Silent Forests

When you are twenty one you have
always known; when you are in love
you are not twenty one – between the
lines you wait for the moment.

This is the here-and-now, do you paint
where the scenery is not infinite, do
you wait for a screen prompt to see
where you are looking?

I hear the sounds – the echo of an
ant in a non-existent forest where
the trees fall silently; I, too, am
bound to the same rhetoric.
© I,D. Carswell 2007-01-20

If You Knew What It Means

The interface of autism is
not a place you would be,
not a place where a face has meaning;
and in this sessile sense of it –
what it is to be alone, unattached,
although uncritically loving;
where the despair of those
significant others leaves
a sense of bewilderment,
where you sleep uncritically
free of dreams – and yet
there is a peace worth knowing.

All is free of the taint of it, all
is pure and first received,
and the birdsong and the
colours of the sun give
adequate recompense…
– if you know what it means.
© I.D. Carswell 2007-01-20

Full Light Of A Lunatic Sun

The education I never began
– afraid of the blood – too soon
frayed by the sticky wreak and
vomit-wrenched gorge rising in me.

And yet they said I held my head
together when others bled, praised
my will to save the dead when flesh
flayed, when the madness in me
audaciously braved death.

I am not brave, I piss as easily
when the fear is in me but will not
let an unchartered ignorance
lead my fate, nor will I wait
in the shadows of the duel.

I face the spectre in the full
light of a lunatic sun and say
– Dare to measure me,
I will not run away.
© I.D. Carswell 2007-01-19

Oh Lord, You Know I Love My Food

If you couldn’t taste it with your
fingers it wouldn’t have a flavour
that you knew – and proper
flavours grew from bowl to mouth.

I’d tasted everything my mother
mixed along the way to ruin, from
thin to thick, batters blended slick
and sticky, dough to break a wrist

or bend a waist, cakes with colour,
cakes with calories forsaken in their
evilness; I was blessed, Lord knows,
the best of culinary graces kissed

my lips. A chaste and decent man
I am for sure, but food reveals an
epicure who wears a bib and licks
his plate, a habit I can’t break.

Oh Lord,
you know I love my food.
© I.D. Carswell 2007-01-19

No Return To The Beginning

Believing
the incomprehensible feeling
with no power to describe
how it overwhelms
no words to catch the
sharp and terrible
shadows which surround
drowned in a sea of
syrup sympathy poured
from faces frowning
in a hover at the end
of an anguished eye span.

There is no awakening
in a morning of light
only the keening of the
night before – the meaning
of life is less cruel than a
mere wanting for it to
end.

And the masters of
grand schemes sit
at their desks and draw
diagrams, talk about
diagnoses and trauma
ending in disbelief,
shouting their doubt
as if it will bring relief.

In the end there is no cure
for what could not be
described in words
categorised in systems of
structured thought – no arresting
the thief who stole those years
no return to the beginning.
© I.D. Carswell 2007-01-19

Hooray, Australia Day

Hooray, Australia Day.
It’s a holiday mate, where
the pollies flap their jaws
and swear we’re a great
place to live – as if we didn’t
know – and go into raptures
about Australian values.

Our PM (Johnny Howard),
bless his stumpy legs, sez
we’re all real mates – that
the notion of mateship is
what makes us stronger
than a mob drunks. And
of course he’d know.

But he’s the bloke who
now reflects we need a test
to be acceptable Aussies.
Jesus wept, is he thinking we
have to re-establish
Australia all over?

Pity is Johnny couldn’t pass
a real test to be an Aussie
anyway, for a start he’s
just a bloody Lawyer.

You’d need to be a Judge
to know who’d make a
good Australian!
© I.D. Carswell 2007-01-25

Kereru (native wood pigeon)

Kereru,
onomatopoeic bird;
Kuku,
Kukupa,
the sound of you
soothes.

Wood pigeon to those who
do not know your name,
friend to Puriri, distributor
of seed; Miro, the Taraire,
Karaka, Nikau and
the Kahikatea.

Gentle bird, so
unafraid, symbol of
purity and peace.
Faithful birds, devoted
to their life mates,
defenceless and
innocent of sin.

May you return…
© 2007-02-16 I.D. Carswell

The Class of ’69

It will be almost forty years
since we alighted, eyes wide,
excited – perhaps scared,
on the roadside beside the
Mess. Forty blessed years
that claimed a few lives,
some wives, waistlines and
many a head of hair.

That day was irreverent,
an anti-climax; okay,
we knew the ropes,
were greeted with
knowing winks – we’d
be alright. But those other
poor bastards were in for
the show of their lives!

It has been some show
hasn’t it? When OCS for
us ended the main event
went ballistic, we were
spread to all corners of
the current madness,
which the Army insisted
was just a local effect.

More fool us for believing!
But here you see sanity complete
in familiar faces worn
with real smiles and eyes
shining – hands outstretched
in greeting. Hello again
my friends, you bastards!
The Class of ’69.
© I.D. Carswell 2007

How Utterly You Beguile!

Oh, so familiar this smile on your
face, the crinkled corners of
your sparkling eyes – it is no
surprise the curves of your lips
displace my verisimilitude.

There is no space for angst or
cracking discontent, your smile
was meant to mend fences where
raw anger had rendered their
sad state of disrepair.

Again I am consumed with a
love tuned to your smile, the
air of it, the wear of it etched
unrepentantly in the sheer
magnanimity of you.

How utterly you beguile!
© I.D. Carswell 2007

No-One Will Notice

I might have called this poem
‘Life in the recycle bin’ or
‘A parody on the writings
of every poet imaginable (plus
others not that well known)’
but history has shown
the irony would be wasted.

Besides, I have the good graces
to expect it will be read, for fair
reasons or sad, by fine poets and
bad, dabblers in verse, those who
are dedicated, a few dilettantes,
plus one or two fated to be the
next generation.

And I will take comfort in that.
In time some novice succubi
will earn an extraordinarily
average literary PhD by
analysing the triptych nature
of my writings – and do it badly,
but no-one will notice.

While life goes on in the recycle
bin, machine churning,
regurgitating themes as old as the
first written word; new and exciting
forms of plagiarism flourishing, while
bad poets and parvenus egregiously
please their comatose constituencies.
© I.D. Carswell 2007

Ways To Spend The Useless Years

Our Friday lunch ritual was
actually supposed to be lunch
somewhere on Lambton Quay,
we always discussed the ultimate
military sandwich between
pints of Guinness or whatever
took our fancy. Then meandered
our way through the City, aiming
to be at the Annexe by 4:30 pm
and Home Command happy hour.

They were lazy days, crazy days,
matched with mad memories
which made the City bearable.
Hazy days and easy ways to
spend the useless years ranging
the lower rungs of the rankings.
And in the thankless potpourri
of an overmanned and under-
achieved Army we were free
to come and go as we pleased.

You’ve paid your dues I was told,
there is nothing for you to prove,
take a break – relax, go for a jog
if you’ve surplus energy. Leave
the mundane business of running
the place to the Brigadier and old
staffers like me. You’ll be posted to
a line unit soon, then you can be
as Regimental as anyone
can grin and bear.

Meantime get out of here. You
look too goddamn Gung Ho in
that scarcely worn-in uniform.
© I.D. Carswell 2007

Didn’t Anyone Tell The Council (there was a show going on)?

Down Tamworth way the scene
is scarcely changed from when
the first C&W tune rang bold and
clear in the main street, they’re
still boot scootin’ their feet, still
line-dancin’ to beat some record
they made back all those years.

But sadly a few councillors don’t
like Somali refugees enough to let
more than five families settle in the
region – in case it strains meagre
resources its claimed. We don’t
want nobody white or black to be
disadvantaged needlessly.

It is a real controversy – that is to
say the Council sees it that way;
the locals are too busy having fun
in the bars, and listening to music
at the Golden Guitar’s most recent
festival. Didn’t anyone tell the Council
there was a show going on?

Now how the Hell is the Town gonna
cope with 50,000 visitors if the meagre
resources can’t deal with more than
five Somali families? Beats me, but then
I ain’t some pin-headed truck drivin’ WASP
bigot who explained he weren’t no
racist anti-Somali refugee hater neither.
© I.D. Carswell 2007

Silence Would Have Said It More Eloquently

You were wrong to try to use those
words – silence instead would have
said it more eloquently; she reads

your body language with a verve
you’ve never understood, a sensitivity
of years in august study.

And be aware, love is oft benign,
but love in need will feed off crumbs
of dynamite, love will lead the humble

and the meek to desperate deeds
eclipsing dire imaginings, love exceeds
all cautions in a ravening of feelings

run amok. Take the manly route and shrug
your shoulders, lips shut tight. This night you’ll
likely find she’s already read your mind.
© I.D. Carswell 2007

His Simple, Rustic Habituation

When I wrote of a man in
Queensland politics whom I
respected, I never meant it be
elected as the peanut man,
Sir Joh Bjelke-Peteresen.

On the other hand I take delight
some readers made connections
– Joh’s stand in Queensland politics
was rare, and fortunately for the
Smart State, without exception.

For 19 years he ruled in a good
Lutheran pastorality Heaven forbid,
surrounded himself with fools
for easy money and power,
fools for crude impropriety.

Yet the ‘piety’ of the man shone
in his simple, rustic habituation and
rambling harangue, while an
awkward lack of sophistication
masked the grasping, conniving

thief who stole all pretence
of Queensland’s decency. No,
I meant Peter Beattie when I said
a man to respect. It was he who
put Queensland back on track.

Joh’s in a hole in the ground
on the Kingaroy farm. It might as well
be Dannevirke where he was born,
they’d keep his legend alive, and pour
scorn on his misguided admirers.
© I.D. Carswell 2007

A Fragile Strand Of Unity

Whereas I should have been
exercising my mind writing mentally
I was captured by a preening bird
– thoughts ignited in its beauty.

Half concealed by a golden cane
it addressed feathers meticulously,
one eye on me, cagily watching
the watcher.

That it might have been a barred
cuckoo-shrike served no need
in me, we were eye to eye in
sympathy – it and me.

And I lay in the bubbles of the
outside spa luxuriating, bird
contemplating which feather
to preen next, a beer waiting

in frosted glass; we were connected
in a fragile strand of unity bound by its
ability to leave as and when it chose.
And it chose to stay and preen.
© I.D. Carswell 2007

When Silence Ceases

Loneliness is soothing when
silence ceases its dull roar,
lack of sound is no more than
a nothingness completed,
sanity defeated, dredged
in the gore of heart-beat
broken and blood-reddened
pulsing sentiment, tensed
in defence, rallied against
- being suicidally alone.
© I.D. Carswell 2007

Moral Managers Needed

What is it which makes the manner
of a man? The man I am thinking of
has occasion to stand tall in politics
and public affairs; where he has
placed his hands we are better for
sure and when the time comes for
pretentious comment he will without
exception be recalled with affection.

Yet even he has had to wear the stain
of odious innuendo, invented discontent
and lying embellishments, ire of political
opponents whose use of dirty tricks smacks
their ill-conceived schemes. That’s politics,
he says, dismissing all of it in the wave of
a hand, smiling his cheerful smile
– keeping his courageous stand.

With the exception of Peter Beattie I am
ashamed Queensland is so sorely bereft
of genuine leadership; the robust and
pugnacious liars who operate disingenuously
in an orgy of disinformation and bad behaviour
– claimed to be classic party platforms, do not
bend themselves easily into decent managers
grievously needed by our beautiful State.
© I.D. Carswell 2007

These Reunions Of Our Passion

He left her to her dreamworld and the
sleep she treasured, slipped away in
a dawn of serenity, at ease with his need
to write words that multiplied during
a soft night of infinite tenderness,
imbued with measureless love for the
sweet girl who slept.

We have had these reunions of our
passion before she argued, and I am
sure you meant every word you said.
Then you leave me for dead – a victim
of the other being who cares less and
drives at breakneck speed through
the highways of my heart.

Yes, he agreed sadly, but he will not
win this battle. We concede we love you
equally, have decreed we will not
fight for the right to possess; we will
gift you our heart instead – take it,
and the what and wherefore you use
of it will arbitrate our fate.
© I.D. Carswell 2007

Where Are Your Heroes?

Where are your heroes now he asked,
where are the knights of truth to lead
us in the coming fight?

Remember when they rode their steeds
wickedly inspiring us, armour resplendent,
casting fear into the hearts of our enemies?

Remember? Yes, vaguely. I think they’ve taken
legal advice – some attorney said they were too
exposed to breaches of copyright, best keep

out of the Public eye. Their spin doctor reckoned
fringe interpretations gave them an unsavoury
Press, to stay out of the limelight unless they

could turn a bit of sympathy. My guess is they’ve
retired, taken their Government Pensions (on an
oath of non-disclosure) and are gagged for life.
© I.D. Carswell 2007

Feeding His Soul

I have a deep affection, she said, real
and enduring. I don’t lose my head to
it, nor will I be slave to love anymore.

It was all he could have asked for in this
brave new age of truth-telling, ever
more than he had anxiously hoped for;

and as far as he was concerned, it was
still the same breathless madness of 38
years past, still gravidly feeding his soul…
© I.D. Carswell 2007

He Didn’t Understand

He was wrong, he should
have listened to the band
and tried to move the way
you moved; he didn’t let the
music in, denied the sound
had anything he understood,
implied it wasn’t good enough
to waste the time it took to
half decide.

You stood away from him – a
distance slightly out of reach,
decreed he could be mockery
to none but him. That hurt as much
to say you didn’t care; infused with
spirits from the air, good vibrations
in you where, content with what you
felt as such profundity from he would
not frustrate your point of view.

How right you were. The isolate
alone within a joyous crowd soon
learns that fate has ways to trip one’s
feet; completeness of your move
away still haunts him now, the space
you put between has taught him brutally.
There is a gulf of strident emptiness
without you there. He was wrong about
the band, He was wrong to carp
and try to claim your ear.

He didn’t understand.
© I.D. Carswell 2007

Wholly Guacamole

There are few recipes left to ignite
the epicure in me but this is one I really
want to share. Because we grow the
avocado here, right outside my study
window, the rows resplendent green,
the fruit plump, indecently licentious
and daring to be picked, it would be
obscenely remiss of me to further resist
the urge to give you this for free.

Take a ripe fruit (or two), add a squeeze
of lime, a garlic clove, a pinch of toasted
cumin seed, chopped coriander (you may
know it as cilantro), tomato and some chilli.
Mix these well together, season to taste.
Cool in the refrigerator; too much haste will
lessen the taste! Eat with corn chips or your
fingers, who cares, and wash down with
chilled corona beer. Voila!

Easy goes on the guacamole though,
its dynamite food, but the beer – swill your
fill, slice of lime in bottle neck, and gargle
your head off. Wherever you’re at, be assured,
guacamole will bring you back.
© I.D. Carswell 2007

Year Of The AJS

It was the year of the Matchless,
the year of growing wings, flying on
350cc’s, often with bumpy landings.

Ah, but the distances panned, vistas
peeled beneath sweeps of wire-spoked
wheels churning portentously. And the

illicit learnings, secret conniving gleaned
from boyhood scarcely outspanned,
exhilarating ventures out of fantasy land.

There was an almost-love planned,
engineered by my sibling’s astral dating
agency, but no theme for it to expand into.

Fledgling loves and fascinations in an
evolving circle of friends – mad awakenings,
crushed endings, epithets of cruel mornings.

Yet whenever the dour sentiments distressed
the AJS* waited patiently, barked into life and
sped me away; no looking back, no regrets.

Alas, my steed ended its life with ignominy,
abandoned where she faltered and fell, left
to a slow death by the roadside to bigger things.
© I.D. Carswell 2007

(*Matchless/AJS 350cc roadster circa 1958)

Never Left The Riverside

I never left the riverside,
it’s wooded banks remain in
time a fixed and cogent line of
right and wrong, the stream a
stream of life that flows along
a stable way. The waters in the
riverbed were seen as regent
reasons for a happy life, and
answers lay between the
coloured stones that shone
through crystal water clear
and clean, meanings muddied
only when the seasons shed
their awesome tears. I can
return there even now to
stand and gaze with yearning
in my heart for simple virtues
gleaned from simple lives
we lived beside the river in
the valley of my dreams.
© I.D. Carswell 2007

The Father Of Femininity

Let me meander around the arena a bit,
let me amble where all the old girls graze;
please grant me grace to access their
space, ingest a sustaining cultural chew
of it, sit and ruminate on what it is
about things feminine.

I won’t bend gender lines or obscure true
differences we delight in; scratching my
balls is an icon of maleness I won’t trade
– nor, I suppose, would girls give away their
bathroom lipstick and powder titivations,
but I need to know why it is so.

Girls can command. Models in the refined
mood of the military dominion define what it
is to be a woman in uniform – leadership at
the expense of femininity. Male or female,
anxiety is the same, equally disposed to see
the irony of decisions made from frustration.

At least we share in that! But when all else fails
who sighs, bats their eyes and shyly smiles?
Dammed right, I’ve seen it, even tried it! Okay,
it didn’t work for me either. That’s why I’ve agreed
magnanimously, in such company the ‘girls together’
is not mother of, but the father of femininity.
© I.D. Carswell 2007

Who Is This (who writes in your name)?

When you emerged from the chill
of winter, when your ears warmed
to the words they said, I heard you
softly whisper – Please. Let me be. If it
was a plea for solitude it went unheeded,
instead you were besieged with gifts
and gratuitous genuflections. The
odious maledictions of recognition,
a crown of poetic thorns and the
allergic piqué of lesser souls was sour
salt in your eyes; the tears were real but
the signs also said otherwise. It was
there you resigned from this life. I was
sad for you, there is no greater loss than
love barely expressed before it is torn
away. And now you are gone. But who
is this who writes in your name?
© I.D. Carswell 2007

Emmentaler Mind

Now my friends,
what we have here is a
hubris-ridden termagant
on legs considered elegant,
and all of this entwined within an
Emmentaler mind (when
it comes to making rhyme)
but – une derrière, ma chère,
you’d gladly die for!

A buy like this my friends,
le chance détente,
no ordinary fare, how so?
Milords, consider, the sacred
cow provides no sustenance,
– no meat, no milk, no hide,
and yet it glides through life
a fair and harmless virtue,
yet,
here we have a mind;

now please,
forget the rhyme,
Milords,
forget the mind;
these are merely bagatelles,

focus on
là derrière!
© I.D. Carswell 2007

I Read It In Another Guise

That was the last instance and the
last straw, a case of nevermore,
never again – not in any sense
a chance of leniency; I will never
read that verse again. And yet I
read it in anther guise not less than
ten heartbeats gone, two quick breaths
and a sigh, in another forgetful poem.

Why I bother I don’t know; find for me
a thorough rhyme for conundrum,
besides humdrum, and you may
have an answer. Perhaps I hoped
you would entice me out of this
sense of uselessness, this ennui,
this despair – where are you who
is going to grow me wings?
© I.D. Carswell 2007

Winter Solstice

Haiku is the curse
of poets writing verses
in Winter solstice:

a mendicant’s
medication, the begging
bowl of Winter’s bringing,

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

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

leavings of the
feasting in plenitude, the
bare bones of Winter’s cheer.
© I.D. Carswell 2007