What It Means To Endure

Those commendable clichés of
golden ages cringe in the face
of year’s sheer volume, tho you
hadn’t exotic destinations in
mind anyway – raising kids to
share traditional values sure
peeled fantasy rind from the
idea as you found your feet

You’re foursquare and neat in
a nest of your own making midst
generations dear – think what it
means to endure; fifty years, as
it were, pass in the brevity of a
gratified family’s eye-blink
© 24 December 2011, I. D. Carswell
Patsy & Rob Lyford – for their 50th
Anniversary...

Slender Apathy

Uneasiness extends its hag-like hands
and grasps the few remaining strands
of reasoned charity; sotto voce voice
explains a heat you’ll learn eventually
to bear – with no surprises but don’t
dare perceive of it estranged in dreary
loneliness, or stranger yet, imagine
it still running free

And in that moment’s clarity all dread
dissolves in ashen frowns endowed by
goodness bound in generous deeds –
no need to feel ashamed of measures
you agreed in innocence; you gave in
sweet defence of slender apathy
© 21 December 2011, I. D. Carswell

In Endless Corridors (rev)

365 poems piled on the living room floor
and the poet still writes. It is his way of
giving thanks, of celebrating – a sharing
of what was in the beginning an anxious
ask tho’ making little sense. Since then a
few caring souls have heeded his words
agreeably, thankfully easing the task.

There is a way to go; simple arithmetic 
suggests at least 635 poems are free of
a tether and still to be gathered from air
they have weathered in; they’re in the
windrows of experience, the washrooms
and weigh-stations, the beer-halls and
backdoors – in endless corridors.

The journey thus far is a dream, a vision
visited in an instant and forever familiar,
a pillar propping up this poet’s visionary
trance, of winsome words drifting in reach
to be plucked and savoured like the ripe
peaches of a favoured childhood, tasted
forever and crafted in enigmatic verse.
© I.D. Carswell 2006

Half Century

Another 50 years has blazed away
perhaps not as quick as a hiccup
or wink but quietly succeeding day
on day; there is an esteemed and
substantial leisure relevant in this
passage of comforting events – a
growth of hegemony where those
absent still feed from its strength

We are sustained in a potency of
unhindered love and acceptance,
know who we are uncritically thru’
family eyes and no restraints have
meaning when the blaze of long
lived affection glows this bright
© 14 December 2011, I. D. Carswell

Diasporas

The photo pinned to the fridge door
beams mesmeric smiles – there’s
huge comfort seeing he’s well again;
for a while dismal frailty almost sank
the good vibes, cascades of worst
imaginings’ crescendos won briefly –
but he rose naked like a new dawn
and it paled away

His pure smile is strength naive of
its innocence, it says we were seeing
futures voided in diasporas of our worst
imaginings; yet he claims nothing from
our disquiet than comfort of knowing
we were there too
© 13 December 2011, I. D. Carswell

Autistic Sanity

Whether ‘tis easier alone to survive
baroque thunderstorms of emotion
or live through a festive shopping
trip begs the question; to inure an
innocent against contagious angst
a-hoof in a mall’s infectious aisles
is to play lame Russian roulette on
a credit card uploaded with debt

Cloudbursts of candour don’t mask
austere afterthoughts, disconsolately
the ordure’s taint will still be wasted
wisdom unless it perniciously clings
to purse strings and pocket linings –
curse or panacea of autistic sanity
© 11 December 2011, I. D. Carswell

Doing Nothing

you’d never expect doing nothing to be
really time-intense – existing testimony
confirms in this case too many moments
spent avoiding activity vanish without a
trace – and too rapidly for novel ideas to
vaguely replace them; in doing nada one
attains seriously dislocate art-forms of
what nirvana is thought to be 

where the time went should be a bonus
one spends wisely, but after the event –
yet if the expertise reached subliminal
state an occasion never eventuated; it
is a curse we superior shameless see
in work as an avoidable frustration
© 25 September 2012, I. D. Carswell

Room To Spare

Back when he gave a shit there was room
to spare – the clatter of calumny a whole
lot less menacing with more occasions to
be aware of what truly significant meant;
these days he’s beset with sage illness –
ambivalence of wavering, the tragedy is
staged between opposed ideas debating
status quo – with no visible difference

Aha, he says, I think I see, you agree to
disagree as you disown you’re the same
yet you’re not proposing anything new;
that’s ok, but I won’t join the gang, or is
it cabal or faction, there’s room enough
for me alone just where I am
© 25 September 2012, I. D. Carswell

Photovoltaic Grace

Breaking news today, Qld becomes
a Solar Energy Super State & cats
with diabetes can be treated; okay
great news – but why a revelation?

Whether we only need make the
truckloads of insulin and create an
industry seems too passé to be an
ingenious, original solution.

Our ‘so-to-speak’ Sunshine State
already had solar talent on hand
so advent of solar panels wasn’t
exactly all that inspirational.

At over 475 MW we are the main
installed solar photovoltaic facility
it seems, 200,000 plus homes and
businesses display this capacity.

But the Chinese made a mint on
that deal; the future we stand to
gain is in guaranteed and equitable
sun-generated electrical energy.

When Carbon Tax sets the lid on
high-emitting resource sectors all
Qld industry will be under threat –
hence cheaper energy’s the bet.

As only 1 in 230 cats suffer from
diabetes, feline insulin’s at best
an opportunity at the low-end;
whereas in humans it’s 1 in 10...
© 25 September 2012, I. D. Carswell

The Light Was Always You (rev)

Beginning was in lavish light which truly lit the
way, time not lost in feckless flight or dreamed
a shadow’s darkened blight or deemed a plague
within the blissful brilliant endless day.

When dimness came it was at night to stretch
into a weary dawn, tangled in the sleepers’ eyes
and yawned into their tousled hair, barely then
were we aware.

Those summers’ days dismembered shades of
winsome grey, an elegance of weaving time, a
quintessence to blind, entrench, yet send us
hence upon our flawless way.

And now we stumble on a darkened path that’s
strewn in rubble sorely tumbled of the ages
gone, aghast and striving for our light in gloom,
our plight consumed and treating us affray;

A flawless day’s grotesque defeat, an unlit room,
doors secured disdain we’ll reach a kindly
source of light we seek so blindly destitute
whilst stepping in each other’s way.

Bearing bruises born of crashes in the dark
we’re worn by flights of fantasy despite the
anchors of our past, deluged by vast illusions
with no caste or frame to give a name to;

Although it’s not a game despaired of losing
view a light glows pure within the worldly
warmth of you, a light to guide you true,
a light to surely show you where to go

And where you go the darkness fades; there
is no canopy of doom pervading sanity, it’s
where I ought to be if blind thus to construe
the source of light was always you.
© 1996, I.D. Carswell

Without you I am blind….

The Possibilities

I have to admit I cleaned the washing machine;
yes, I hear the cries, delinquent, madman, why
would one demean oneself like that – and wear
the shame. There is no defence upsetting age-
old tradition of ‘the wash’ being fey territory to
steer clear of is there; and yet I do not fear an
upsurge of mutiny or undue hesitation in role-
play usually made to great theatrical effect.

It was no ordinary rub and scrub event anyway,
gender anarchy with good intent came to hand,
meant use of a water blaster quite naturally –
preserving equability the play on disassembly of
intimate parts progressed without even a risqué
thought of the washer’s potential compromise.

Of course notions plagued my mind it may be
an excess I’ll pay for – I’ve yet to test whether
(dare I say ‘she’) will wash the next batch with
the same eagerness as in the past; it’ll have to
wait tho’ I guess until the need arises, I don’t
want to seem too aware of the possibilities
© 19 September 2012, I. D. Carswell

Survive This Test

Heard him say, “We want to know
what’s going through their heads.”
It’s an earnest quest and the right
thing to say, but unnecessary

Words singeing their ears clearly
display antisocial behaviours, this
is inspiration out of an incendiary
Mullah’s pitiless hafiz rhetoric

He’s cause for what we condemn
as intolerable - citing defence of
the good prophet’s temperament
doesn’t excuse criminal acts

Our laws apply equally to all, and
to blame irrational deeds enacted
at the prophet’s behest upon law
enforcement agencies is insane

Sydney’s Muslim Leaders want to
know why they went crazy – try
blaming extreme points of view
espoused by jihadist fanaticism

Christianity took a thousand years
to reign in insanity claiming to be
true belief; maybe the prophet can
be encouraged by that

If Islam’s majority firms stance
rationally against fundamentalist
bigotry there’s a decent chance
we’ll survive this test
© 18 September 2012, I. D. Carswell

Get Used To It

Grow up, get used to it, learn
you do not define if, what or
how I think – Sheik tho’ you
be there’s a radical brink to
resolving your dilemma and
no chatter relevant; ruthless
diatribes of incendiary piety
are rejected by me, period.

Ecclesiastical outrage does
not legitimate criminal acts
or defend illegal behaviour –
these are your acolytes, they
and you share guilt worthy
of severest approbation

Commit treason if you must,
slay for millennia-dead ideals
but be judged today; and be
assured, you’ll easily see why
your untenable justification
is hideously two-faced
© 18 September 2012, I. D. Carswell

Heart Of Conondale

Quite a weekend all the same
tracking off on a trip to Witta
Saturday – a thought was for
coffee maybe then rethinking
intentions – liked the cadence
of Conondale’s name

No recall of a visit before but
it’s on Kenilworth road, so off
we go – cruising sweet down
country lanes, lavish scenery
each side like breathtakingly
lush afterthoughts

That part was easy, enjoying
divergent country views with
a fine appreciation of what &
for whom well managed land
is a measure of – lantana &
wild tobacco as give-aways

However Conondale blooms
is not clear – the School fair
with crowded market stalls &
General Store are practically
all that’s there; but anyway –
Kenilworth’s down the track

Coffee at the pub, a no-frills,
time-stood-still village boozer
less pretentious airs, visit to
the Cheese Factory; village
Rodeo’s in town with y’all
costumed ‘yee-haws’ about

Penny drops on the way back;
travelling main roads won’t
see it – maps conspire to not
show character embedded in
landscape which replenishes
and refreshes without favour

Home via Kidman Creek track
memories of Obi Obi in flood,
hinterland’s moral league in
Montville & Mapleton shuns
Maleny, demeans Eumundi
like it’s the aberration 

Ah, the ticket; ideas to take
pleasure expressed best as
exclusion plans, divert onto
Postman’s Track – Ahern Road,
go back-country a-ways, reach
for the heart of Conondale
© 17 September 2012, I. D. Carswell

 

Lines Of Sight

Simplicity won accolades before a blind of
crapulous ethnicity – but God’s sake, a day
with a Clancy th’ feckin’ ref ‘n Bokkes the
enemy; not ordinary foe – they play rules
out of the dark ages but they’re hard and
worthy of respect. Problem’s ‘n Irish wuss
who’s lost his wee pack of nappies on the
referees bus t’ th’ bloody game

But it’s Rugby – ‘n a test of teams’ better’n
this Limerick red-warrior’s ever likely ref’d
before in his mordant career; sadly he’s the
object of disdainful antipathy on both sides
– and derision rides his lines of sight in
sombre concert with the linesmen’s jeer
© 15 September 2012, I. D. Carswell

Rictus Assiduous

So why compromise obdurate states
of stable anarchy – by breaking this
rock-hard soil no-one but you sees
brass-bound irony appear an erudite
statement of simple gestures

of course it is wasted – and a rictus of
regret bears witness; it’s a given, the 
nonchalance you’ve come to approve
is because it’s too obvious to discount
as being from someone giving a shit

so you dig for hours and carefully bury
the evidence; yes, it will work properly
and you’ve done what you needed to –
there will be water when tanks run dry
just as you dutifully promised

but what’s missing’s the appeasement,
fatuous praise one usually relied on to
mollify such solitary effort, a massage
of free flow crap for efforts of one who 
paves pathways where there are none

but that’s before the change – there’s
only you to defend the faith now; if it’s
any comfort you needed the exercise
anyway, but you’ve run out of excuses 

and people to blame
© 20 September 2012, I. D. Carswell

Penitently Content

The game was to make home-made
piña colada taste more like strained
pineapple, as it is supposed to be –
seems crème coconut’s the grandly
ameliorating influence on opulence
& savour but lavishes more than it
subtly blends, so I’m filtering it –
sure the rum doesn’t give a damn

Now it’s clear, with alluring scent
of intrigue and flavour enough to
metaphorically die for – near true
as dreamland to origins, allowing
me the perfect means to feel I’m
about to be penitently content
© 8 December 2011, I. D. Carswell

A Better Chance

Cited a long way back to ‘appiness – and yet
the eagle lands beak-filled with odds & ends
before the shopping sprees begin; isn’t quite
anomalous yet, something sez you’d believe
an obtuse view if the wind changed before a
fall favoured you instead of the rest, but it is
a test of patience, there’s clearly no rainbow
of glory in this set so let’s listen and learn

It’ll be no surprise you didn’t mistake words
cited as the prophet’s own being anything
other than a sales pitch, but it was too late
to exchange that wisdom for a sandwich;
but now the bird’s landed with the truth
and you’ll stand a much better chance
© 15 September 2012, I. D. Carswell

Perambulation

If you can stop being affected
by pain (or lack) of popularity
there is scope for just minted
views attracted from being an
obscure what or who. Not me,
you declare. No. I’m famous
already, I don’t need go write
an Elegy to prove who I am 

And it is difficult to write your
own Elegy well – though I say
tongue-in-cheek you attained
that distinction – constrained
a perambulation in fact rather
than retreat into fiction
© 13 September 2012, I. D. Carswell

Digressing

This lassitude is disabused by bold
complicity – oh, for sure there is an
element of indolence, and gruesome
as that is the reticence intrigues and
yet forbids you interfere; keep your
distance blares a warning clear and
so you do – nothing breaks a truce
no-one’s declared to be beholden to

And there it lies a-festering, a coyly
repossessing ploy you can’t avoid for
real in time that’s shred by nuance
bled of substance blessed the least
in apathy defaulting to a tune you
see digress again then fall asleep
© 12 September 2012, I. D. Carswell

Bathos, I guess

It may be bathos – I guess,
but I get a distinct impression
there’s an election due in USA;

not that we have a stake in
outcomes that may eventuate,
but thus we hear claims made

Strangely, I do see a link between
Media’s infatuation with the US
Presidential electoral process and

an infantile intrigue of Networks
too easily obsessed with ‘politics’
of their own newsworthiness

Misery etches such unassailably
clear images of inequity one is
sometimes left gasping – but

not in this iteration; despair is
usually overused as a metaphor
for what we get to hear and see

and yet assessing candidates on
whether they attract larger, more
animate TV audiences seems, in

view of ‘expert’ commentary, a
criterion test standard of whom is
suitable for representation

Well, don’t be surprised – the ‘real’
analysis rests with whomever pays
for the right to be advertised!
© 10 September 2012, I. D. Carswell

A Better Foot

You couldn’t put a better foot at
back of it – a long day assured
but gracefully paced to stay one
remembered for many a sunset;
these birthdays of waning years
in midge enlivened atmosphere
are still fun if you let the droll
epithets carouse in their cups

But you’re way too canny for a
vintage excuse; not my idea to
be used you say, nor yours if I
may be so bold, though we are
amazed we found both of us in
the end like back in days of old
© 8 September 2012, I. D. Carswell

Jones’ Rules

Call him what you will – rugby tragic,
disingenuous toilet cleaner, discarded
rag, all factions fit into an unpleasant
megalomaniac posing histrionically as
listeners gag over candid ‘concerned’
invective; and he loves being the Alan
Jones you know best as a presenter
hosting his own radio talk-back show

There is no mystery to the man, he’s
never pretended to be anything other
than that – amazing isn’t it, and now
many erudite, ‘discerned’ desperates
fling themselves into the same pit ol’
Jonesy rules a bit tenuously
© 8 October 2012, I. D. Carswell

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Jones_(radio_broadcaster)

Inspiration

For a few genuinely inspired seconds
all preceding this moment’s inception
one ponders – was I worth the time?
Then in a burst of fractionated energy
possessed with things existing only if
& when you contemplate them began
a wry realisation its time to find what
disorder actually means to me

In the end I agree nothing original is
changed – one still embraces bullshit
running free with a variation, I decide
what is fallible; unless put out of mind
as an affect per se, which wasn’t, as
such, in the first contemplation
© 5 September 2012, I. D. Carswell

Finest Logic

 

Selflessly begun in the finest unbiased logic,

worthy discussion points listed for a biennial,

but often further delayed, visit to my GP

 

Whom I still can’t be certain is at the same

Surgery; last supposed ill-health consultation

decided I wasn’t ailing, I hadn’t returned

 

There were 4 items on a Nov 2009 sheet; to

the fore aches and pains, but Jan 2012 has 9

in sordidly graphic detail, only sharing 3

 

Structural to my state of being ordinates are

age related deterioration, easily confirmed,

obvious without consultation

 

It’s worth an effort if I can convince myself

I am severely depressed – more so than I

seem, which I’m surely beginning to be

© 4 January 2012, I. D. Carswell

---

Raw Advice

they aren’t new views and don’t
contain fresh insights ‘proved of
everyday reality – more a mesh
of remedies, of tried and true, a
jibe in flippant jest or two to say
who cares; no rude warning of a
reckoning if things don’t change
around the bend

so there it lies, no less a victim
than contention guised as good
though raw advice; we want the
same, a single end wherein the
fires don’t singe dependent life
contingent on an Orchards sale
© 31 August 2012, I. D. Carswell

As The Geezer Says

 

 

As the ancient geezer says, thine’s

not to reason why, give a toss, or

even try – bucket-loads of vagrant

shit passed down this way in quest

of legendary levity; all murmured

breath much less a vocal change:

so many earnest agonies behesting

fractal fallacy as honest jest

 

And so I sit in hope of hearing it,

‘the penny’ drop expectantly with

ears ablaze, knees-betwixt arcane

in hopes and dreams, a metaphor

you couldn’t see in semaphore

and yet accept impassively

© 1 January 2012, I. D. Carswell

 

 

Orchard For Sale

So why don’t I see it your way, not
from failing eyesight or affectation,
nor ostentatious harrumph-inflated
habit – that is not me certainly, the
theatrics too blasé for an out-dated
has-been, never would have made
it thespian you’d likely agree; or is
that a too coyly worded defence

There isn’t too much wood for the
trees where I take my stance, grey
as it seems there’s an unassailably
balanced sagacity at back of it – so
you’d sell the dream less the trees
as I dream of the trees selling me
© 30 August 2012, I. D. Carswell

Easy Beat

It was an age when frankness ran
with commonsense and symptoms
shared instead of disagreed – no
plagues of doubt bemused the few
with want to understand, or keep,
a flock in faultless faith’s desire to
shed the shackled dread that bred
a calumny of deep dissent

Debate was free with tacit ban on
flattery alleged, although it read
that satire had the easy beat on
blandishment – & so it seemed a
truth relieved in eyes attuned by
lucid views of simplest actuality
© 29 August 2012, I. D. Carswell

Flavours

 

 

Been quite a wilful while since when

that special savour braced its tonic

trace along my tongue – but then I've

been so chastened with romance; so

much a wily taste of this or chary sup

of that to mark a flimsy gustatory

waywardness which some or just a

fatal few would only see too late

 

And I admit as one who didn't wait

upon a rising sun or raging sea – or

was I more engaged; and poured a

glass of gin perchance to remonstrate

with taste and found the flavours still 

appraised to buoy me home again

© 7 December 2001, I. D. Carswell

Counselling

Can’t help but be a bit buoyed by it,
not that it’s an expression of faith –
nothing like that, more perspective
with a ‘neutral’ point of view stated
plainly enough to avoid a clear bias

But sass in the form of impartiality
doesn’t make divergence easier to
conciliate, nor drawing back to what
is neutrality weakened you’d agree,
and only making sense for you

The thought counts though and it
comforts – clumsy love complete
in bruised embrace is nonetheless
love better presumed than a clash
cruelled with egos duly deflated
© 27 August 2012, I. D. Carswell

Jack's Legacy

 

The critic gushed and said, “Just
like Jack, so raw, I never thought
to ever see another writer so like
Kerouac!” Kerouac, who the fuck
is he? Writer? Gee, well that’s a
laugh, compare me to a writer! 

 

Let’s face it I’m no hack, I’m not
a glossy look at either – nor was
Jack who took the crumbs alike.
She’s got my verse; well maybe
not, I see her eyes are focussed
far too short for that. 

 

She’s hot, fiftyish, a horsey bitch
(that means she’s trifling fat) with
glasses and ‘n acre for an arse –
a place to ponder, you’d get lost
and wander for a week. I’ve got
the time but let me guess she’s
short on gratitude. 

 

Tonight she’d screw me right just
‘cause she can, and if I sold some
poetry she liked she’d let me stay
the night, or for a week. Like Jack
I’m free and easy ‘tho he’s dead,
while I am not his living legacy.
© I.D. Carswell

 

Let me say I’m not like Jack at all. Sure, I might have been as a young man, perhaps I was, who cares! Kerouac inspired me then and I’ve always admired his style. Of course he wouldn’t have written a verse like this despite sharing the sentiments. 

Gauze

Should I take the cause of
what or who I am to be as
gauze of latter days events,

whether wrapped according
lore or dressed in passé jeans
of legendary haute couture

or naked as the babe who’s
tossed its handsome clothes
and runs now fancy free –

where signs insist without a
doubt you’re from this place
because it makes such sense

that is than being fenced less
space to keep your comforts
housed in social harmony

but halt, I say, I wasn’t made by
clothes or places lived or even those
geographies we’ve dream about

I’m more than simple sum of
things you tell as me, I am sure
of it – or was until we passed

the last disparagement: they
weren’t my rules of any chore to
come but just another game
© 22 August 2012, I. D. Carswell

Green Lawns

When you’re over euphoria – that
is fizz, champagne tastes ordinary 
while out-of-the-fridge 2 day old
pizza’s more character; agreed, it
is nothing to do with moon’s size
debate influencing age decline, or
why the size shrinks if scrutiny is
too focussed on ends-means

Being halfway to happiness seems
an antidote to all claims you’re an
accessory after the fact, pizza that
you’ve left refrigerated lacks none
of that familiarity’s obtuse failings
while yet it keeps the lawns green
© 20 August 2012, I. D. Carswell

His Generosity

It was washing load #12 dutifully
hung out to dry – been six event-
filled days with at least one more
spin; tomorrow I will leave on a
retrospectively sedate eight hour
drive to lesser clothes-line duties
at home, missing the team and a
meditative call to rostering

Mostly I’ll miss all the hugs being
dispensed or required on demand
from a vision of tranquillity whom
we grin with in animation since it
exculpates more than a puckered
brow gleans from his generosity
© 23 August 2012, I. D. Carswell