Allergy

it is the season of afflictions
slung invisible in perfume-
laden air – a heady scent
with redolence intense and
no reprieve hangs everywhere

we breathe and sneeze and
clear our throats disturbing
motes and minute grains of
pollen floating ere the gentle
breezes tease our hair

reddened eyes are squinted
slits in Springtime glare – we
note relief a distant thief with
six more weeks to wend before
this flowering seasons ends...
© 29 August 2008, I. D. Carswell

Relics

be it burkha or chador
hijah or scarf – what is
the controversy

kippah, kufi, turban or
callote may seem less
confrontational – perhaps

what remains are mind-sets
on cloister and veil – relics
of history’s angst

clothes or their lack
do not make belief
more certain
© 1 September 2008, I. D. Carswell

Perspectives

sitting just below the parapet
of common-sense is not the same
thing as expectation-lowering
(although it reduces viewpoint
and elbow’s elegancy on desk)

but here below your line of
fire I am no longer the prey

this diminution of alleged
stature actually suits me – mollifies
delusions of grandeur produces
steadfastness in modesty
renews energies

lower your seat fifteen
centimetres and see...
© 2 September 2008, I. D. Carswell

Worthy Praise

to think you even recognised
the subtlety imbued therein
was worldly praise indeed. 

Then saying that you liked the
way the words combined in
fragrant phrase and pungent 

line was accolade much more
than I had right to earn;
I was amazed and pleased 

beyond my tongue-tied grin;
requited too, for now I know
for whom I’ll write – by gad 

its right to write for you!
© 2 September 2008, I. D. Carswell

A Sonnet And A Lark

my feast
of wholesome words still
failed to stir her appetite –
I know I should
have tried
pancakes
maple syruped
or sugared apple slice – 

she didn’t say
she cared a wit
caesura was a pause
indeed
and iamb was
the beat 

yet reasoned
with a certainty
complete
and absolute
a sonnet and a lark
were closer to
a nightingale
than duck

I simply bless
my luck
she wears my cap
sagaciously
back to front
© 9 August 2008, I. D. Carswell

The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner

the loneliness is real enough
caught between ideas of integrity
and life as a thief
you chose to run –
distances disappear beneath
feet flogging pavements
willingly to escape
an inequitable sentence
but in the race to glory
and its palpable fame
you recall who demonised whom
stop short of the line
and their victory – deny them access
to restorative compassion
demonstrate
contempt for the process
© 11 August 2008, I. D. Carswell

The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner
by Alan Sillitoe, 1958

For Freedoms Of The Birds (rev)

If you have come upon a stranded bird
with broken wing your sympathies ignite,
the very sight entrains a sequence of contrite
compassion rising from the awesome power
of birds aloft in joyous flight, of marvelling
at freedoms they delight in.

To soar and wheel in weightless air, of levity
exciting passions that despair at beauty lost,
severed in the bleak and hard impaction of a
loss of flight, restrictions drear, unsympathetic
anchors catching freedoms unaware, acting in
a weighted drama of benighted gravity.

And yet we see a rueful plight in Nature’s use,
casualness confused, a sanctioned lavatory
abused and fouled, our admiration drowned
in senseless ways of compromised and cluttered
peaceful places we preserved for freedoms
of the birds, for curing sad depression.

We've brought ourselves to breast extinction’s
outer edge, the ledge is shattered where a mirror
sits, it should excite a future view but still abjures
illusion used in daily news, we refuse to see the
symbols of a rot compounding in its uselessness,
of hedonistically confused expressionists.

We delude ourselves, reuse distinctions claiming
more is less – and less a fantasy of wonders
dressed as token riches we once were the heirs to.
We know we’ve used the last of Earth’s munificent
largesse and though they know it too our merchant
managed leadership will endlessly digress.
© 2006, I.D. Carswell

Give Her A Chance (rev)

There is a risk that when you open up
your heart, a risk that when you start along
the path of saying how you care – risky
fundamental chance that twists of viscous
fate will rule the day. While you tremble as
you say the simple words which might expose
your harried soul doubt may pave the way
in words to teeter in a seething mind,
perhaps excite concupiscence in kind.
There’s risk in being blind where arrows fall,
there’s risk to fire them in the air at all
before you’re sure your aim is true, and where
the heart at which you loose them wears a guise
enamoured by the prize of love’s bequest,
you are distressed. Beware, sharpened arrows
fall with little care to render pain, and
pain unnamed is still decisive pain
to cancel out the gain of frail surmise.
There is risk to take no risk at all. Risk in an
appalling bleakness of no burning aspiration
only fear of failure, ridicule, rejection, even
condemnation. If that’s your contemplation you
deserve to fail; now look, she’s sitting sweetly there,
a winsome smile, a casual glance, she stifles stares –
she has the guile, ask her up to dance. To think of
failure means you’ll surely fail, give her a chance
to show you how she cares.
© 2005, I.D. Carswell

No Disguising That He Cares (rev)

There’s no disguising that he cares, he’s hitching
at his underwear with unconcealed distress,
he’s in a mess of moods, confused and clearly
ill at ease with flashy clothes he’d rather shed.
There’s no disguising whom he clothes his
feelings for, he’s sore appraised, trapped
inside a crude charade that falls too short
to be a dream – too real to be concealed.
There’s no disguising where he’d rather be,
and she despairs when anywhere but here
and here is where the source of disrepair
disarms his soul and steals serenity.
She smiles and says he’s looking great,
his shirt and tie a work of art and could they
have the picture please, and right away,
they look so good together – please, oh please!
He’s on his knees, driven by her charm
to acquiesce, her heady innocence has mingled
with his nervous sweat, he holds her hand and
shyly smiles and looks a little sad. And click...
There you are, it wasn’t all that hard
now was it, dearest Grandpapa.
© 2006, I.D. Carswell

Caught In Fewer Words (rev)

Have you ever noticed that shorter poems
get to bat on many more occasions than
their over-lengthy brethren?
Is that a fact in part explaining Laws of
Conservation claiming spent creative
energy cannot be reclaimed for free?
Or is it just a fallacy, an urban myth to
keep them short, that brevity enhances
wit and lengthy poems are full of shit.
Where writers let a poem grow as poems
breathe, a poet knows the life they weave
demands you leave them unconstrained.
Love of words and slave to sounds and
rhythms that abound in treasured, tangled
lines will not abbreviate in smaller kind.
Those who dwell in fewer words and taut
expressions must rebel; curse you, tell the truth
you swine, the shorter verse must be declined!
The truth is not a mystery – nor governed by
a magic wand or intellect or lack of time,
but just extent of attention span.
© 2006, I.D. Carswell

Oh To Be Abkhazian

Oh to be Abkhazian – advised by
Russian greed to ruthlessly claim
your sovereignty, armed to fight
a war which no-one needs nor
makes an ounce of sense, made
citizens of Russia less apology, or
choice, or any form of deference
to recognised validity.

The thousands that you disposed
and chased from land they owned
for centuries know brinkmanship was
not an act of self defence supporting
Abkhazian liberty; the facts all bear
the rabid stamp of Russian policy –
no prizes guessing reasons why or
that there’ll be a price to pay.

The brutal ethnic cleansing used
again extends the clumsy way our
Russian neighbour broods on history
revised in their benevolence – to
claim they want a just and lasting
peace is just an act, the only peace
they want is thus a piece of Georgia
drained and bowed and disabused.

Oh to be Abkhazian – benighted
yes, and puppets true, but in the
light of a whole-scale Georgian
invasion by Russian troops –
knowing you were easily used!
© 11 August 2008, I. D. Carswell

Leaving

I’m doing it wrong
I know this instinctively
a surety borne of deep-rooted
indigence
this place is you
from carpets to tiles
paint on walls and decorations
silky-oak cupboards filled
with munificent memories
shelves over-flowing

you are the house
which is our home
leaving takes even 
that away

my tears
tell me what
I cannot say -
so, leave if you must
but please, don’t go... © 19 November 2008, I. D. Carswell

Cynicism

it is easier to be cynical
certainly less effort is
expended than trying to 
make others properly aware

it is a first-hand concern
expressed - so to speak -
second-hand - and 
tongue-in-cheek

but when you care enough
to recognise it as cynicism
I am deflated easily
by your subsequent censure

since this is where the
rubber meets the road
of my delusory
contemplation

the burnout is of so little effort
for such a huge smokescreen 
and all that energy dissipated
still takes me nowhere
© 12 August 2008, I. D. Carswell

Intimacy

standing together in a crowded QR train
with a brand new hat bought at the EKKA
hardly equates to consuming intimacy 

yet when we got seats at Caboolture
you rested your head on my shoulder
and slept easily – 

filling me 
with that sweetness which glows
unashamedly 

shy glances from the ear-phoned lass
with braces on her teeth
confirmed she agreed
© 15 August 2008, I. D. Carswell

Richard Jelfs Is 30!

Thirty years today and not one minute
older than that blithe spirit engendered
when it all began. Sir, though we waver
in dubbing thee by name of Alma Mater –
Peter Pan – if the costume fits and wear
engages, it is the suit to suit the ages.

Glibly we attest the joyousness attended
in your wake – you make a gloomy day a
pleasant time to waste. Your cheer is wine
discretely aged in bottles less the dust and
pedantry; no jest, the Jelfs in you equates
to risqué fun unleashed in fulsome sun.

Surrounded by the friends of years who
gather where the merriment is best – be
it said irreverent but true to hearts that
beat in tune with common themes which
never end. Would that we could be again
with you to share in breezy devilment.

Happy Birthday – Richard the Perennial,
Lionhearted Son of Jest, Courtier to fun
and gaiety, living on the run from aged
disease. These are feathers in your cap
to wear with flair and freshness yet, be
assured you’ll never age a day like that.
© 22 July 2008, I. D. Carswell

Familial ‘Tall Son’ & Court Jester Richard Jelfs turns 30 on November 14^th

Happy Birthday Stretch!

'The Dream' Awake (rev)

Formerly: Awake, ‘The Dream’
A parody – a tasteless spoof on leaking
lover’s fluids, delight in making light of
night’s largesse, of soulful sex’ congress
in bodily awareness. Insightful whim it might
have seemed or been much more than that,
sounded right in melody as praise; in fact it
was a base and blasé send-up of the way
we seek a glory in our acts of selfish need. 

The words were plain, indeed the climax
came and went like echoes in an empty
head completely drained, the hollow feeling
framed in bliss that bled its warm munificence
in arms wound tight around a dream that
wrinkled wet and weakly waned...
© 10 June 2007, I.D. Carswell

The Dream (rev)

The dream, sheathed sweet
in tender flesh held deferent,
drawn deep in breathless peace
and shrouded calm now rests;
energies absorbed in echoes
of a quietude are stilled,
enmeshed in body languor
by the needs suppressed to steep
in this munificent largesse.
The dream engenders
reveries of calm beyond
a caul of veiled donation,
balm of soothing fluid
easing wicked weals,
healing wounds, appeasing
hungers where the hard-edged
hammers crash their symphony
on yielding, pliant flesh.
The dream
is only ever transient,
a rite of passage brief
but cogent in its depth,
ceding bonds between
the wants and needs,
binding those whose
comforts feed on mutuality.
- And in its dying breath
it shrinks to nothingness
and deftly slips away.
© 4 June 2007, I.D. Carswell

Sonny Bill Williams

The Men of Rugby League are under 
siege again; they coined the name 
when gates were down and called 
their troops to rally round. Leaders 
cited sacrifice, of daunting deeds
on sacred ground, of camaraderie
in words that rang a hollow sound.       

Then they split for rival leagues and
freely shot each other down. Their

sacred game was easy sold for thirty

coins of merchant gold – all things

nice and ever true about the League

were moved with speed and buried

deep from public view. 

A grave has been exhumed this week

in a name: Sonny Bill Williams – ever 

heard of him? He fled the scene for

another shore – a buck or two more

and the rival code of Union. The Men 
of League communed to courthouse 
rooms to slice their pound of flesh. 

They abhorred his lack of courtesy, of 
tact, plus spew his broken contract –
it’s not the money so they say – but 
a principle that players stay a-bound. 
But bound one-way! Tied to salary cap

aberrations kept under wraps in their

inimitably covetous Shylock ways. 

Sonny Bill, in France learning French

and playing rugby union isn’t all that

safe either; the way these aggrieved

miscegnants operate guarantees no

‘merci’ is left to see it any other way

than in the cant of these complete

bastards of duplicity... 
© 9 August 2008, I. D. Carswell

After The Rain

Resurgent greens and stronger hues
enjoined within the colours in-between
will spring again, the reddish brown
has nearly gone and all the silver
grays erased in darker shades that
shine with slickly natured stains
after the gentle, gentle rain.
Clouded skies unite and demonise
the dry and dusty plight of days of
brutal beating sun and scathing wind,
the thin veneer is quickly peeled and
puddle-swamped in bloodied muddled
swirls of slushy coloured earth that
tinge the tracks of heavy wheels.
The welcome cold at first conceals its
damp and chilling steel, and in the icy
shades of night the frigid bite ignites
less welcome sentiments until the wrap
of insulation seals the warming heat,
sanctifies the stolid feet and frigid toes
with subtle sweep of warming blood.
After the rain and in the morning when
the sun returns to claim the earth the
mist surprises, rising unabashed and clean
again to grace the nascent waiting skies.
© 2006, I.D. Carswell

Olmecs Rule (rev)

The news is out – down Veracruz
they found the evidence,
Olmecs had the written word
400 years before Sumerians.
A Chinese claim predates all that,
but let it rest. Examine what it
means to Mesoamericans!
Spanish thinking converts to the
English tongue, reflect a while,
your reaching back predates the
sum of everything that history
shows, heaven knows, perhaps
you taught the World to write.
You taught the World to sing and
dance, and in another guise you
formed the mortar in the blocks
propping up the sorry state, that’s
no surprise to a Chicano – and it’s
not too late to let them know.
Viva los Chicanos!
© 2006, I.D. Carswell

My Enemy, My Friend (rev)

My enemy my friend whom I
know without compromise,
when I listened to the
deconstructions avowed of you
as your brand of pernicious lies
I was ashamed.      

I know where you situate
in matters that joined us
in vigorous hand to hand
(and at times bloody) debate.
I know where you opposed
my belated philosophies you
would stand as firmly of the
same belief as I that they
needed to be uttered freely.

But you never said those things
you are unjustly accused of by the
makers of stochastic compromise,
you only claimed they could be
said in a free and democratic state.

And in a few hysterical moments
your worthy sentiments were crushed
by the heel of much vaunted principles
you said would take your noble life in
denying the freedom to oppose them.
© 2005, I.D. Carswell

End Of Eternity

the days spent gazing at the void
where timelessness was lost are
more not less a gesture of futility
the cost of permanent dismay 

fifty years until the end – just time
enough to lend a bibliography of
thoughts for all mankind to share
as if there’s something there 

time enough to rue what’s lost but
not to mend eternity – see anxious
error in our ways as deathly games
of those engaged in Prophet’s play

and on the morning of your death 
you view in emptiness your gain –
the pain of lucid Heaven where an
Earth like this was never made
© 8 August 2008, I. D. Carswell

Waits To Breathe

momentarily made peace with myself
the need to get that next breath of air
or suffocate effected a state where
commonsense finally prevailed 

there’s no practical benefit berating
one another for failure when it hasn’t
happened yet – honesty suggests the
blame goes both ways 

but we’ve never been honest each to
each in our entire history – you seek
fame for whatever it takes while the
other half of me just waits to breathe
© 7 August 2008, I. D. Carswell

Tools For Life (rev)

Has life ever dumped you in a heap?
Perhaps you’ve found self-belief so strongly
reinforcing that doubt never enters it
nor divorces you from your own reality. 

While I admire conviction I see it sadly as
an affliction of the righteously blessed, sign
of the possessed, indeed a decent place to
serve sentence for dereliction of self doubt. 

I argue without it I am a cautious man and
easy to live with, I resound like a drum,
resonate to sympathetic percussion,
inflating nothing, merely imitate sound. 

I feed on my doubt. I feast long into the night
of feverish dreams, fitfully sleep from crisis
to crisis where I am fêted, riven, inspected,
and reformatted in every second of oblivion. 

I sleep easily and awaken rehabilitated,
consummate with confidence I can face the
day’s rigours and pursue challenges with the
same vigour as I did yesterday. 

And I die in the dawn of each new consequence,
ashamed I have no plan but these sequences of
random words, at times inadequate, at times
inspiring, as my tools for life.
© 2006, I.D. Carswell

At That Age

at that age
is it absolute
time determines
gender determines whether
words make sense when
hormones conspire to evict
the child from the teen –
it turned her into an
inarticulate and rudimentary
homunculus
by acknowledging
her grievous claim to fame
while I don’t care a fig
an age where the words
used flagellate – limited
to grunts and sneers
expressed offensively
is demeaning to
every good grace
© 9 August 2008, I. D. Carswell

Love Fest Memories

just a simple video but scenes
that will not fade from memory –
so etched in smiles and warm
embraces fresh as yesterday

faces now familiar graced the lawn
again where vows were made – faces
dressed in care and happiness were read
in lasting friendships gladly weighed

cheerful friends to greet in years to come
until the vision fades – friends who’s travels
tamed vast distances inferred in voices strange
but all conjoined upon the bridal lawn

just a simple video whose images will
haunt me as I still recall the emptiness
invading – voices gradual fading as they
turned, and waved, and drove away...
© 2 August 2008, I. D. Carswell

Dead Thoughts Of Corpses (rev)

The symbols that we use are T shirts of
the dead thoughts of corpses without
heads, a rictus without sound – open-
mouthed, empty, unbound. And if you
ever write those clichés which incite my
disapproval, fuck you, I am not amused.
And if I ever do, then fuck me too.

I battle with the icons of our time, not so
much the images as those who overuse
the gushing phrases, rabid writers praising
vapid lies, journalistic worms still at the
maggot stage of feeding on the headless
corpses, thieving symbols off their shirts,
descending into dismal depths of gutter
meaningless and desperate doggerel.

My sympathy was strained within a breath
of balanced reason, drained of all compassion
by the scene arising from Steve Irwin’s death.
When networks went beyond the pale of
deference and showed the clichéd shots of
Steve and baby Bob and croc repeatedly as
counterpoint the afternoon he died I was
incensed. And there they were, already
feeding on a corpse with vile controversy.

But further yet, the eunuch bitch with no
veneer, I mean of course her holiness Ms
Germaine Greer, thundered into print to
plant her boot as firmly as she could into
a legend she maintains is self-delusion.
For Germaine its not unusual. The Doctor
has delusions too, believes with vagrant
honesty that she eclipses Steve in every
form of tragi-comedy.

Forgive Germaine diffusing post-menopausal
delusion, back in her menses and her prime
she was a tart of class. But if I died would it
ignite reporter anchovies? I call them nasty
names and damn their plight – could it claim
a right to cause a feeding frenzy vast? If not
may irukandji blight their clichéd arse…
© 5 September 2006, I.D. Carswell

Using Voice

these colder mornings play
merry hell with the arthritis –
although ‘merry’
is not a good choice of word
rather the opposite

a stiffening of resolve
where stiffening
is real enough
but resolve takes a while
to commute

when thawed
and finally articulate
words still flow from fingers
as they always did
albeit a bit creakily

dreading the day
when they can’t play their part
should begin practicing
using voice – and getting used
to being ignored
© 3 August 2008, I. D. Carswell

Paper Towel

She wrapped a paper towel
around his softened dick
in what he misconstrued was
mock affection; was it new,
an after-thought perhaps,
symbolic of her admiration?

She never really talked a lot
in bed – just let her actions
state her needs in ways he
understood without a cause
to be confused. He thought
she used him very gracefully.

When he asked what for she
said don’t worry sport, relax;
my period is here – now sure
its late but still its great relief.
Just lazy me’s avoiding need
to change the sheets today.

The revelation came an awful
shock which strangely pierced
him to the core; it dulled erotic
thoughts, quelled an urgency
to rise once more and romp
into the distant dawn.

She read his mind as such, held
him close, whispered that she
didn’t care that much about the
sheets. But now the paper towel
had tolled its mournful shroud
around his tethered soul.
© 1964, I.D. Carswell

To Keep The Ambience Alive (rev)

When you thanked me for the day
I felt ashamed, I couldn’t say it
wasn’t much because it was for you,
I had enjoyed it too although it was
another day like any other day we’ve
had before in our association.

Most days are good, a few we do
regret, perhaps we would forget in
time those left to shrivel of neglect;
in that respect I cherish all the days we
have together, the clearly lesser days
enhance the really better days.

It seems I nearly made the wrong
connection once again, it wasn’t just
the day concerned, and in the manner of
your special way you meant your thanks
for my behaving well, your words discerned
my keeping calm and staying cool.

I hadn’t spoiled the atmosphere you cherish
in your quest for light and harmony, and you
enjoyed my company – felt the gentle vibes;
the pointed lance and acid barbs were curbed
and tied in balanced sense, a sane defence
to keep the ambience alive.
© 18 August 2006, I.D. Carswell

Time To Play

It is a pristine page, clean on the blue screen
where I compose, I don’t expect it to stay that
way as words glow from blunt, abused fingers,
as sounds insistent in my head translate into
sentence structures, as lips articulate rhythms
of jumbled lexis as swiftly as I unravel them.
I couldn’t know what might emerge tonight,
I only knew the gripping tightness in my mind
and an indecent pressure to express and let
the dammed words flow.

It’s not always this way, there are times when
I know within a line or two what I must write,
when some event has incited raw passion or
wrenched me from my feet or I have staggered
unbalanced from fright or fear, despairing the
sheer effrontery, beaten, contrite. Not tonight.
Tonight I am free to roam the growing fields
and taste whatever delights are imagined, to
follow the whim of the wind and random flights
of thistledown inviting my errant delinquency –
to go with the flow.

If I had known poetry could do this for me I’d
have surrendered a long time ago, grown fat on
the back of my muse with hair sleek and long
to the waist, worn kaftans with no shoes, spoke
harmony. As it goes I have time to play without
haste the games that engage me most, write
when the urge makes havoc with good intent,
dispense with guilt-management and stress,
lend commonsense enough rope to tether
itself beyond hope of poetic redress.
© 23 August 2006, I.D. Carswell

Her Gentle Hands (rev)

she only came at night
her gentle hands defused the
ticking bomb that was his brain
she soothed the pain and drew
his livid length inside to soothe
the welts and calluses

she sat astride to weld his broken
head with anxious gaze
and clever hands
gave praise
encouraged him
to try
to see
to open up his eyes.

at last he cried

she sighed and sighed and signified
repleteness of her solo ride
she kissed his salty tear-filled eyes
and said her name

when doctors came at dawn and found
him smiling in the bed relaxed
alert not comatose
or dead as half expected
they wondered out aloud
how it could be

Nurse Jenny Callendaur
he whispered then
in reverent voice
with awe-filled eyes
they shook their heads
there’s no such nurse the matron cried

a staffer checked the roll
replied with tremor in his voice
and widened eyes – in ’41 the
ward was bombed
she was the only one who died
© 2006, I.D. Carswell