Outer-Views

Couldn’t say I didn’t try unless
the measurement applied was
less than salutary – zero is an
easy guess; a minute change
means tiny effort dissipated in
mental anguish wasted trying
to think things back a ways to
where they’d once been

Yet exhaustion sets limits one
can’t ignore easily, it’s more a
toll on why’s and wherefore’s;
dissenting won’t make it real
debate while acquainting you
with such shameful complicity

We’re mired in a duplicit mess
of faking what we need – no
fillip’d be of lesser discomfort
I’d have thought, but strategy
suggests the grand scheme is
even more of everything

Okay, so we take the pathway
with the most ascending steps
to where we can see more; oh,
the answer is in perspective &
less clarity, or exhaustion from
the climb, or odious absorption
into an outer-view one used to
believe used too much energy
© 4 April 2012, I. D. Carswell

Descent

Liking this self-referenced form
of insanity is sweetest dislocation
nothing bugs me but inconsequentia,
not yet at least – unless they’ve
agreed it’s a hopeless
case;

dream sequences span,
masturbatory fantasies, dissolute
invocations which seem safe
assumptions there’s nothing
out there plotting to
get me

but you perceive subliminal
shutters hinged against that refraction –
physics of the theme amaze,
it’s as big as the Universe
seen by Yrs Truly before
conscious descent
© 2 April 2012, I. D. Carswell

Charade

Had to be a compromise,
harbouring unconciliated
views means the scenery
is less plausibly hilarious
than one man’s mirthful
sense of reality – yet the
comedy comes easily, a
farce-shamming charade

But if it’s me seeing this
tragedy then it’s wasted;
choral laughter on stage
echoes sadly to one tone
of one voice or one hand
however clapping madly
© 31 March 2012, I. D. Carswell

Visionary

not a matter of choice
more prospects of maturity
that is yet to be attained

but they’re future things –
scenes glimpsed or guessed
from mutable presentiment 

and yet you’re here and now –
malignant portent supposedly
waiting patiently

right where direst signs lack
authority to make malefic
mayhem out of soured contempt

so you’re biding your time
debating whys and wherefores –
like a prophetic sage
© 29 March 2012, I. D. Carswell

Carbon Futures

A truce declared on carbon futures
failed politically and wasted years – 
that selfishness has bloomed again
preferring native greed is not a new
or novel view in happenstance; why,
indeed, we’ve all collected seeds and
planted them in times when plenty
seemed to be the going rate

But here today the cost of staying
fixed in place is greater than the pain
of change – regardless what you say
on carbon tax for fuel, the more you
use the more you’ll HAVE to pay ‘tho 
we’ll ALL wear its consequence
© 27 March 2012, I. D. Carswell

Best Dividends

Half a day shanghaied by a retributive form
of lethargy; no surprise that it manifests
uniquely after the event – now a cute new
AUSTAR box connects Pay TV enabling me
to watch live Sport while she’s got Movie
access to on hand, it sits in the Study – yep
unisex to a fault but sanctuary to my sense
of self; now I realise what it will mean
predictably, and in reality

Great ideas are based on saving ground
paced anxiously, we’ve agreed her viewing
wont clash with rugby again as it once did
thus a common-room replaces what I’d seen
as my own peace of mind for the sake of
another problem solved too unilaterally, no
wonder I’m tired with strain taking a toll on
this pace of the strange predicament’s
genesis wherein I’ll lose my identity

I know where she will choose to view without
prejudice weighed against angst – and the
lounge pays best dividends naturally
© 28 March 2012, I. D. Carswell

Moving On Election Day

Moving on Election Day,
not the best of omens you’d
suggest – there will be change,

Nothing’s less for granted than
refined nuance in something new,
a scent’s inflection fused with

Well fermented brouhaha
and how-de-do; but there
within the empty rooms an

Aura grows, pots and pans and
folded clothes, cups and saucers,
cutlery – one could suppose

It’s less the old and more the new
in views as vistas clearly etched
expectantly in scenes as yet

Unveiled – with graciousness we’ll
see these dreams prevail to aptly
claim this precious space
© 24 March 2012, I. D. Carswell

Hearts Of Stone

Let ‘em go – they’re
better grade hypocrisy
when freed restraint

that way we’d see the
mordant irony they really
need to breathe

a choked, abased and
rueful politician is a beast
almost restrained

imagine we can please
ourselves without the
rancour they released

it’s then that peace
profound would hearken
even hearts of stone
© 23 March 2012, I. D. Carswell

‘Lection Saturday

So I say to me mates – hey,
what’re we gunna do about th’
sorry state of th’ ‘conomy – ‘n
there’s this big, silent blank

leastway’s in keepin’ with th’
best suggestions we’ve heard
t’ date – nuthin’ mate, uttered
fluently ‘n a damp vacuum

cripes, th’ ‘conomy’s not what
y’ need get yer knickers in a
twist about mate – its th’ cost
of tickets t’ th’ bloody game

n’ here’s me thinkin’, crikey –
th’ game’s done ‘n dusted by
a technicality – yeah, I know,
it means ‘bloody rip-off’

n’ if you blokes‘re thinkin’ th’
‘conomy’s got bugger-all t’ do
with anything but th’ price of
a beer – y’ better think again

th’ game’s buggered more or
less th’ same’s th’ ‘conomy’s
pushed up th’ price of a beer
so’s we’re needin’ ‘n ‘lection

n’ geeze, it’s a sad state t’ be
in when we’re told we’ve one
last chance to change it all
for the better on Saturday
© 22 March 2012, I. D. Carswell

Season’s Proclivities

When all else fails – love the
Season’s proclivities; there’s
always an excess in Summer’s
madness, a cautious Autumn
brings surcease, Winter sings
reflectively of change while
effervescent Spring vibrates
expectantly in heated veins

In draughts of gracious rain
the power of life falls sweet
devouring aches, curing pains,
forsaking a surfeit of drought;
assured we wake alluringly to
vistas free of plaguing doubt
© 21 March 2012, I. D. Carswell

Left Breathless

Whether hysteria orchestrated by
calculating coteries of faceless maestros
hidden in the warp and weft of their
politically probate homogeneity – or
an oblate obsession publically fed
dangerous, maybe hallucinogenic
substances generally forbidden
– it is still an Election

That I have to wear Media-aided
frenzies of anarchic, spittle-inflected
invective with good cheer imagining
the best for modish solutions to age-
old questions will, none-the-less,
peremptorily leave me breathless
© 19 March 2012, I. D. Carswell

Faithless Truth

If what was claimed at that soiree was
true we’re turned to stone; his coming
out was cloned politically – a cachet-
dressed viridity, armour against a few
contrapuntal party views we proposed
& heard bare-faced denied or damned
maliciously as vicious lies betrothed

He’d never read or listened to such
words he said, never knew who would
have said them anyway, and evidence
was easy to obtain it wasn’t ever true;
a gathered faithful cooed with bobbing
heads inclined, agreeing to his just and
wisely sage defence of party line

They’re yours, we said, as reported in
the Press which favoured views you’d
given counsel to – and he’d not denied!
Ironically we mayn’t trust the Press he
sighed, for proof it truly quoted origins
abusing more insane agendas than the
ranks of lunacy’s salacious banks

Its total war out there he raved – and
faithless truth’s a mortal Enemy! Hark
to me who will redeem our Party’s true
belief; I never lied about my faith, ever
made a lesser claim – yet you’d lay the
blame implied of loyalty misplaced on
truth in lieu of proof I ever really lied
© 16 March 2012, I. D. Carswell

Ghost Behind The Man

Conceiving a self-centred quest didn’t make it
any easier, there’s an awesome mass to sift
through, and regardless of reading only some
of five thousand pieces – was impressed by a
fair weight of material modishly pleasing

Couldn’t say its all quality, heaven’s sake, no
way to countenance that without inflating an
already buoyed ego – it’s ME we’re apprising,
that there’s anything duplicit enough to pass
that ludicrous litmus test is truly surprising

But its history; two made it to the study desk
from input almost selected randomly, the rest
left impressions they’re hard done by – with a
case to be examined by judge and jury before
this charade-in-obsession’s properly deflated

Yet glimpses of a thus far unseen personality
echoed bravely, slave-like & muse dedicated
but not in debt, a thinly reed-like caricature
of the poet one sees languishing respectfully
– but patient and waiting to be

Suspect it’s the mission’s intent – of carefully
reviewing expectations; tho’ nothing’s new to
discerning ghosts in poetry, less by the fact
than its revelation – especially when you get
to see who IS the ghost behind the man
© 15 March 2012, I. D. Carswell

Whenever

Shifting a scenic wall calendar so it levels
the PC screen suggests accord formerly not
contemplated – earlier notions of symmetry
were in keeping as few pin-holes in the wall
occupied as doable – fewest thus expressed
abstemiously wise and rational aspirations;
haven’t regressed beyond sanity inherent in
those assertations or the space it breathes

This is peace of mind in a way I’m becoming
at ease with – now side-glances can see if it
is necessary to refocus attention beyond the
immediate, without gracelessly stretching a
stiffened neck, shifting the chair or trying to
remember what day it is, or was, whenever
© 14 March 2012, I. D. Carswell

Fiction

isn’t often the sheer depth of
malevolence gets to bug this
man’s fancy pants; but there
in a piece of fiction without a
polite horror-ending positing
earned malediction you had
to yield to, was hope justice
would be aptly ‘rendered’ –

but it’s too neatly ‘wrapped’
into seamlessly loose ends
tucked via rendering which 
feels phony – such cases of
bad versus tawdry suggest
unbelievable identification
© 13 March 2012, I. D. Carswell

Gustatory Grace

Cooking food for dogs of late sublimates a
host of latent energies – would be a chore
if they debated it as requisites of culinary
needs; their feeding habits are a lexis not
of theirs but my frustration that they’ll eat
whatever’s served in terms of whether it is
easier than digging bones or foraging from
stashes kept so far discretely out of view

But two are more than one or even four in
manners over morsels spread, arguments
abound instead of whether ‘yours’ is more
than mine so I assume a right of claim to
space I must defend: therefore the end of
gustatory grace begins as canine anarchy
© 12 March 2012, I. D. Carswell

Vague Apprehension

Is it courageous to disdainfully fend
off feelings of vague apprehension?
Our Wise Men advocate no easier way
to discern the wood from the trees; if
fleeing from your imagination makes
more sense than a waking realisation
you’re afraid of it, maybe it’s a bit
more agreeable to stay slumbering

That is how this day began, belief one
has to wake to have been asleep rests
comfortably – yet awareness is a harsh
mistress, nothing experienced proves
your ever ‘being’ as precisely, or yet
redresses modicums of better sense
© 10 March 2012, I. D. Carswell

Mondays For Sale

Monday’s for sale,
Tuesday’s for rent – and
come the consequence of
Wednesday’s inevitability
I’m flimsy enough to still
want to play auctioneer
to the rest of the week;

Thursday’s yours but with
a caveat; you have to make
room for that which comes
gratuitously bundled with
it – Friday, and then only
if your bid makes Saturday
exclusively mine 

come Sunday – I ‘work’
for gratis
anyway, so
we’ll
leave
it for free © 1 December 2011, I. D. Carswell

Can’t Complain

Can’t complain, your smile
delights, it lightens hearts so
fluently all lurk of pain is easy
passed away; and even in its
wretchedness the direst state
asserts a troth of family we
fond embrace in hearts and
minds as empathetic amity

Such charming grace to go,
heirs to gloomy emptiness
are émigrés exposed when
you unleash your charity, a
gentleness we know as the
essential man to be
© 29 November 2011, I. D. Carswell

For grandson Oliver Harry Carswell
(11 months) – wishing a speedy
recovery from gastric flu

Warned Away

this lassitude exists within a
contraband of gastric anarchy
an illness rent with lèse
majesté praised ostensibly
as commutations brave – as
vague and vaporous out of
date defenestrations to a
stranger’s obtuse views

you know you have to eat to
shit to save your liquid life from
weak demise, and risk a spewing
death surmised as rule of thumb –
gastric flu you’ve wont to say,
as if to warn the World away
© 27 November 2011, I. D. Carswell

Hampton

I know we glibly talk of these localities
in tones of great acquaintanceship, but
truth be said it is an ambiance proposed
as rustic ordinary ease, a mood we like
to share when on the road; they’re out 
there on the way to anywhere as facts 
encountered less of chance than as in
recollections played to keys in memory
then raised as travellers’ stakes

Drove to Hampton Friday well before
an early sun was full or journey spent;
we’d seen the man, loaded bags on ute,
passed thru a burg or two along the
track, eyed Deongwar Forest’s stunning
views again and duly reminisced that
Perseverance has to seem unchanged the
most, took a well earned break at Esk for
cup of tea and new baked bread

Odd places like Ottaba & Biarra came and
went from Esk – Toogoolwah, Cressbrook,
Yimbun, Harlin, Kilcoy & D’Aguilar, then
the last serious left before ‘The Bruce’,
Stanmore, Commissioners Flat-Cedarton
intersection and we’re almost there; it’s
the shorter, easier way to Peachester – a
gratefully grey gravelled road that always
leads to sanctuary and home again
© 25 November 2011, I. D. Carswell

No Paid Favours

Has to be more than simply
formulating whose priorities
govern choice between being
creatively idle and avoiding
physical engagement

Consider a mood of wholly
non-partisan free-will with
courageous and unilaterally
undetermined libertarianism
allowed free reign

Could anything better but
fractal resumes of gratuitous
chaos take place; and what
does it matter if it plays on
in an engaging way

Dilemmas of choice with
no shades of deterministic
grey to stunt capacity – no
paid favours for advantages
already needlessly saved
© 15 November 2011, I. D. Carswell

James Lucas

Great beginning to the day,
news that’s been awaited
came and weight is lifted
off an open expectation in
an SMS which raised the
siege – it reads:

Welcome to the world, james
lucas carswell, born today 7th
june @ 2.17am, w 4.32 kg,
length 52cm! mum & bub r
well, dad needs coffee, c & o
excited to have brother

Salutations James Lucas
Carswell, joining sister
Charlotte and brother
Oliver; congratulations to
Angela and Aaron on this
grand 7^th day of July
© 7 July 2012, I. D. Carswell

James Lucas is grandchild #5.
He joins Freja, Stella, Charlotte and Oliver

Political Inconsequentia

Crikey, allowing politicians unlimited
say on things they think are germane
will plague us with weird peccadilloes
and inane ‘inconsequentia’;

This Nation’s issues aren’t weighed in
behaviours intended as personalised
projections on re-election prospects, or
faddish attempts to bolster popularity

Yet we’re to decide on significance of
uranium sales to India AND a free vote
on if, or whether, there should ever be
legal recognition of gay marriage

I understand the uranium thingy but
contending OUR conscience needs to
be set straight with a critical vote on
gay marriage completely buggers me

It hasn’t the status of global warming,
refugees seeking political asylum, toxic
debt affecting world-wide economies
yet it pretentiously assumes the same

Europe’s financial crisis is a calamity of
greater significance than any factionally
universal tendentious whingeing – ‘tho
even that has contagious portent

and that’s what really worries me...
© 15 November 2011, I. D. Carswell

Diffident Dependency

Writing poetry in open air and under the
grateful shade of a market stall gazebo on
Sunday AM makes restraint of occupational
entertainment mellow to new heights

But there’s no end of captivating sights
to rivet attention – and no complaints in
passers-by providing visceral stimulation

Ok, some are rare, a few seem tragically
bizarre enough yet are here invested as
plane fare in royally entertaining me...

I’d like to say thanks, as the sovereign in
her regal highness might self-articulate,
but the word seizes in an impression of
mutual and diffident dependency
© 13 November 2011, I. D. Carswell

Running An Errand

Agreeing to a minor panic voids a case
of disagreeably sangfroid ambivalence;
the throes of planning rational counter-
contingency imply strategy as close as
it gets to illusion – you’re stymied and
yet still manage to weigh stakes

Well, you argue, there were diversions –
a brown snake disappearing down a rat
hole after close confrontation took lost
wallet clear out of mind – luckily rats all
odoriferous and deceased, they’d been
feasting avidly on ‘racumen’ baits

But panic did resurrect a mental acuity
long thought extinct – it conceived many
plausible excuses under amazing duress;
yet same fey energy located the missing
billfold by practice of exclusion, allowed
running an errand logically
© 10 November 2011, I. D. Carswell

Sibling

while there’s no chance it still
can’t mean it won’t ever happen –
that’s like promising the moon

but sure, with no undercurrents
of malice evident there’s nothing
apparent to sully good will

so where does the belief it might
abide – and why; siblings do not
conceal belated grievances easily

annulling a privilege of kin would
be grievously sure to make waves
but it won’t change the facts

simply, you can’t gratuitously stop
being a sibling on a whim and make
those sorts of things go away
© 9 November 2011, I. D. Carswell

Space

too subtle to be interrogation
or late effects of strong coffee
gratuitously sipped after eleven;
it’s three AM

goddamnit – who’s idea was it?
Confessing to analeptic disarray
doesn’t sanction free-range
anarchy, not in my book

at best motives assumed in self-
denial are crude analyses – we
do it and make for extra space
like it seems rational

but we are communicating –
I’m generously awake anyway
and already you’re asleep in
a spare bed of dreams
© 8 November 2011, I. D. Carswell

Debacle Aussie Rules

Should I cry wretchedly at News
no media bothered to place or be
amused how blithely it was ignored

But no News is good news if you’re
ignominiously traumatised LOSING
an AFL International series

Yes, Ireland BEAT Australia twice –
2 of 2 – won The International Cup
without a partisan murmur heard

Good grief, where were the hyped
sell-out crowds of AFL’s raison d'être,
why was a blazing TV frenzy absent

How did a ‘best of the best’ contest
fail to raise enough local interest to
rate even minor newsworthiness

C’mon Aussie Rules, non-events dent
your rep; you claim to own the world’s
best footy players (outside Ireland)

So why not challenge the Yanks to a
classic knock down drag out match;
you’ll need national fervour cranked

And bugger the Rules; if its engaging
derring-do it’ll capture prospect fans
who don’t need to be initiated first
© 5 November 2011, I. D. Carswell