD
and I have three. I’ll be here for the duration,
it’s 6am – the day can wait.
I guess that if you ever see this verse in print
it will either be from satisfactory resolution, or,
worst case, a mind numbing search for another
solution. In any event the ‘Boot to OS’ test
completed it’s run and restoration at 4pm
– I’m on line again!
© 2007-02-24, I.D. Carswell
No meek charity would suffice to break
this bleak impasse, no make-and-mend
missionary could contend with the intensity
of feelings engendered; it is beyond earthy
intervention. I have no desire to lend an
unguent hand – the case is damned, so be
it, good riddance. In the beginning it was
said unity mattered more than our selves
individual skills or recognition; that soured
in seconds when cheers and jeers beckoned,
fed egos and fostered fat personality cults
that rendered austere, self-effacing diets dead.
We live in an era of aspirant celebrities, a culture
of couture, a false veneer. There is a reverence
for froth and bubble that defeats commonsense
– a drear culture of image management.
I hear the claims that beneath the gloss
and hype there is still good. Forgive me
if I scoff and say, by choice - polished wood
is polished wood.
© 2007-02-25, I.D. Carswell
When passion for the game
overrules the sodden brain it’s time
to leave the bitching scene.
If top-class referees can only please
a sense of fractured whimsy
when the chips are down
I’d rather be a mile away.
And thus it was today.
This game is owned by Pay
TV – the only thing that could
explain why ancient rules are
waived or put away, interpretations
pave a sense of mute and sceptical
suspense - making watchers lose their
way. It was the people’s and the player’s
game until the Barons paid the
salaries. And now it is at least
a clichéd beggar’s feast as bad as
Big Time Wrestling,
but without the best
and the worst
of their ham acting…
© 2007-02-23, I.D. Carswell
Don’t be a goose and tempt fate,
don’t play the late bereaved dilettante
or gravitate to the weighted end.
Though at ease with asses of vast
posteriority and hiding ambiguous
inferiority, you’re a danger to the
penchant few
amused by these
proclivities.
But is there room for me
there with you on your beautifully
proportioned bench?
© 4 March 2007, I.D. Carswell
