Gimme A Carrot, She Says

EI (Equine Influenza) got the drop today, the
first races after state-wide quarantine were
underway in NSW & Queensland; a pleasure
seeing our own horses out on track at last, a
huge welcome back – you buggers! Old mate

Mick was glued to screen, a trainer from the
bad old days, never took an oath to keep the
racetrack clean – can’t understand why the
losers scream when they do their dough. Its
rigged and you don’t know that? Geeze, he

says, ask any friggin’ jockey! I know enough
to agree there is more to the game than the
glitz and parades. But then I only graze the
few, quite innocent, pony club horses they
spell around here. But I get all the hot tips I

need from Molly, a grey, who hangs out by
the cool room. Gimme a carrot, she says...
© 1 December 2007, I. D. Carswell

Mus Musculus Tout d’ Squeak...

Ok, so I’ve got the wrong end of the stick
again; you’re not responsible for the
end result of what you say – you never
meant to say sorry in a way which we
could then mistake as an apology.
– Leadership without liability?

I see – sorry meant commiserations
falling just short of being near a state
akin to that bearing owner’s weight –
a Lawyer’s quibble without a free lunch;
why say it then? Your rhetoric is fraught
with double meaning – you say the same words
but deny the thing relates to you.

You’re squeaky clean – please repeat it, squeaky –
rhymes with sneaky doesn’t it? Parts that fit.
The worrying bit is your conviction
you’ve done no wrong! Mus musculus tout d’ squeak...
© 10 November 2007, I. D. Carswell

Not Too Late To Emigrate

Safest thing for you and sanity to do is say
goodbye – it won’t be hard, you’ve toed
the line before, sincerely, in an offhand
way. But come this time you’ll be required
to stay away from loose repeals, duplicity
and sneaky backroom double-deals.

So kiss the stone and fade away, it never
cast its vote for you nor yet concealed its
apathy. Let us see you move along and out
of sight: too many friendships wrongly died
defending your right to lie – too many refined
views choked on scandalous compromise.

We’ve withered on the vine we like to think
connects us in a fellowship which links our
separate views; but you’ve denied our right
to have our say – even coined the term ‘un-
Australian’ along the way to emphasise your
brand of non compos mentis conservatism.

So here you go: Do you give all and each the
benefit of a fair go – doing unto others as
they would to you? Are you fair dinkum in
relationships? Do you cop it sweet when
the shit hits the fan? Do you keep the faith –
and not dob in a mate?

Do you believe we’re the world’s most
egalitarian Nation and fight to preserve
it unreservedly? Do you pull together with
neighbours in times of difficulty? Do you add
your weight when bludgers bludge – keep
a silent tongue to whinger’s bait?

If you can do that mate you’d make an Aussie;
add in just a tinge of sportsmanship, follow all
our sporting teams, volunteer now and then
to lend a helping hand. Sorry John, it’s far to
late for you to make a willing change, but give
it thought – it’s not too late to emigrate!
© 19 November 2007, I. D. Carswell

Doomed To Make Them Pay

Another dead, more are dying –
and for want of heeding writing
ready written on the wall. The
mewling cries are strident in a
grievous disbelief – forsaken by
a rubric hint of voter buoyancy.

These ‘top of the food chain’
political sophisticates expiate
to primal instinct when votes
change; unbridled intrigue rubs
them shy of winning figures in a
trite Soap without credence and
they’re at each other’s throat.

Today the Queensland Liberals
played the Last Post on a future
they will play no part in – shame
to see them go this way; for sure
a fallout from the Federal stakes
was doomed to make them pay.
© 29 November 2007, I. D. Carswell

Jim Crow Conspiracy, a

Does the World you live in peer out of
your blinkered verse – if verse applies in
any loosest sense to what you write?
Indeed, if seen rare glimpses of harmony
reek aberrant – shaped out of treasonous
freedoms envied were you have no emotional
software. In words common to praise you
condemn, crazed contemptuous phrases
in litanies of sheer, acid abuse.

And therein lies a veiled truth, the uttered
meaning warped beyond cognition – your
obsequious affection crudely appeals for
diffidence fair, achieves unanimous rejection.
A Jim Crow conspiracy that stinks of iniquity
you claim, yet decency speaks all tongues and
listens without prejudice. And you wonder
where the amour went – try brushing your
teeth with less dissent...!
© 29 October 2007, I. D. Carswell

Being Seventeen

Being seventeen – just shy a year of when
meaning takes a thin view of past eras, of
growing pains, of vaster distances than the
eye spans easily. Being seventeen in clothes
made today to wear today; no copies of this
hair persuaded of the coiffure of the street,
in the colours of the stars, in the shimmer of
the air where each one stares at this body
being seventeen, at this person being me.

Tell me that you care and give to me those
glances aching with the craving evident in
eyes despair, seeing me being seventeen,
agreeing and wishing you where there.
© 11 December 2007, I. D. Carswell

Cyber-daughter Trystal Wright turned
17 on Monday, 10 December 2007.
Congratulations!  In point of fact I'd got
it wrong - Trystal turned 16! I apologised 
and offered her the poem for her next birthday 
 - saying she was really that mature...

Future Shock (or Post Xmas Blues)

The fat man in the mirror says too much by
looking at me in a way which denigrates my
lack of strength. His weight I carry day to day
but that seems lost to him – far away beyond
his haughty countenance.

And who are you to ridicule he scoffs, you
make no mark upon the space you occupy
whilst I command! Yes, it may well be too
obvious – I willingly agree, you fill the mirror
edge to edge and clearly wear my face.

If I could smile and walk away to leave you to
your reverie you’d die a lonely death I say, but
I am here to witness change I need to see. And
you’re too fat to interest me – peering beetled-
browed won’t win reprieve.

Go lose some goddamn weight!
© 12 December 2007, I. D. Carswell

Christmas Mall Shopping Blues

It started with the mobile phone; an innocent
enough alone yet lucid prelude to an overture
in timeless movement. The pure immensity of
grander schemes became apparent only when
a simple plan soon failed to cope, traffic jams &
car parks crammed too full with random acts of
felony in place of seasonal goodwill.

In an ‘equal opportunity’ Mall we encounter
the dread disabled walkers, pushers, stalkers
in a free-for-all of more assorted wheel chairs
parked to effect absolute growth of stress;
appeals to commonsense have no influence –
they shyly smile & stay in access ways. What
could you say? I weakly echo – ho, ho, ho!

Ten days shy of Christmas I have witnessed
mankind’s fixed awarelessness; this mass of
shoppers milling, bargain obsessed – less the
teens who just look cool by being seen. Yet
he quickly fixed and blessed my mobile phone
in weightless chat, no worries mate he said –
parking woes apart, you’ll make it safely home!
© 14 December 2007, I. D. Carswell

Chatroom Etiquette

Before I came I knew
what needed to be said
and I haven’t forgot
if you’re about
to point out
I didn’t say it
yet.

Biding my time –
you’d know
about that too,
the least heard
is the best said
in any iteration of
dreaded censure;

you’re a mess –
bless the stars
there’s no
moon tonight.

Okay,
we’re on line,
is it a smile,
or a grimace?
© 19 October 2007, I. D. Carswell

Dark Side Of Humanity, the

This churlish knave who blights our scene
divides uneasy sentiment with truculence;
screams irrationally in vehemence as easy
words, coos praise unctuously in phrases
reeking insincerity – a gooey disingenuous
drek. You know him well, so what the heck
you say, it is a modest quirk of conscience,
momentary lapse of reason, he’ll go away.

Regrettably he touches raw anxiety with
flippant ease, sleazing into sense of right
and wrong with venomous intent, snake-
like bent on wreaking knavish discord and
intense disunity; it is time to see him just
for what he is – the dark side of humanity.
© 3 December 2007, I. D. Carswell

And Cyber Narcissism

The question remains; how many aliases
per dysfunctional sentient are needed
in narcissistic, pathological space?

Those irresistible urges to spawn again
and again, birthing figments of fantasy
in an internet nest of intrigue, where
false identities and specious claims are
de rigueur – are the same symptoms
and finite details of a real disease.

Cyber narcissists stalk ersatz fame
with an unhinged and insane energy,
gathering cults of transient and disposable
fans as insects to light, burning brighter
in each melodramatic iteration.

Somatic and cerebral alike prey in rich
waters unmediated, feeding in epicentres
tailor-made for stalkers, erotomaniacs,
denigrators and plain nuts, sustaining
grandiose fantasies, inflating self-images.

Cinctures of normative behaviour do not
apply; cyber narcissists are addicts of their
own provincial delusion and, where
unsatisfied, beware, become disruptive
influences – blaming someone other as
the guilty, racist son-of-shaitan.

Addicted or reformed you remain in
thrall when you seek gratification
in those hallowed halls...
© 6 December 2007, I. D. Carswell

From: The Cyber Narcissist, by Sam Vaknin
– thanks to Jim Crawford (Metamorphhh)

When Tinsel Hung Festooned

They’re sugared words, sweet to ear and tongue,
words we heard when tinsel hung festooned for
eyes to feast upon. No matter where we came in
from, minds shadowed in a daze of lesser events,
the sight and sound entwined our hearts in arms
of pure, godlike consent. Remember how the songs

were sung, how all went still and eyes grew bright
with Winter’s chill of fine delight ringing choruses
clinging tight with yuletide unity. It all began with
hearts beating in synchronicity, when School ended
for the year, in an early evening & on into a blissful
night – we sang for sheer joy in fellowship and close

harmony, for gifts at the foot of the tinselled tree,
for our mums and our dads and fellow men & for
the peace on Earth we knew to be sustained and
a table laden with food we viewed with saucered
eyes. And so it was and so it will be, we naively
surmised. Our childish voices cried into the night:

Merry Christmas to One and All & to Every Soul –
a Happy New Year! God bless, Goodnight.
©4 December 2007, I. D. Carswell

Counting On Fantasies

The fantasies departed long ago,
took a space-time journey to a far,
better place and – optimistically, a
host who cares. I still see the dog
hairs eventuating their existence,
finer than my dark entanglements,
but I am not fooled by ideas of
an imminence of their return.

I am still plagued by fleas, a reality
check which they would claim is a
bonus in lieu of fee – this way they
keep an eye on me. I scratch to the
itch of a universal need & they’re
there watching – counting on me.
© 5 December 2007, I. D. Carswell

Awake Again And Waiting

I think I was supposed that night to write a plot
I didn’t write when opportunity came knocking;
drowned in a younger man’s dreams – unaware
the celestial vehicle waits no more than a heart-
beat between stops, enthused by an assurance
it would not leave me despairing after answers
sought to existential connivance – where truth
matters less than substance or modes of belief.

I did not take my seat, was careless and upbeat
about the next conveyance, boasted how easily
I’d reach the destination. Thus I stayed asleep,
played somnambulant tunes to rhythms of the
spheres – believed I was within a modicum of
succeeding. Now I’m awake again, and waiting...
© 26 November 2007, I. D. Carswell

To Em, & Why Not?

There’s something in a smile you know,
an element that’s missing from a grin –
but a grin from Em is like a privileged
glimpse of stars alight – alright, she’s kin,
daughter to a whim in clasp familial – a
faux paternity. Emma’s family indeed;
we’d be the less we think we are – or
pretence if sans her elegance.

A gesture of assent and she’s the first
and only daughter in a band of beery
men. She wins by just a line, the one
before the very last, a sonnet shy but
ascot destined for success; & why
not Em I say – still much impressed?
© 23 November 2007, I. D. Carswell

...for gorgeous Em,
Emma Dwyer

I Say, Carothers Old Boy

I say, Carothers old boy – that bally fellow
who cannot spell’s still making odd noises.
Odd noises eh, well just how odd old man?
An apoplexy I’d say – strangulated a bit, in
an excess of unrhyming, unmetered vomit.

Dashed queer don’t y’ think; I mean time of
year and all that – perhaps Bombay belly? I
really don’t know! Why don’t we ask him in
so we can toady what he may have to say?

Oh, I’d rather not; you know he’s a wee bit,
how’d y’ put it, strange in the head – been
in the sun. Maybe he’s run out of inanities
to pen in that strangely oblique peninsula
vernacular – those rather crude farragoes

of crapulence he proposes are really verse!
May I take it he’s back on a Racism hearse?
Ok, that explains it, in his bailiwick racism is
the one sure thing embracing a bucolic wit.

When day to day attention-seeking fails he
ignites the wick of a crusading, self-styled
incendiary claiming he is an innocent victim
of racial hatred and ethnic vilification.

I know it, factitious disorder, Munchausen
Syndrome! Don’t you just love it? Pshaw!
When you’re as dismal a scribe as he why
deliberately draw attention to yourself?
© 20 November 2007, I. D. Carswell

Dim Glimmers Of Awareness

The price we pay for our diversity is to share a
super highway; there are good users and bad,
eulogisers & criticisers who’re equally paired –
were we’re aware of whom we represent, and
care, there stands an indecent chance for a fair
and unbiased revival in cosmic consciousness.
Dim glimmers of awareness are rare & rate less
in newsworthiness, becoming saintly blessings.

Today’s image of “I Am All That There Is” bears
a modestly accrued ledger of self-interest – that
I can’t see the road ahead for other users is such
a common cry that it justifies a rough-shod ride
through the masses on ambition framed from
the depleted uranium of sought-after fame.
© 8 November 2007, I. D. Carswell

Death Of The Last Limp Liberal

Looking back I see how often I predicted it,
a blazing crash with flames that reach into
the Tories tightest dreams. A teary wake &
silhouettes of gloom invoked as crudités in
place of cupid humbleness. The arrant cries
I hear for shame refuting rightly earned and
tame dismissal by the hooded faces, making
lame excuses in a litany of vacant blame.

For sure you’ll rise again, phoenix from the
ashes of defeat – a calloused corpse of old
ideas dressed sweet in coddling clothes, a
gaudy show of innocence impeached; and
in the breach of confidence you’ll seek the
faithful once again to sing in toxic phrase.
© 26 November 2007, I. D. Carswell

Dauntless Venture Reasons (as a sinecure)

That making qualitative judgement when your
ears are waking to a giddy ring of cheers may
not be easy – but few who know they’re singular
& chosen ever hear. Dauntless venture reasons
as a sinecure, knows no cautious words to stave
a rainy day. I hear their jeers as praise, am fey &
fearing malice pure as leaks ‘twixt sharpened
teeth & tight-lipped grins of cheery faux amaze.

But these are early days; the blooded knives
are buried in the backs of failed and wooden
idols of an anxious past – they try to smile, to
bare their toothless gums. They’re in denial,
too long they had it just their way, too long
they lied about the future we’re denied...
© 28 November 2007, I. D. Carswell

Daphne Tillack, Cup Winner!

Daph’s a beaut sheila – already told you that;
didn’t tell you she turns seventy on Tuesday,
November 6th, but keep it in your hat ‘cause
she doesn’t like bloody drama, indeed,
prefers good company with cold beer.

I see Daph most Sundays along with her boy
friend Clem – well, husband actually, but I get
a grand laugh thinking of them as youngsters
in love and that goes a way to explaining my
delight at her topping the big Seven Oh.

Geeze, can’t be too big a deal if Daph does it
easy – not that it’s all been so trouble-free, a
bit of surgery here and there on this and that,
seen the old dear suffer a bit after her knees,
or was it her hips – err; delete ‘old’..., smack!

Daphne’s a beaut, too bloody true, a never
bested and scurrilous wit, a sense of good
humour; into life and living it like it’s the only
game in Town – try it, you’ll never leave! Be
sure, she’ll win the Cup so easily come Tuesday...
© 5 November 2007, I. D. Carswell

Two Acceptance Speeches

I’m humbled by the honour
you’ve bestowed on me; to
say the very least my thanks
comes gratefully from deep
within – I’m speechless in a
way I’ve never been before.
I pledge today to keep your
faith in honesty, to earn the
trust you’ve freely given...

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

I say there is no greater voice
than that expressed affirming
Commonwealth; I stress belief
that nothing more could move
me than your voices joined in
affirmation of your will; my sad
regret is I am not enjoined by
stewardship to lead – I bow my
head, I didn’t meet your need...
© 24 November 2007, I. D. Carswell

Composed early AM
November 24,
Federal Elections polling day

Be Judged In Visible Truth

This sickness generates its own disguise –
a sheet of white expressed with holes
for eyes, a pointed hat. And though the
sheet implies a clean or virgin frame of
mind there is no honest poll for that.

Cries an uncouth name, although at least
it isn’t ‘Chainsaw Massacre’, Tid Willow,
or Wilde Beast. It matters not anyway –
names abide like handkerchiefs, are cruelly
fouled, abused and cast aside reflexively.

Emblem of this sickness is it’s soulless
cant of comic deprecation and despair –
an enmity where ersatz hatred uttered
wells from reservoirs abused by years of
saddened non-acceptance by its peers.

No mitigating plea alone – nor can its author
be exempt eccentric, granted free immunity;
where one might tolerate naivety in fact, or
youth, this is not that case. Whoever you are,
show your face, be judged in visible truth.
© 12 October 2007, I. D. Carswell

Assured A Lifelong Friend

Tried glyphosate and waited out the week,
didn’t see the end effect we seek – usually
a drying wilt ensues, must have screwed
that run we thus conclude.

Had to wait until the weather took a break –
but she’ll be Jake we farmers like to say. Tried
again, took three days, too many hours were
wasted in a far too patient application.

Did it by the label with meticulous attention
to every small detail – temperature within a
maximum and minimum prescribed, humidity
ok, but still it was a waste of time!

So come the third respray we knew who’d win.
Amaranthus spp, the target weed, was rarely
vexed while other pests just up and died – or
grew again. It had become a case of do or die

and desperation loomed. Tried 2, 4-D (as Amicide)
which made a stronger case – we sprayed the last
few rows today secure we’ll see a wilt within a
couple days. Had that drum for years and years,

used to use it when we grazed our fields with
lowline steers. Miss those little buggers now
and then, pity too, but thanks to you, you bovine
kine, Amicide’s assured a lifelong friend!
© 27 November 2007, I. D. Carswell

All Those Nice Ecliptic Things

Another day where plagiarists
play mind games & disaffected
poets grind blunted vegetarian
teeth; a smile of blank pages I’ll
try to fill churchless and blind on
an uninspired Sunday.

Flying with the not-so-new news
young readers find delight reading
poems lost to antiquity – but still
bearing my name. They say kind
things truncated, at least it seems
nice, no suggestions otherwise.

Back to the grindstone where grit
and grist combines in sour-dough
expressions of disbelief – surely a
rogue ingredient effected this! To
the recipe in amazement, too late
now to change the basic mix.

Need more meat in the diet – the
pungency of razor insight died
with spiritless conversation and
greens doused in spicy balsamic
blight, fresh picked herbs and all
those nice ecliptic things.
© 13 November 2007, I. D. Carswell

Cathartic Head-Banging

Okay, thank you, feeble minded misanthrope,
you’ve saved the day for me, I won’t have to look
through lists of esoteric thoughts to find a subject
rich with music wrought for my creative energy.

Trawl the sorry seas my friend, abuse the stately
ships which glide less small-mindedness and petty
innuendo, cast your crude aspersions in a calumny
of rancid, leach-like wit – to me it matters not a bit.

Bottom-dwellers see another World who’s light
fills weak & wretched eyes with stars too bright
to contemplate as sane and rational ideologies,
frame instead deranged and blighted surreality.

To live well cure your sickness with shades that
filter bright lights you think you see; you dwell in
a diseased and falling-down hovel of bad belief
where your rhymes clash like broken cymbals.

But hey, thank you man, you saved the day for me,
you’re a therapeutic grand offering, fanfare with
ribbons and bunting and whistles – a metaphoric
train of mind-freeing, cathartic head-banging.
© 19 October 2007, I. D. Carswell

Age Where Reason Repairs Vision

Whether it’s appointing female Bishops in the
Anglican Church or repairing schisms we’re in
for a period of change; I’m not too despaired,
it’s an age where reason repairs vision. To see
beyond what tainted eyes appeal is more than
rhapsodic chanting to the masses; a glimpsing
of vistas concealed in axioms with prescribed
sets of pre-determined meanings. All of these
less messages than massage to infant senses.

When we can discern the avenue & conclusion
abandoned to opinion no greater than faith or
fantasy – climb the cliff or precipice instanced
in cataracts exuding their prejudice, then and
only then will we see that despite its covering
of rust and disuse, truth is still truth. So when
all is said and done the difference between a
republican and democrat is not in the quality
of the food but who gets a supply contract...
© 12 November 2007, I. D. Carswell

Better Kept A Fantasy

Where the kcuf is Osama, I heard
him ask – Osama bin Muhammad
bin 'Awad bin Laden I presumed,
in absence of those epithets that
good news has bin Laden’s head
securely in the bag. Either dead or
on the move I’d say, grooving to a
wadi tune away from hostile eyes,
Intel and smart bombs homing in
on smell, assassins seeking instant
fame or forty virgins promised him.

Were I he, I’m sure I’d never stop to
pee, bathe or send an SMS excepting
in encrypted text. He’s better kept a
fantasy presumed alive than otherwise,
he’d have no more utility pronounced
obscenely dead – best to stay a bogey
man, stand at least to wear the blame...
© 26 November 2007, I. D. Carswell

Blow A Penny Whistle

Want to blow my penny whistle?
Seek a soulful tune and puff your
cheeks; the puny sound ensuing
is a travesty, a pitiful expression
of the majesty and grand mystique
the whistle cometh with. The secret
isn’t all that much a secret, methinks
you dare to blow a peep with too much
gravity. Lessen of your effort, relax,
take a softer touch, breathe a bit
between your cheeks; who cares if it
sounds weak asthmatic warbling,
it’s history that the whistler seeks.
© 13 October 2007, I. D. Carswell