amazingly I didn’t meet them
but not by any neglect on my
part – I was there, keen as a
new blade ‘tho I may have
been twenty years too late
these days the apologists say
it wasn’t my fault, more effects
of the network’s internecine
behaviours – sadly nothing’s
changed in that respect
people I never met altered me
in subtle ways, in a confluence
more than effects of harmony,
yet being buoyed by the feeling
really hasn’t changed a thing
© 29 December 2008, I. D. Carswell
there’s been a change in patterns
weather weaves of late – ‘tho I’m
aware its tapestry is never free
of contradictions signature
it moves in three dimensions more
or less – four when meteorology
and time regresses to a pixelated
point on screen and disappears
no comfort wearing doubt for ears
yet thunder that I hear surmises
rain to end a drought – where joy
returns to faces cruelly stressed
and even when we’re blessed by
tears that fall for free, such eager
tears in parity were bought in pain
a bounty paid that all might share
© 30 December 2008, I. D. Carswell
when you’ve dealt with the ordinary
things, like birth and death, you’ve
time to play with intangibles; am I
alive or a figment of imagination?
I don’t really care. A bottle of wine
suggests this sort of esoterica –
things for initiates only; tomorrow
I’ll ring and apologise...
© 31 December 2008, I. D. Carswell
A conundrum worthy of inanities
worst accolades insists I prove
identity through EOI categories
A and B, comprising self same
documentary bits I’ve gone and
lost. To prove who I am I must
produce them to replace them.
What a cockamamie crock of
weasel-piss bureaucracy! This is
the State of Queensland, and as
they proudly say, beautiful on any
day you care to make an observation
yet perplexingly and inexplicably
bewildering the very next.
My wallet, which got itself mysteriously
lost, contained the things I need
to produce in order of priority to
replace a Queensland driver’s licence.
Fortuitously my passport wasn’t with
said wallet or I’d be Stateless as well
as off the bloody road...
© 1 January 2009, I. D. Carswell
I walk alone the streets
we walked when you
were by my side – alone
with sense of gratitude
that time cannot revise,
alone but bought in reverie
of goodness that abides
the windows were pretence
to me and goods displayed
all wares of hollowness; I’d
lived my life in fields that
fallowed every other year –
yet here it seems the wend of
seasons really never ends
you found the space to wear
my chariness – a coffee shop,
a superette where sausages
were real, not imitations of the
fare I feared to never see
again – and yet you found
and bought them there
a thousand streets as if each
one was sparkling new, the
never-ending panoply of views
you drank with effervescent
eyes – but I, in truth, missed
all the views for simple wont
of watching you...
© 15 December 2008, I. D. Carswell
remember them, those
days where love
demanded what it
couldn’t take
the crazy ways
it said that we
could not escape
its fabled grip
it didn’t say beware
or caution us or ask
forgiveness when
we fell in love
instead it laughed
to stars above on
nights too short
with briefer days
call me what you will
it says, I am a thief,
but what I took
you freely gave...
© 17 December 2008, I. D. Carswell
I feel a heart which beats
unstilled in contours of this
land – the heart you gave
so fervently with tireless
love to flowers and trees
you breathed upon it
providence, a promise
deigned with consequence
of solid guarantees, why
did you have to leave?
birds still sing in praise
of thee, symbolically
each day a flight of
three majestic crows
upraise your eyes
above the leafy rows
I feel your heart which
beats unstilled although
the pain is clear – am I
a sacrifice you need to
have it disappear...
© 17 December 2008, I. D. Carswell
painting by Peter Watt
the scan took thirty
hours to run, found nine
incidents but still despair
turned disbelief –
perhaps it prevented
something dramatic
transcending the regular,
ordinary routine.
I’ll never know.
But this incredulity hinged
on my not caring –
it came as a surprise
I’d sunk so low
but there you are;
the problem is that
where you are is
where I’d rather be.
Nine potentially
catastrophic incidents
paled because nothing
changed either way
the system still works,
you aren’t here
and all prospects
remain dull gray
© 18 December 2008, I. D. Carswell
To me my little sister exists
because she’s something
other than hallucination
No, not hers, it’s too rich
to be the source; it couldn’t
come from self-creation
She’s as real as a sister can
be – going back forty plus
(and a bit) majestic years
Dreaming random dreams,
being married, raising kids
but making no futile waves
She shares confidences like
an ice-cream cone trapped
in wafers of innocence
She’s real but she’s yet to
learn which wages she’s
paid endow her voice
I listen because she made me
her Big Brother – and thus, on
ages, she’s my Little Sis...
© 18 December 2008, I. D. Carswell
he sees the house
as courtesy he must avoid
out in the open air
there is a chance to
dull an omnipresent
ache
indoors
expectancy still
fills an empty space
wherein her presence clings
pointlessly reminding him
she’s gone away
to stand alone and
face the last mistake
to bear the bleakness
of its consequence
still burns
his burdened soul
© 20 December 2008, I. D. Carswell
he fakes a braver face
although the tears are real
he never learned to make
his eyes express emotions
much beyond the stirrings
in his heart
you are bereaved, he said
sudden loss of someone’s
love is death – it seems
there is no mortal way
to fill the void of utter
aching loneliness
there is no meaning left
for what the future brings
the past is all that keeps
your sanity intact, where
memories sustain
a sense of real
your love has gone
and left you dead, you
grieve for magic that you
had in arms of love received
a pain one cannot bear
without reprieve
© 21 December 2008, I. D. Carswell
Some choice isn’t it,
one between, allegedly,
complete and utter
freedom - and me;
that is me the ageing, overweight
and currently avoiding spraying
Block Eight poet-orchardist
who believes it might rain.
Out of an azure sky?
Two tropical cyclones perched
precariously on the West Coast
are 3000 km shy of the orchard
so it isn’t going to rain today,
not immediately – but there is
a poem waiting to be written;
so why chose me? Honestly?
If we knew the answer we’d
free this embolism blocking
love’s arteries and I wouldn’t
need to write a bloody poem...
© 24 December 2008, I. D. Carswell
to find again
the girl with
honeyed eyes
and warm
expansive charm
she’s captured
crinkle sweet,
an urchin’s twinkle
stays to cheer her
baby face
but eyes
are sad and pale –
washed away with
time’s relentless
march
© 10 December 2008, I. D. Carswell
painting by Judith Dazzio
you hear them
clear, the ringing in
of echoes neat
of yesteryears that
sing with joy
my ears embrace
those reveries:
though ill at ease
this heart beats still
with gratitude
I wake alone in
vagrancy of platitudes
where echoes fill the
grievous ache
of empty heart
© 6 December 2008, I. D. Carswell
painting 'Echoes' by Kevin Lawrence Leveque
nights are easier
with sleep eventually
to clean the slate
and soothing dreams
appeasing agonies
but days are torment
wide awake, nothing
breaks the ache
of loneliness when
you’re away
© 5 December 2008, I. D. Carswell
I know
you’ve gone away;
to say it isn’t so
is lunacy
and although the
going clearly states
your need you didn’t
really have to go
this place is you
unlike each other
place you’ve ever
been could ever be
you are the house
the land, the trees,
the chorus birds who
sing at dawn
you are the greening
lawns, the flowers
whose heady scent
beguiles
all memories of
40 years are here
enshrined in frowns
and smiles
you never really
left you know;
you’re here – although
you’ve gone away...
© 7 December 2008, I. D. Carswell
I won’t despair despondency
it’s there to state a case
which mordancy inflates
outrageously
but happiness appears
for my defence as if to say
it’s where you were before
the current doldrums came
the daffodils still bloom
in beds you planted where
their golden heads nod
avidly of their assent
© 8 December 2008, I. D. Carswell
your face is clear
in everything I see
from usual to
unique
like clothes you
wear which speak of
that essential you
the Spirit-Girl who
stole a sanctuary
of common sense
for ‘Dare to Love’
and dare we did
and love’s the key
to disenchantment’s
weak and dragging
feet
so go to where
the magic cast
initial spell and
hear it ring
the bell is
tolling clearly
still from there
to here...
© 8 December 2008, I. D. Carswell
So much to say in an
adieu where words will
surely fail; tears are real
enough, trembling lips
revealing heartache
that prevails.
We say our last
goodbyes in pallid
sighs with salty eyes
red-rimmed still
leaking salutations
for your passing on.
This tiny grave is
filled with strident
song now that you rest
at peace at last along
with all your earnest
doggy dreams...
© 8 December 2008, I. D. Carswell
For Ferny Wood Abigail Belle who
passed away 8 December 2008.
Descendents sing your praises.
Love that feeds
too greedily on
cares’ receipts
is never free
or absolute
so it is
with me;
sustained I am
by memories, icons
of the gilded years
exemplifying
olden days
I give
without demand
this love
lives on peremptory
of whirling angst
or wrenching hair;
it stays that way
invest
in your return
© 12 December 2008, I. D. Carswell
it is the graveyard
of loneliness,
space where
meaning flees the
wrap of reason
nothing
abates an
unfathomable
morass of
meaninglessness
nothing equates!
even hollowness
extracts a fee in
fulsome grace, a
winsome smile that
pays with pain
© 14 December 2008, I. D. Carswell
whose embrace condones
your brand of lunacy; the
manic and impure idea
that heralds anarchy to
passion’s ghost
despairing rule of lore
what is lost when innocents
are wrenched from life
is not a fear of God, it is
the wrath your cause ignites
for vengeance just congealed
in battle lust
no dialectic underscored
with brutal force and bombs
and guns will win the brawl
for hearts and minds, you’ve
captured chaos and defined
deniers all as infidel
so whose embrace condones
your thoughts of ancient
prophecy; a mother’s arms
which sting with caustic tears
unshed in binding cloth around
your shattered head
© 4 December 2008, I. D. Carswell
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 even takes
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
