how much more
is there
than all I know
if
I’m not thinking of it
could it ever exist
tell me
how
I know these things
© 12 November 2008, I. D. Carswell
how much more
is there
than all I know
if
I’m not thinking of it
could it ever exist
tell me
how
I know these things
© 12 November 2008, I. D. Carswell
by
contemporary standards
I’m alcoholic
no point challenging
assertions – I like a drink
nothing’s changed much in six decades
though I drink a lot less
it’s said I’m statistically
identifiable by a set
of behaviours dating back
to my teenage years
back when they called me a wowser
somewhere twixt cup
and lip those other laid-back buggers
must be incorrigible pisspots
if they’re still around...
© 11 November 2008, I. D. Carswell
can’t see a Hall of Fame
mirror with my screen
shot face reflected ‘tho
displaced right to left
can see a Lycos search
making much more sense
than a line in someone’s
illusory bibliography
hey, so it takes 27
books nobody read
to rate dusty space
in said pantheon
it means –
whichever way ingested
a whole lot of
dead trees
© 13 November 2008, I. D. Carswell
rain since Sunday
brought a damp relief
from brutal heat yet
you are on your way
again – going far away
this saddened Wednesday
I just became your Gran
in scant two weeks
you managed to
dissemble my beliefs
dissolved an incredulity
which harboured
sweet addiction
how dare you leave?
while grandeur of
grandparenthood
survives the fast
I’ll pine so grievously
for sanction
of your smile
© 18 November 2008, I. D. Carswell
Freja Jean departed for six months
in Sweden on this day...
folding yesterday’s washing at
3am may not convey the right
sentiment, I need sleep, tiredness
intervenes but I am captive to the
neatness you always expressed
tidy piles rest on the side of the
bed you left vacant to rediscover
joy in your life – which lost its way
with untold love in every fold
© 22 November 2008, I. D. Carswell
another day begins
again less promising
than sham, of hollow
innuendo, of happiness
so badly bent
had you meant
this be while seeking
joy in space that flew
away I would agree
I know you feel the
same as me, to bear
too much has lent
a voice to discontent
which counsels misery
yet all the issues
aired resist redress
in tepid distances
you’ve thus expressed
remember this forever
then – where you are
is where I’d rather be
© 27 November 2008, I. D. Carswell
the luxury of taste
abundant bound in
titillating flavours sings
beneath a supple skin
she wears a misty smile
for him, a grin of knowing
where she leads immaculate
the reaching hand
words she breathes
are exhalations lost in
timelessness, gauzy puffs
of angel dust caress
breathlessness devours
the man whose eyes embrace
this fruit he shrewdly
saved to savour last
© 2 December 2008, I. D. Carswell
real
nail clippings
collect neatly in a pile
on a corner of the desk
uselessly next to the phone’s
truculent silence
computer screen’s baleful
stare cowers inspirations
engenderment, there’s no
miraculous escape
– a bleak bludgeoning
to death of creativities’
incipience breaks moods easily
isn’t always this way
clipping nails once lent dignity
insight-seeking, a catharsis in
letting go
but I already did that...
...yesterday
© 30 October 2008, I. D. Carswell
For Tara & Ezra Slobock
“I want it strictly understood
Though fond of fun, I'm never rude
Though not too bad I'm not too good...” *
ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay,
all ye should know today
what good souls Hale with glee
now Slobock eternally
our Mme TMcS
oustered hack with no regret
caramelising haute refute
engenders new repute
drinks rich sak so easily
a role with her certainty
fished from an endless sea
of fabulous serendipity
© 3 November 2008, I. D. Carswell
* version sung by Lottie Collins in London music halls in 1892
regardless of popular opinion, this
week the main event was not a
bloodless contest for US President
nor was it a famous victory on the
sporting fields, or at best anything
to do with wilful contest
nor was it driven by media think-
tanks or ubiquitous polls suggesting
what a hesitant future may bring
it was instead a thin cry rising to a
full-blooded howl as Freja Jean
made her entrance into the World
and we are reduced to an adoring
silence at how one so small can
easily command all she sees...
© 3 November 2008, I. D. Carswell
On the birth of granddaughter
Freja Jean, 26 October 2008
Congratulations Frida and Chris!
a week’s grace
from an insidious
though not unsolicited
hug of belonging
and the thin light of dawn
says of the chill – here
take this thin drape
wrap it around you
feel the warmth rising
it is there – both the sense
and the heat pure
a panacea cleansing a week’s
worth of deranged dissonance;
there is no going away where
one is lost forever
– not
with this
home
beckoning
© 11 November 2008, I. D. Carswell
... grandson’s thongs
he says foot raised
with unrepentant grin,
a mug of beer salute,
mine died yesterday –
they fit okay so I don’t
feel guilty wearing them;
and why should I
as a reasonable exchange
for the troubles we’ve seen!
Seems like yesterday
I had to wipe his bum
– filled his pants
while we’re driving.
So there we are
stopped on the roadside
when you happen by, him
pants down, bending and me
positioned with tissue cleaning
you pull up and make another
of your famous remarks – though
of course it wasn’t yesterday was it?
More likely the thicker end
of five or six years – and he’s
already grown so I fit his thongs.
Those were the days...,
© 9 October 2008, I. D. Carswell
it is fatuous
inane and meaningless
but you think it vital
to maintain a
breathlessness in being
in those words you say
nothing really – to me it’s
cruelly insincere, worse than
dredging dishonesty for
karaoke greetings
sing along with duplicity
make a pretty pair
primping and preening
in vanity’s mirror – faking
false laurel leaves
© 11 October 2008, I. D. Carswell
the source of this indigestion is
traced easily – Hungarian salami;
it wasn’t gustatory after-thought
embraced in a flourish of dill pickle,
the last burp confirmed untruth of
that fable; nor the water crackers
or for that matter the beer labelled
bitter but really fine dark ale
aftertaste lingers in early morning
contemplation; those rambunctious
farts punctuating tranquillity are
our forward fees on future gain.
The dyspeptic assessment of Income
Tax as bureaucratically guessed
provisional tax demands are paid
gladly by eructions of frivolous gas
© 13 October 2008, I. D. Carswell
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
instead I read their graceful
body language. Easily.
What am I doing here?
Silently they moved away
leaving me vaguely outside –
but there was nothing there.
Intrigued I lay down again
returned to restive sleep.
© 5 January 2008, I. D. Carswell
there is even less
room here since you left
walls encroach, creaking
in their eagerness
they fill a space once
radiated with your charm
I hear their whispers
the real poet is no more
this ersatz kibbutz has
no real defences left
we’ve failed you where
you left us with a dream
we can’t sustain – the
crush is killing us with
aching emptiness
Life will never be the same...
© 26 May 2007, I.D. Carswell
Whereas I should have been
exercising my mind mentally writing
I was captured by a preening bird
– thoughts ignited in its beauty.
Half concealed by a golden cane
it addressed feathers meticulously,
one eye on me, cagily watching
the watcher.
That it might have been a barred
cuckoo-shrike served no cause
for me, we were eye to eye in
sympathy – it and me.
And I lay in the bubbles of the
spa luxuriating, bird contemplating
which feather to preen, between us
a beer in frosted glass waiting
we were connected
in a fragile strand of unity
bound by its ability to leave
as and when it chose.
And it stayed and preened.
© I.D. Carswell 2007
Formerly: Achievements Measured In the Grace Of Smiling Faces
On the first day we came we knew that here
was where the Fates intended we should be;
the subtle bludgeoning about the ears
besmeared an easy truth, we did not see
the hours of work required as reason to
desist. We worked for many months possessed,
restrained from rest by what we had to do,
imbued by ancient mood in truth obsessed.
Our forebears knew no less than we about
the trials we’d surely face when we embraced
their simple need to make the difference shout
with joy; achievements now are by the grace
of smiling faces at each work-day close
like petals of a scented bloodwood rose.
© 2 July 2007, I.D. Carswell
Formerly: Adores Him With Those Liquid Eyes
It clings in his memory
like fine dog hair he finds
on clothes unused for years
sparse white strands
are always there – never too
obvious, never absent,
and he wonders why.
We share a muse who cares
he concludes, and thus
the fount of our daily inspiration
– but could it be a dog
with fine white hair
that plays the literary genie.
Nothing changed with the
momentous revelation – hair
still clearly seen on the pullover
muse still patient at his side
and at his feet a dog who adores
him with those liquid eyes.
© 2 February 2007, I.D. Carswell
been spending
a lot of time lately with trees –
talk to them
when needs arise
talked to them
today
they
don’t say
in words
what’s on their
mind
– but eyes and ears
tuned eagerly
discern the signs
the moods
the tenor of their
graven thoughts with
subtlety delayed
I learned
they’re less inclined
than taciturn
but show their joy
in simpler ways
today
I learned
it’s Spring...!
© 16 October 2008, I. D. Carswell
The audience was full of thieves,
their steely eyes appraised
the pickings as they gazed with
calculated stare, assessing where
the treasure lay.
Their silence was a form of praise,
naive and blind to fits of rage that
surged within the massive faces
graced in stone.
I’m not alone tonight, he sighed,
I’ll make them smile,
I’ll light their eyes and lift their hearts,
calm the waves that sank their boats,
steal their dreams in words sung
dark and low, words that float in tears
they’ve cried – and when they’re dried
we’ll leave for home.
© 29 March 2007, I.D. Carswell
Formerly: Experiences Were All She Had Left
Experiences were all she had left
yet even they were threatened
by this catholic desire to scrub
the castle clean.
She had clung to a thin thread of sanity
in belief it was all that mattered –
by not denying what had happened
she would somehow be pure and
clean tho’ never innocent again.
It was agony to let the past relive
itself in her poems; never cathartic –
humiliation and resurgent pain
flooded recumbent veins, drained
her of rebellious energies.
She thought time and again to cut
and bleed and be free of it, to take
the scars apart, oust the memories.
Shame revived in meeting gaunt and
haunted eyes staring from a mirror
reflecting pale ghosts and spectres
of heart-rending, unremitting doubt.
There was a glimmer of hope – the hand
of a kindred soul whose words seemed
to know a way, raised faint hope but even
they couldn’t fathom degrading depths of
incestuous rape – and the light went out.
© 7 June 2007, I.D. Carswell