A Dream Interrupted By Sleep

Strange images, not
threatening – though
vague tension tinged
margins where colours
merged. Faces blurred,
names changed yet greetings
seemed genuine. They
were friends – talking
hieroglyphs I did not
understand; I read
their roly-poly
body language instead.
Easily.
What am I doing here?
They moved away,
leaving me outside,
but there was nothing there.
Intrigued, I lay down,
returned to sleep.
© 5 January 2008, I. D. Carswell

Seduced By Shades Of Evergreen

A dreary day with grey
in place of sparkling blue,
the greens resplendent
fill in distances
between the hills
now hung in shrouds
of softer clouds,
a gentle rain.

I look again, appealing
bronze in leaf,
rising newness sweet
to eyes seduced
by shades
of evergreen.

I am at peace –
lose ends mesh
replenishing
complete
serenity.

I love the rain.
© 2 January 2008, I. D. Carswell

A Game With Honour And Tradition

It ain’t cricket anymore – it’s a bloody poor
substitute; way back when, if we gave a bit
of stick to the bloke at bat we knew quick
as a wink we’d cop a gobful from the chief –
he didn’t miss a thing standing in slips, eyes
in the back of his head. Had a turn of phrase
as subtle as a brick – Y’ got something wrong
with yer lip he’d ask? Then shut yer bloody
trap and let the man bat. There’s eleven of
us and just two of them he used to say, not
odds you’d trade for a bollocking now is it?
I used to think he was really a third ump.

Gone are those days. It is no-longer a game
with honour and tradition. The captains are as
willing as the rest to embrace bad behaviour,
umpires couldn’t pass a vision test or hear a
ball snick the bat, administrators, a sorry lot,
compulsive masturbators & anally retentive
when it comes to using technology to decide
when a batsman is out. Spectators are worse
than a dressed-up and rowdy curse flouting
the gentility of the game while commentators
and sports writers make us all feel ashamed.
And since when was ‘monkey’ racist?
© 7 January 2008, I. D. Carswell

Been Staring At This Page

Been staring at this page an age,
went away hoping, miraculously,
it would fill with words that pleased;
it didn’t. Expected reprieve, a single line
would have been fair compensation for
honest intent but even that didn’t event.

With more distractions to contend with
than the mind can screen I am blanketed
with a malaise that sends said mind off
a-wandering. It seems that it is saying I
shouldn’t be writing today – why? Well,
I wouldn’t know that if I didn’t try...
© 26 December 2007, I. D. Carswell

Clearly On The Nose

oh yes, I digress; and I disagree that a sober
measure of poet popularity which defines a
numeric index is what makes a poet’s fame
of any relevance. There you see The Bard’s
work in multiple redundancies – seems site
managers didn’t understand broad English,
realise it was the same thing. So dear and
ancient poets writing in the middle tongue

don’t get a look in; instead we live on boiled
fish, stale bread and baked beans – without
the greens! Mamma says the art of digression
is better than indigestion – perhaps a long fart
will clear minds of literary airs for all but those
whose views, per se, are clearly on the nose.
© 23 December 2007, I. D. Carswell

Big Fish In Small Ponds

Who is fooling who – council amalgamations
in Queensland will proceed, it makes eminent
sense. Not to individuals I agree, few would
see beyond emotional loss of local identity;
a Shire’s size and chequered history pre-
determining efficacy of local management.

It is at best a weak argument to claim in an
internecine plebiscite that the people have
spoken against change; years of unchecked
nepotism weaves a web of surreality, carving
deep and livid scars. These need the light of

day to heal in small communities. In today’s
council chambers latter-day soldiers of self-
interest tamely represent constituents but
heed personal agendas with religious zeal –
held out as evidence of unstinting service.

And the smaller the arena, the greater the
flame. We need to blow out some of these
incendiary candles. You must know the big
fish in small ponds are invariably cannibals.
© 20 December 2007, I. D. Carswell

Cloak Of Feathers

Wear your courage as a cloak of feathers,
braid your hair; daughter of a pedigree as
noble as the nose that wears a rub of many
greetings – see yourself as where we link
our legacies. Sons and daughters share a
common heritage – all aware of histories,
each a jewel to polish, ornament to wear.
I hang from your neck pounamu – ancient
and revered, the Mother of beginnings...
© 23 December 2007, I. D. Carswell

Pounamu was normally suspended from thin leather or plaited flax; metal chains do not harmonise with the stone. It was traditional for a piece to be worn level with the cavity where the two collarbones meet above the chest.

Feather Cloak (kahu huruhuru) - Of all the traditional garments of the Maori, it is the feather cloak which is the most highly prized as a family and personal heirloom. The base of the cloak was made from flax fibre (muka) which had been washed, bleached to almost white and softened. The fibres would then be rolled together until a long yarn was formed, which was then woven into the large rectangle, shaped at the shoulders and hips. Onto this was fastened the feathers, the most prized ones being those of the huia and kiwi ( especially the rare white albino kiwi). Sometimes the cloak would be fringed with taniko or white kiwi feathers.

http://www.atonz.com/new_zealand/maoriculture.html

Is In Its Proper Place

Sporadically the plop of avocados
dropping from the top of trees too
tall to pick penetrates an ambience
I like to think as my reward. Crows
call raucously in eucalyptus trees
along the orchard edge, blending
into distant green, completing this
pristine actuality. I ‘m pleased with
what I see at dawn on a dull grey
morning – the World awakes with
a wry grin, smiles obliquely, says
“G’day!” Dogs compete for space
to sleep that final minute free in
peace before a retinue of pressing
needs demand relief. Quiet is thus
complete, I am at ease, everything
I need to lead this fulsome life
is in its proper place.
© 20 December 2007, I. D. Carswell

Perchance I Dream

Sort of half asleep with incomplete,
dreamlike imagery of wide awake,
a state of neither one thing certain
nor quite counterfeit; almost half
absorbed in a thin euphemism for
bouillabaisse – or regurgitate, but
way too late in an eclectic digestive
tract to be recycled with solidity. If
I am awake I think I am asleep, If I
am asleep – perchance I dream...
© 22 December 2007, I. D. Carswell

Stirs In Ancient Ways

Can’t say I am uneasy with it as it stands
but modern verse barely lifts itself from out
the cradle, grandstanding while it vaguely
makes a play of novice virtues, holds the
same ladle, parochially stirs in ancient ways.
Obscured cachets evoke weird imagery in
fractured scenes of randomness, anger or
frustration seethes endlessly within.

Why would I want to read the dark beliefs
of a heavy metal worshipper impeached with
visibly suicidal street credibility? Because I can –
with no desire to see into the mind of a word-
mangling innocent terminally afflicted with non-
contemplative grief or pure redeeming twang.
© 24 December 2007, I. D. Carswell

A Haven In A Craven World

Give to me your children he beseeched, I
cannot save your souls of the disease that
anchors you to paths astray – I’ve tried to
teach the error of your ways and failed.
Your children I can save as innocents in
reach of true salvation; let me take them
to a safer place. And where would be a
sanctuary with guarantees the sceptics

cried, a haven in a craven World – whom
do you admit you answer to with licence
to prevaricate? Not the same pontificate?
Why yes indeed, there is but one, he says.
You’ll see reflections of his face in all the
children’s blissful smiles on Christmas day.
© 23 December 2007, I. D. carswell

And In The Night The Voices Claim My Ears

I look around to empty spaces,
vacant places; my memories
still cling to voices gone with
faces indistinct. Just a teen in

olive green, an SLR, a bandolier
and two grenades. My jungle
hat saw better days. I recall the
crushing heat, the aching feet

and battle sound we learned
to fear or disregard – the only
sounds that mattered were the
pungent cracks of rifle rounds

impacting in our space – the
cry “incoming” and a race to
cover or a safer place. I wasn’t
brave, I peed my pants, stank

just like the rest indeed – but
now they’re gone. The fear
remains and in the night the
voices claim my ears.

I sleep because I take the pills
that ease the pain – replacing
mates whose names I might
recall before I fall asleep.
© 20 December 2007, I. D. Carswell

The Sweetness Still Remains

The sweetness still remains anew, a fresh
flower blooms in fields of dew glistening
from moonlight’s grace, a gentle pace as
day begins. Petite wings flutter easily in
eyes alight, colours bright to glow a sturdy
warmth within, humble welcoming in liberal
smiles which well from depths unheard,
of roots assured in fertile gathering.

Too late to stem a racing tide emotion
loosed – too soon to be a fragile bride
bemused in worthiness and tied by
chords of distant harmonies; be sure
we’ll stay beside you in the days to come
be proud for you upon your magic day.
© 18 December 2007, I. D. Carswell

Music From The Car Park

The music from the car park by the pier
still lingers on. All the years the buskers
played guitar, sang of great loves lost in
melancholy song for coins I learned the
ways of words, mingled with the throng
of weekend visitors who ambled by. For

me the buskers were all poets heard with
great respect. I yearned to join but knew
my tuneless voice would earn me less a
place than ridicule expects. Time amends
and progress brought the ferry back; we
saw the change in subtle ways – days of

melancholy died. Banjo and harmonica
arrived, violins, the pipes, a flute, humour
lent an air now vibrantly alight, cries were
heard to echo late into the night. Change
again with rock and roll which didn’t suit
my mother’s soul although we dared to

dance real slow. Musicians came to play
the tunes we learned in living rooms from
gramophones played loud; muso’s joined
to jam in groups without a cent to pay the

rent. Busking died. I cried of loneliness in
words I wrote I’d hoped to sing, sadness
wringing when the Council changed their
zoning laws and banned the gatherings –

built a fence. In all the years the buskers
sang their melancholy songs no silence
damned the car park by the pier; it echoes
now, an eerie hollowness I can’t express in
faithful words – and wont with due respect.
© 21 December 2007, I. D. Carswell

Events Remote Over An Horizon

Posted two replies, deleted both for
reasons I decline to realise – pissed
& typing wild on 1 ½ litres of fine
Colombard Chardonnay in the early
evening. Why do I feel put upon in
seeing things I know have meaning
only in an abstruse sense? Offense
is relative indeed. When you let the
wine glow with evening’s warmth
you find a firmness of thought that
supersedes abstract reasoning. I’m
pleased I found the time to steep in
an obtuse wallow of good sense; a
recompense for those times I, too,
was swallowed by events just a tad
too brutally remote over an horizon.
©19 December 2007, I. D. Carswell

Life Is Not A Sydney Telephone Number

It was this way you see, a desire to face less
traffic with more space and better choices;
we’d heard the voices before you know – a
true silence always has distinctive echoes.

So we ran away from Sydney. Yesterday we
agreed here is where we’ve been content,
10 ½ years resident, longest continuous
period ever in our entire partnered history.

What was wrong with Sydney? Nothing rear
view mirrors couldn’t cure, or better dispel
nostalgia than to see the endless red-tiled
roofs disappear beneath northbound wings.

Coming back again is almost coming home,
sort of bitter-sweet; faces and places remain
etched pleasantly, atoning for Neanderthals
who prowl the streets in powerful SUVs.

And home is family - the growing gang of
familiars who’ve enigmatically peopled our
lives these past thirty years, embraced again
in brief but emotionally reflective greetings.
© 19 December 2007, I. D. Carswell

Fame Is A Blink

How ironic you say, living you made
no impact on anything but dead its
a whole new game. Explain that in a
way which placates a cringing ego.
It’s corporeality’s last relic you think –
having an ego as a hangover deemed
meaningful; be advised, no dead man
plays the game nor has a self or cares
what you think. Fame is a blink with 10
cent notoriety run to the head. Yep,
given my druthers, I’d rather be dead.
© 17 December 2007, I. D. Carswell

The Goods Of Good Company

Arrogance you can take in stride
but from a serial loudmouth it is
hard to look aside. In this case a
balding, one-eyed, beer-gutted,
unemployed bloke with resolute
‘been-there-done-that’ attitude
– which is bad enough by itself,
but coupled with also being full
of shit – no way I want a bar of it.

How did this dork invite himself
to share a beer with us I ask me
mate? He’s brought his own but
that don’t make him an expert on
everything we’ve been discussing
does it? Or does it; I mean, he’s
here with us so that’s a sure hint
of legitimacy isn’t it? Crikey, fancy
that, us legitimate! But then it’s

probably the reason we’re sought
after company and never twigged,
the dork proves it. Me mate eyes
me a bit queer-like, meaning what,
he begs? Meaning we’re the goods
of good company – like any set of
mates and the dork’s trying to grow
himself some credibility. Well, golly
gosh and gee whiz, laughs me mate!
© 17 December 2007, I. D. Carswell

Errant Right To Sleep

Let me lie beside you in my waking dream,
I’ll try to keep the peace you seem to think
we needed when the battle ended; war for
me was ever gainful whether won or sorely
lost to bitter endings – all tragedies among
the tragedies from whence we learned to
live or die – be cast anew, thrown aside or
born with fire in saddened, sightless eyes.

I do not sleep to dream although I dream
of you – to lie beside your weightless form
in sleep, the sinews gone the flesh a pliant
mesh of moments I had lived alarmed in arms
to weep or die for, and enter in your womb
of regent peace, earn an errant right to sleep.
© 16 December 2007, I. D. Carswell

Absurdly, Words Are Messengers

An attribute of age – this making words

on screen emerge larger than their act
in life – but I’m not fooled by it! I know
a thing or three of words uttered under
pressure or words chosen in fear. I have
lived with words a long and eager time
of it – here I will say it is not the words
which ream the heart or blight the ear.

It is why you say the words which strikes
the blow or sweetly soothes the ache in
hand; absurdly, words are messengers of
inner states behind a mind’s syntax, clear
and cogent acts expressed in words we
think while watching eyes belie the facts.
© 15 December 2007, I. D. Carswell

Love Is What It Is

A complex explanation for love is that it IS,
to describe it as something, more or less an
expression of a state of being, suggests it is
not. You say I love you in my own way. I am
surprised there is another – it’s my love, the
lot I live with day by day. It is fulfilled should
you say or do the simple things it needs to
glow, but it never goes away. It is what it is.

I hear your love in the sound of your voice,
in a tear or a wry face; long conversations
with sons whose words embrace, sheer joy
in the scent of a flower in a bed of colour,
grace of your grief – a dignity of self I need
to face this day displaced in the love of you.
© 15 December 2007, I. D. Carswell

Pigment Markings As Bas-Relief

Deal with it - sure! Actually I can, but I’m told
the real audience isn’t in my reality – I’m less
an effect than figment of my own confidence.

I see the pigment markings as bas-relief – an
ochre where deep blue or silent green should
be – and no depth to shadows, no substance

beyond this day’s shallow, two-dimensional
analogy. I’d be wiser to keep a stilled tongue.
Already I sleep discomforted with the grateful

dead, memories are equally indistinct. Each
waking mood is relinquished to an intense
relief which introspection fails to allay. This

same day I realised who I’ve been listening
to; it is common misbelief to take one’s orb
of conscience as humanities collective choice.

There is no voice out in the ether, nor any wiser
preference without consequence. And I’m glad
to say I can still deal with that in my own way...
© 3 December 2007, I. D. Carswell

Seal Rocks Brotherhood

Dolphins cruising just off the beach break while
we watch enthralled – surf dumping short of a
sand wall uniting extremes – long impressions
of contemplative harmony. Back from the beach

men sleep through hangovers of nights rigorous
celebration – with more to come – snores ring
through flimsy tent walls spiced with idle farts of
reluctant awakening. Brothers in arms embracing

the tall tales, the memories, the stories yet to be
told. Here in a pristine seascape we take a break
from sentinel duties and see a brother through
the last days of his singleness. We’ve shaken the

hand of tradition – we’ve remade him a man. In
a distance hazed without concrete or angularity
I hear your soft snore through the walls, feel the
resonance of your womb-like wisdom, agree it is

time to make peace. The shore break intercedes,
a crash of waves with dolphins shadowed in the
crystal green dart through my thoughts, echoing
cleanness of a complete and eternal inevitability.
© 11 December 2007, I. D. Carswell

Tastes Obscenely Malty

It’s all about the taste; you cannot make a
case without embracing history – no way
will glitzy ads for lite, lo-cal and diet beer
replace a brewer’s fame. For sure a name
reflects the brewing house, shames their
lousy grab for cash and plastic claims they
say are real. Crass appeal wont replicate a
modicum of bitter taste. Flavour’s not the
only deal – beer’s a meal! Its steak & fries,
its pecan pies & bacon bits, don’t surmise
a loss of weight, beer is a fête. I’m sipping
this here bitter brew that dates 200 years –
the recipe appeals to me; a Colonial Bitter
made for settlers of the Hebrides, the beer
is rich and dark and tastes obscenely malty
with a sleepy bite. I’ll stoke the fire tonight
and sleep the sweetest sleep despite too
many sips. Oh, I might regret the frequent
trips to pee – we’ll wait and see...
© 29 November 2007, I. D. Carswell

Urges One To Write In Similar Vein

He was aware of an itch-demand, a transient
scratch less stay the hand and investigate; its
perfunctoryness made more sense blessed in
ignorance. Hola, he sighed, it’s gone again –

But where? Where do itches go to reappear?
The code says no existence without form but
changing form is just the norm, there’s ample
evidence of that. Beware, the thing mutates...

It started in my hair. I scratched while reading
rabid verse on hate & ethnic arrogance, words
which danced like dervishes possessed about
delusion and despair – and moved from there

Shakes his head in mock dismay, I say old boy
the answer’s clear, don’t read it if it irritates,
wear blinkers if you must and bear a cross in
silence; thus your cure is made & all for free

Ignore it, it will go away. How say, by random
movement of the air, perhaps a cleansing fall
of rain, a blast of searing censorship, a bomb,
tame myocardial infarction, traffic accident...

That’s the way; forsake your mind of gravity,
let nature take its course. It’s just an itch. And
that’s the bitch – an irritating itch which nags
the hand and urges one to write in similar vein
© 30 November 2007, I. D. Carswell

1001 Nights Glorious Memories

This sense of relief is less release of pressure than
disbelief only eleven months elapsed between an
admission and an ending. Somewhere a concrete
reality turned into a dream; there is still an echo
of the words written saying “I believe in failure as
a man making guesses at a future far less assured
than the life he lived already – I’m here because I
am unsure whether I see a sinecure playing fancy-
free”. The journey wasn’t troubled inordinately, a
long and often boring trip from dawn ‘til dusk, an
admission much of what I read was less sustaining
than the air we breathe – demeaning of a logic we
attribute more than we get because we’ve needs
which colour what we think or see. I ate the seeds
spread in my youth – it is too late to influence the
patterns but icons of my adolescence re-emerged
in voices; Mike Fanniesson, Ted Sheridan & James
(Metamorphhh) Crawford to name a few new, old -
World Americans; the babes were there to aid the
trip – Susan jane Goldner, Nick Gaudio, and infant
Ben Paynter – hey, did I mention Susan Fowler or
Val Moorehouse or a chorus of more-or-less great
painters in words before I left to bless Jim Hogg, a
fabulous Scot unrecognised as yet, or Frank JR Jnr
with whom I traded envy. Then Tara McH, & Anna
Russell, Gwen Mooney and Helen Humber Girl. Of
course the list is endless Franchesca, but guess if
you need why I had to mention you. If I never said
another word I’d feel ashamed and prove the lie
to poesy. It is community – & we Australians know
what isolation is – Allison Cassidy & Jerry Hughes,
AJS in whatever alias he used today, and me, IDC
who tried to breach the walls. If there is a truth I
think you’ll find it in the words of august Yoonoos;
sure, recent events make Poemhunter more a Hell
of Infamy than Hall of Fame, but blame yourselves!
Don’t listen to or play the Mumbai moron’s games.
© 12 December 2007, I. D. Carswell

Millennial Jubilation And Summary Integrity

I reached the end with breath to spare though now
the air is blanketed and reeks afoul;
I’d like to rest – savour whence I came, of
where this site was once sweet scent – pure until
contaminated by a Mumbai taint,
infected of its rank insanity.
You write obscenities in childish prose
which pose, you claim, as decent poetry.

Whichever way you dress your illness friend
through alias and foul abuse you’ve made
a mess you can’t escape. Too late my friend,
your last excuse has merely closed the gate;
the reckoning is just around the bend
with all your pseudonyms as thus exposed.
© 12 December 2007, I. D. Carswell

Much Ado About Nothing

Whoop de do! Who needs
another excuse? I guess
my mind-set’s revealed
in the hullaballoo of it, a
public outcry, noisy party
or a fuss. But not being

into precedence abuse I ’m
learning looser definitions
and exposés, wordplays
thus reducing the noise to
less than a crowd cheering –
plus me, a one-man band,

beer in either hand and a
grin as broad as my hat.
I must explain – the revelry
planned is for reaching 1000
poems. This isn’t it, not yet
anyway – that day isn’t out

of reach – just 27 to impeach
and I’ll gladly pack it in.
Looking back was trifling sad –
had a lot of fun travelling;
spent some time last night
reading annotations from

special friends dating years –
a few famously waylaid,
seized by Real World inertia
and mired in it. Too many
temptations we say, but this
faerytale land seduces all who

enter, arraigning them as
supplicants seeking poetic
agendas and freedoms they
already have. It leaves me weak,
mocking in surrender – far too
much ado about nothing!
© 16 November 2007, I. D. Carswell

Lost Amongst Trees

Lost amongst trees in new leaf, feel
their bronze youth age green in sultry
Summer’s awakening. New fruit keens
to eat – vies for the lion’s share.

Between unbroken arcs of canopy weeds
lament, survive two sprays, refuse to die –
a hardy set though most show wilt enough
to stave-off seeding for this year. A blessing –

Miscellany of last year’s fruit to pick, 50%
I’d guess – less wind-fall and anthracnose
infected, plenty to keep us quiet ‘til January.
Midday heat has birds at an easy quiescence.

Cool sprinklers spray sweet water on thirsty
trees’ feet as we rest out of the glare...
© 23 October 2007, I. D. Carswell

R.I.P. FjR (Jnr)

An odour hangs where sweeter
scents have had their day – an
effluence pervades, strangles air,
and where we once were ruled
by truth and common sense
anarchy takes it away.

I read with great regret the sable
words of FjR, a man whose quest
to seek and hold the truth has met
an early end. He acquiesced in face
of grand intransigence; there’s more
to life, he said, than banging heads.

Frank has gone – this time he won’t
return; malefactors who run this site
conspired to spurn him for his queries
on their malfeasance – a sentence of
death by silence, spiced with a thousand
slights and poisoned innuendo.

And Frank James Ryan (Jnr) is right!
He is also right to leave – there is no
peace of mind in knowing he’s been
singled out, receives an unjust and
askance punishment of eternal
stasis because he asked why...

An odour hangs where heady scent of
woven words in pure and peaceful
harmony was sacrosanct; the rotten
stench inures the followers – it’s there
my friends and reaches through your
pens as arch belief. Beware!
© 9 October 2007, I. D. Carswell

Lost - RWC Spectacularity

I joined the clan with no fears upon whose side
I played, of battles lost or victories dismayed;
and in the lugubriousness of one hour and 20
minutes learned the whole, undeniable truth...
The Rugby game I know is gone.

The game we knew no longer unfurls a noble
spell – hijacked to marketing Hell by gurus of
international repute in ermenegildo zegna
suits who never kicked a ball, ran breathless
in pursuit.

The era of bright lights and attacking skills with
ball irreverently balanced is buried in an ogre’s
avalanche of dour defensive. Too much to lose
strategists reply – let referees blindly apply rules
which sanction it.

And in the maul any beauty of players poised
afoot to break free ball in hand is stalled by
bodies hurled to like cannon balls with dismal
intent to crush and maim – the ruck bent with
arguably sinister contempt.

I don’t see a spectacle in sweaty grace where
players grapple in gangs embracing stationary
siege-warfare like mentalities; referees who
see nothing unseemly have lost their place,
and, sadly – the game.
© 22 October 2007, I. D. Carswell