You Get An Impression

You get an impression
we’re close to elections,
the air’s too thick to breathe, 

fragrant with scent of
promises meant
to manage another reprieve. 

Seeking percentages
chasing the vestiges
of populist heady esteem 

and falling too short
of assurances sought –
voters awake from a dream. 

Touting the messages
political massages
dishonest in earnest appeal 

sounding like confidence
but really inconsequence
ostensibly just so surreal.
© 2 October 2007, I. D. Carswell

Thirty Days (in a trance suspended)

Thirty days in a trance suspended
while continents move and walls
render opaque views of ideofacts
engendered wary by passage through
time. Thirty days proving the tutoring
of early years suited shrinkage of grand
ideas to motes of understanding. One
calendar month in making – a pocket
sized handkerchief to wrap a world in.

In Bangkok the man whose cousin lived
in Melbourne offered help for free, loved
the country; an ex-policeman who guided
plaza tourists gave equally of his time – you’ll
come back he predicted. Even tuk tuk drivers
were friendly doing cut-throat business.

Standing in Old City listening to Stockholm
breathe seeing cannonballs embedded in
walls with yesterday emblazoned proudly;
waiting patiently for a reason. Seeing
the same dignity in London – ready to
understand. Amsterdam’s graffiti crawled
like a cyclist meanders through traffic on
walls in languages foreign to beliefs; and
the church towers cast shadows on us all.

Luzern with a lake’s calm to ameliorate grand
passion held in check; a mirror to reflect
ripple-patterns of swan’s passage and trees,
timelessness to recharge batteries in dells and
lees of mountain reaches, echoes of cow bells.

Paris in a maelsrom of ebullience, seeking
out the Parisienne who’d ring true to Gallic
indifference, finding none. Climbing the
Eiffel Tower and seeking the Seine, a serene
and sparkling necklace embracing a graceful
sweep of the City. Finding peace.
©26 September 2007, I. D. Carswell

50p a Pee

Travelled throught Germany? There’s an odd
convention in effect. For want of a name we
termed it ‘50p a pee’ – you pay big bucks to
use the loo. An affect you say, not the true
abberation – reflecting views of nature’s
needs as unsacrosanct opportunities.

Crude? Why yes, we all agree, yet it excites
no mitigation – and if there’s another view
it stays aloof, proof, one concludes, that
Germany may wear the scars of centuries of sad
toilet training experience, wherefore one must
pay to placate parsimony in National conscience.

Or is it just an excuse that leads the Meisters
of Greed to grab eagerly at minted euros –
offeratory in lieu of faith, or just a subliminal
volte farce which obviates the real defense?
If Germany is really green then believe me
the cause is human waste behind each tree.
© 11 September 2007, I. D. Carswell

In A Bland Bed Of Bare Bones

The climax in Amsterdam eclipsed
the sun while the one in Heidleberg
came quiet at close of night – rather
like a shy kiss to greet a rosy dawn.

Luzern was grey until bursting flames
consumed an endless mountain view,
not once, but twice, and you glowed
with translucent heat in the tips of your
fingers and you walked on winged feet.

In Paris the bells rang at Notre Dame,
creshendoed with the upwelling
passion scarcely concealed in the
flush of your breast and sparkling eye.

But dour London took no heed
of your past attainments nor
attesteted your evidentiary needs;
in a bland bed of bare bones we
rattled the cups for no just returns.
© 21 September 2007, I.D. Carswell

The Bones Of Bare Ideas

Heathrow to Waterloo underground,
a palpable change from 38,000 feet
over the Baltic in clear air – yet there
are tendons connecting. Where train
and plane bore relentlessly through
their journey’s itineraries the bones
of bare ideas creak at joints solidified
by sentience. Somewhere along this
line we change again – emerge into
light, struggle up stairs and down
escalators wearing the some pre-
occupied intensity of our fellow
travellers. How far have you come
today? Stockholm, we left home at
6:00am; tonight we will be in Exeter
having seen the passage of time run
down. There will be warm greetings
and a cup of tea waiting. These old
bones won’t rest easily until then.
© 5 September 2007, I. D. Carswell

Hadrian’s Wall

A Wall built for defence where trade became
a worthy accolade – and for sure it even kept
barbarians at bay; raiding Clans saw far
less gains from residents as easy prey
while Romans saved their soldiers strength
another day. Along its length sites grew
for free exchange which knew few bounds
– and merchants who plied wares deterred
offence as much as armed and tuniced men
defended peaceful paths with sword in hand.

The Wall soon thrived for eager gain, traders
came, some indeed crossed wider waters in
their quest where every need was best supplied.
Taverns and inns survived along with humble
trades, fruit sellers made a living, potters and
bakers sold worthy wares while blacksmiths fared
in fashioned tools, made and repaired utensils.
In three years the Wall transformed a bleak
and empty countryside into a live and
thriving scene unique to Roman empire.

So where did it go? Parts remain, relics with
quaint names, villages where stones wear
new guises welcoming walkers who stride the
line with packs on backs and tourists who climb
the few piles left and pose for photographs. Used
and maintained for less than 200 years it stays
intriguing debate. Along with roads may it have
been Rome’s greatest monument? Well I dissent.
The stones gave birth to those ideas we built our
nation on; you see, of course, they’re still extant.
© 10 September 2007, I. D. Carswell

Too Late To Die (At Culloden)

If ye’ll nae fight ye’re nae a man they
say shot to shreds from their graves
from the mud where they lay at Culloden;
the brave, the hardy, all dead at the hands
of he named ‘the Butcher’, ‘Wee German Lairdy’,
William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland.

I stood in the same field, aimed a musket
with shaking hands their ranks standing
massed forty paces away, saw through
starved eyes the Hanover artillery blow
my comrades to pieces – felt the scourge
of exhaustion, fell to my knees.

In 60 minutes were beaten and bleeding,
killed where we lay in total defeat, killed
for beliefs courted as treason, killed just
for being of the true Highland Clans.
And Bonnie Prince Charlie
he got up and ran.

If ye’ll nae fight ye’re nae a man they
say from their graves; and I stood
where they lie on that bleak moor,
welcome home sonny they cried, but heed,
ye’re a bit late f’ the fight. Too late to die
I agreed – but I ken ye’re still right.
© 10 September 2007, I.D. Carswell

Expressions Of Vast Distances

Pattaya and Lyme Regis share
the same seaside indolence
indifferently, aware of distance
and worn-out soubriquets,
inured to wide-eyed innocence.

We stood on the cliffs where
the plinth marking beginnings
of awareness stands, where the
Jurassic Coast stares back
in sandstone colours of ages
past, ages outlasting ever
imaginative expressions of vast
and inconceivable distances.

And on the seaward hillside
with its fresh mole-casts littering,
hearing the farmer singing his cows in,
sensing an ambience-in-being,
a purity of patience-in-waiting.

That day near Budleigh
Salterton we sat in an old
thatched inn, washed off
the dust of ages past,
ate rogan josh, drank
Otter Bitter for lunch.
© 6 September 2007, I. D. Carswell

My Mind Is A Continent Away

Suvarnabhumi airport, early morning after
a nine hour flight from Brisbane – legs
ashamed with cramp and nowhere that
seems familiar. It is here again we grasp
essential differences – you will progress
with surety to a point of immediate
departure while I will have scarcely arrived.

In moments we are set on a path to less
than savoury conclusions – twenty hours
you say, we can do Bangkok markets and
still get back to rest this afternoon. The
jewells are already sparkling.

My mind is a continent away.
©29 August 2007, I.D. Carswell

See This Exact Replica (of you)

It was a strange dream – if it was a dream,
an altercation in the queue as we queued
to leave; I didn't dream the incident which
then ensued – but I intervened. May your
judgement of me leave a little room when
you hear my feeble words in self-defense,
I am a peaceable and easy-going man until
I see someone I care for be abused.

That she rarely turns a hair or blinks
an eye when circumstance conspires
matters neither here nor there – thus when
I heard what seemed to be her silent scream
I woke and drew a metaphoric gun, the one
I carry just in case. I was gratified how much
it scared the man who creamed his jeans.
Before I killed the dediated waste of space
a pasty faced and glassy waiting suicide
took sides, but not with me.

I dared to pull the trigger on a scene of
fractured discontinuity blithely unaware it
was much too surreal, perhaps important, 
and a distant voice then whispered, Yes, 
see this exact replica of you –
and keep the faith.
©3 September 2007, I.D. Carswell

Contemporary Unease

You'd have to have a great sense of humour
or be like someone who doesn't give a shit,
I make no plea that I am either state but to sit
for hours looking like you'd peed your pants in
the most public place on a 747B (next to the
lavatories midway down the plane) is a trial by
ordeal I had no choice about. I didn't pee my
pants but that won’t act in my defence or spring
to mind from casual eye and neither will the
sorry plastic bag with melted ice which broke
- explain that I was innocent...
©1 September 2007, I.D. Carswell

Buddha Impressions

I like to think of me
as slim and taut of waist;
alas, it's not to be; I'm rather
more than less down there,
a Buddha-like expression.
I don't despair. Now I know
its me as much as the
thin fellow who erroneously
disposes my thinking;
in fact I see the Buddha
impression as rather
more
not less
refreshing
©2 September 2007, I.D. Carswell

Another Heady Celebration

Mick Jagger couldn't do it for him
even where grainy b&w movies
played impossibly loud created
an accessible legend.

After a night traipsing Stockholm's bars drinking he knew
he merely paced the same ground – there was nothing to
carry him more than a sentence into a conversation started
with ‘I’, ending desultory at lip of half-empty glass...

On the trip to Möja they drank from cans carried
aboard in the grip of another heady celebration;
three hours breaching international boundaries,
three hours penetrating implacable Swedish reserve.

We do it by numbers they said – we all drink and sing.

Translations rang like litanies echoed needlessly
in the troubled wake of every word he said; when
does the sense of it become obvious to me, he asked –
must I wait until morning?

An unstated accusation hanging between them
left him stranded in an Archipelago of accidental
History; I think I am not Swedish enough to know
what I missed, he said.
©4 September 2007, I.D. Carswell

Unattested Pests

Do you really need to make excuses?
After-all short tempers aren't unusual
To be upset and not display a vestige
may indeed become a useful trait 

but I can only say - an unattested pest
is still a pest with no incent to learn
or thus behave in any other way
©1 September 2007, I.D. Carswell

Translating The Bride's Father's Fears

They took the time
to explain his pirate
analogy – the Corsair
who sailed from distant
seas sent shivers
where his heart beat
blonde in jealousy.
But his fears were
placated by the same
hook that bit into his
flesh and the neck of
the man he swore
stole his starry-eyed
daughter, bound there
together in welcoming
dreams. They belong to
each other he said –
I see he is just like me...
©5 September 2007, I.D. Carswell

Back Of The Bus

You sat alone in back of the bus, plainly
nobody shared the seat but I asked if it
was vacant or claimed anyway. You
shrugged – as if to say you didn’t know
or didn’t care or just didn’t want to talk
to me.

I sat at ease, oblivious to stares, to
whispers. Then you found your voice,
said, Hey, you shouldn’t sit right there.
I looked around. Sit where? Right here.
Why? Everyone stares. They did, in stony
silence. And, as if it was of huge meaning,
you pointed to the other seats, explained,
I’m not allowed up there. I blithely shook
my head, did not know what that was
meant to suggest. Don’t you see, you said
with vehemence, you are, you can go there,
but I can’t.

The question ‘Why’ spent more time
seeking my lips than a search to see
if you were disabled in an odd way,
perhaps prevented by a spectacular,
as yet unseen, limblessness or were
simply glued to the seat with super glue
applied in jest by miscreants giggling
hysterically further up the bus or just
feared motion sickness exacerbated
by being seated anywhere else.

As there was nothing I could see I asked
naively for a reason which prevented you.
The look received suggested I was thicker
than a plank and equally as dense. Can’t you
see I’m Black, you sighed. I was aghast. You’re
not, I cried, I’m not that blind – at best, if
anything, you’re brown – and only just!
© 25 August 2007, I.D.Carswell

Entertained By Outages

Six hours today they kept
us in suspense, six hours
with no defence against a
rancid dullness creeping like
a mold upon a countenance
incensed; eight outrageous
outages we’ve counted in
these past three days. Sure 

the wind has played its part
impenitent with ease, tearing
limbs from trees, breaching
lines and causing discontent –
but eight times the power
went out when wind had
ceased to shrill about our
ears and eaves. We ask you 

where is happenstance in
that? The theory we prescribe 

is power supply as credibility

in need of Nature’s enigmatic

smile, and when describing 

accidents, abide instead the 

greater good a weak excuse

at mercy of efficiencies the

knowing breeze derides.
© 23 August 2007, I.D. Carswell

Rye Mysteries

It had flavours you never knew
before, flavours true to origins
concealed by the flippant wave of
a hand; you wouldn’t understand,

you say – best it remain a mystery.
But it was rye bread mixed with
whole grain and baked yesterday?
Why yes, there’s no denying that.

But I wont make it that way again
– unless conditions conspire, which
they can, need I say with a hint of
despair, there is no way of knowing

the when and where of that. But
be assured it was not my original
intent. The fact is it started out a
quite conventional loaf of bread.

So why the disingenuous act, why
the secrecy? Rye bread is surely rye
bread no matter what didact, how is
that loaf so unique, so different?

Its savor you say, quite – to coin a
phrase, unusual? A smokey taste,
wood-oven perhaps? And the crust,
thick, resiliant – a crumb exact like

a country loaf, moist inside, of a fine
temperament. And you wont relent?
Okay, a power outage one hour into
the knead, death of dough imminent,

sought another out. Barbeque baked,
hood down, that explains the taste,
only it could leave a smokey hint
of delightfully char grilled meat.
© 24 August 2007, I.D. Carswell

The Worst Poison Is Censorship

I should be incensed – that I’m only mildly
peeved suggests that disrespect affects a
cryptic part of me. Oh yes, I amended out
the ghastly piece, the reference to a crude
and ancient word. But please, the subject
was offensive where? If children read the
poetry I still suggest you cease to please
yourselves with censorship – that is worse
than mindless pap. And senseless verse is
what you get on diet of such blandish crap.

‘Who We Were Before We Came Here’ is
the verse you’ve taken out of public view,
a verse few would read without a sense of
unease – it talks of kids whose addiction is
an underworld where life is blurred, words
like ‘yo’ express this cultures unity and a
narcolepsy evident as its hateful reality.
The poem says we lose our way without a
reference to whom and what we were, and
you contribute with your stupid censorship.

“gaps in the memory like sheer sided rifts
disrupting rutted tracks leaving chasms of
utter vacancy where no signage survives the
free fall screaming plummet to a darkness
where we cease to cangue as whole things
connected and sure of whom we were before
we came here to a space of nowhere familiar
where no space is yo mother **** yo bad
ass yo dick-shit yo little bro lying sad in fear –
dying sick-aware in damp piss-pants scared
deathless of an ever consuming emptiness
puking yellow and wretched – grovelling in
stench-reeking gut-wrenching spasms of
doubt whom we were before we came here...”

The recovery is there in the words, but you
prefer the idea of a free enterprise where
truth is the first casualty in pursuit of an
unctuous popularity. Sorry I don’t sell well
team – must be the way I learned to abjure
bowdlerization by seeing vested interests
polluting a pristine environment. And my
milieu is truth – that is the free and ever
available antidote for the worst poison on
earth – censorship...
© 27 August 2007, I.D. Carswell

There Is A Chance Someone Listens

Now I am incensed – before I might
have been a mite amused, but living
through a mewling disenchantment
with this attitude of noblesse oblique
and ‘grosse redress’ distresses me.

If you wish to keep your pages clean
you’d best address anomalies you let
instance themselves as caricatures of
idiocy – those semi-literate rules you
pose are derisory and sadly laughable.

And yet you take liberties with a form
of censorship that’s unexplained – an
application of restricted access to two
of my poems; I am impressed but what
earned this special consideration?

By your own baldly expressed rules the
words you ban are not included in the
texts concerned – text which reflects a
sadness due to drug dependence in our
youth with consequent loss of identity.

I make no apologies for rawness of that
verse – the sentiment is real, in fact the
truth is more exacting than that which I
expressed, terse delivery suggests a
horror barely concealed or contained.

Let me guess, you wont condone my brash
expression of unease – or even let me air
the dirty linen in a manner where it might
excite concupisense or rash behaviour – or
worse than that – do you even understand?

I know that I am talking to a deaf and dumb
machine – a search program which targets
words considered bad without actually ever
reading or understanding anything. But there
is a chance someone actually listens out there.
© 29 August 2007, I.D. Carswell


I post new poetry on the Poem Hunter site which,
of recent times, has introduced a mysterious form
of censorship. Nothing drastic, just the simple
expedient of blocking a poem from public view.
The mindless idiots who support the site have
decided these two poems:

"Who We Were Before We Came Here",

and

"The Worst Poison Is Censorship"

are not fit for public view. As I have to guess
what their criteria is - I have no formal knowlege
of what gets their goat, it leaves me in a quandary...

Welcome Home

Will 147 years of history
surprise me – I think not,
yesterday was farther off.

In the blink of an eye I will
be in the same place my
Great Grandfather of three

generations removed
hailed from. I have never
been there before but I

know it well. I wonder if
it will remember me,
saying hello prodigal son,

welcome home...
© 29 August 2007, I.D. Carswell

Controversy Sells More

Collected in the
darkness of each
days obsession,
paraded in a benign
secrecy of shaded
places; anonymity
threatened in
sharpened shadows
too precisely focussed
to diffuse smut’s history
as a mere procession
of pedant peccadilloes.

Todays views debate
industry-confused
impressions – an ocean
vast and unending as
the dark dreams riding
human emotions,
hungrily seeking feasts,
banquets of their
wildest imaginings.

The imagery hangs in
tapestries on walls
festooned in communal
space, living attributes
paint each animate face;
and pornographers rub
shoulders with Moguls
sagely providing its right
to exist by denying
controversy sells
more than any formal
legitimacy to exit
gives licence for.
© 20 August 2007, I.D. Carswell

Heat Of The Hunt

blood-rich heat of the
hunt hunches down deep
beneath rank bowells
of bare bones belief

instinct unaware steers in
instance-sensed challenges –
seeks reflex scent of fear
of quarries’ piss-release

sniffs the air – avid eyes peer
in greedy need for flesh
rent and blood spilled by
rending teeth – for howl

and cheer of the kill
where the corpse lies bent
beneath – where evolution
begins and ends – again
© 21 August 2007, I.D. Carswell

Open Your Eyes

Starts this day at 3:53am
full of focussed good
intentions – a need to
progress conjecture
into solid productivity,
build a ramp to the
outside above the lip
of the dark well
surrounding a night
without stars to
reference by.

Blind in a sense
but guided by
serene sight –
an equilibrium owed
no further payments,
climbs the wide
and well worn path,
steps into the light.

Where am I, I
cannot see –
echoes his cry.
WHY AM I HERE?

This is the outside
comes the reply, the
other side of reason –
where your self-contained
rules explain nothing.

Open your eyes...
© 21 August 2007, I.D. Carswell

Other Side Of Broken Sleep

Winds returned last night, a
low pressure system breached
boundaries of a consciousness
despairing dedicated overtures;
the deep quiet of soulful air rent
in riot of muffled sound wound
tight by closed windows, shrouded
in a hollow gloom booming the
other side of broken sleep.

Aware without hearing from
veteran years in wilder gales’
shrieking, sensing pitch of wind’s
wail held in thrall of a power
too severe to ignore, witnessing
electrical outages first hand as
they surge across swayed wires
flickering balefully into homes, LED
lights blinking a manic-obsessive call.

Light has returned a day of
leaf litter spread a visual span
reaching blind horizons, driven
mist bleeds from hills etched
against grey cloud overriding
clear air of yesterday; between
gusts crows soar in wild flight,
ride currents in a joie de vivre
of carefree spirits rejoicing.
© 22 August 2007, I.D. Carswell

Song Of The Pensive Patriot

being one and the same
with my fellow man
painfully ends my
individuality –
here I stand in the
beginning of an era where
I am less important than the
sum of our unity

a view confused and
abused in football crowds
is not the stance or essence
enhancing our claim to
common identity

we are less passionate
songs and more emotions
belonging to visibly
disparate but keen
students of similarities

you read my words listen
to echoes of your own
voices express the same
sentiment hearing nothing
less than the same
patriotic enchantment

there is no choice but
to join our arms respectfully
greet you in common voice
take claim for the love
felt in a breast torn with
prior claims of duty –

so as of this day with
great respect I say that
while I do not necessarily
like you all that much –
I love our way
© 21 Auguat 2007, I.D. Carswell

The Essential You

How many views of you do I need
to know which special you I love;
and you, how many do you need
to know which one of me? Am I

the gaudy one, the cheery imp who
gleefully pulls faces in the wind?
Perhaps I am the stolid son, glum
but vigilant and full of passive

strength. I’d go to almost any length
to know. Yet when it comes to you
my love emboldens me to say my
views embrace your every face

with equal and intense concern,
I cannot choose between the one
for all combine in sum to make a
special sense of consequence,

an essence – which to me alone
is the essential you.
© 23 August 2007, I.D. Carswell

Trees Breathe Easy

We pray for it to bring relief –
when it comes in thief-like
in the middle of the night,
stealing odds and ends of
peace of mind the anguished
bleats of discontent are heard

to echo loud and long. I listen
to the trees, silence is a proud
consent, bright in promises
and strong assent this rain
relieves their pressing needs.

The herd that gathers in the
Gympie trees and mud around
arenas where the Muster wallows
sees a different scene; their music
falters in the rain, their feet are
mired in different earth but trees
breathe easy just the same...
© 24 August 2007, I.D. Carswell

We Merely Pay The Rent

We are new to this
ancient Land, it cannot
speak to us with ease,
the economies of
our forefathers too
new to understand;

deeds describe our
arrival as recent, we
are undoubtedly the
alienated strangers.

We will not belong in
a way that frees us
of consequence; in
the dawn of each new
day we must aggrieve
with our complicity.

Nothing frees us of
the debt owed the
lessor – indeed, we
merely pay the rent...
© 18 August 2007, I.D. Carswell

Who We Were Before We Came Here

gaps in the memory like sheer sided rifts
disrupting rutted tracks leaving chasms of
utter vacancy where no signage survives
the free fall screaming plummet to a darkness
where we cease to cangue as whole things
connected and sure of whom we were before
we came here to a space of nowhere

familiar

where no space is yo mother **** yo bad ass
yo dick-shit yo little bro lying sad in fear –
dying sick-aware in damp piss-pants scared
deathless of an ever consuming emptiness
puking yellow and wretched – grovelling in
stench-reeking gut-wrenching spasms of doubt
whom we were before we came here...
© 22 August 2007, I.D. Carswell