Faked Transports Of Joy (rev)

what a blast
what a sodden farce
of dripping snotty drivel

an egoistic critic ‘quills’
a leery parse of gooey praises
words which reek of rutted phrases
grandiose and desolate
words imbued in wanton sleaze
of ceaseless self-abusive feats
of gross intemperance

the stink is of the rotting places rank
decayed and leeched for wages
pandered at the foot of verse we knew
was bad before this malefactor rang
with scribing gesture wafting hands
theatrically engendered deep and
mystic messages in sham duplex
ejaculations of duplicity

and we’re supposed to somersault
through gaudy hoops and beam with
gratitude in faked transports of joy –
radiating ersatz glee in nacre
rays of iridescent energy?
© 2005, I.D. Carswell

40 - Zip

I dunno what’s worse
being beat 40 – zip
in the NRL* Grand Final
(and coppin’ it sweet) or
beatin’ th’ gums to pulp
on radio over an Artist
feller wantin’ t’ take
pictures of schoolkids
in th’ nude
some 15 months ago

all I know is –
Melbourne’s involved

seems unsublimated
wounded pride
excess of hot air
or illogic and unfettered
paedophilic imaginings 
is the consensus behaviour
down there
© 6 October 2008, I. D. Carswell

*NRL – National Rugby League

Manly Sea Eagles smashed Melbourne Storm 40 - zip
in the NRL 2008 Grand Final

Awaken To Dreams (rev)

The exhortations would
not go away, the never-
ending unreeling of sub-
conscious interrogation
hysterical and delineated,
flying on pseudo ephedrine,
swallowing the phlegm
exacerbated in dreams
still half-awake.

Caught in-between,
tortured by meanings
all too clear with real
emotions attached, all
of these things palpably
near, unseen in light of day,
gasping and groaning,
comprehending nothing.

Somehow it ceased, some-
where sleep ended it; in an
unchallenged hour blissful
release won respite, comfort
and peace descended.
In a moment’s sleep before
dawn the slate was cleaned,
memories erased.
Awaken to dreams.
© 2007, I.D. Carswell

Best Running Mate (rev)

The accent was curious, quaint, like an
ancient black-and-white movie hero who
rode a pinto and shot from the waist. But
this hero never rode a horse nor ever
fired a gun in his life. The action was by
mouth, in rapid-fire delivery, safely from
the speaker’s podium. “Now how th’ Heel
(he meant Hell) we gonna get are selves
baik in th’ dravah’s seat?” 

Of course he clarified the question was
rhetorical and the accent disappeared.
He was a sham I guessed – but the rest
of the crowd gladly lent their ears.

He won by being something that appealed,
a creation of imagination, a figment from an
all too common theme.

Goddamn, I know I seen his granddaddy in
the movies back when – not the same name
but that was easily explained; no, what
concerned me was how playing the corrupt
character of a bounty hunter legitimised his
claim to be best running mate for President.
© 5 July 2007, I.D. Carswell

Puck Might Make Much More Sense (rev)

Hunch, the hen, whose vocab is constrained to the
extreme but very articulate expression ‘puck’, claims
she dreams of being a Shakespearian actor. 
What’s more she sees a role that’s tailor-made; not
Puck as you might opine but Nick Bottom with whom
she shares a belief she can discretely play all or any
actor’s part in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

I don’t want to play the fool for her myself but I can’t
see a case where she could wear a donkey’s head with
the necessary conviction – let alone bear Titania’s fiery
love. I must say though that I like her spritely style and
agree that she should have a chance.

I decree she shall star as The Hunchback in Richard III
at the next Shakespearean festival. On second thoughts,

just being Puck might make much more sense...
© 26 April 2007, I.D. Carswell

For the record, sadly Hunch departed this realm 8 October 2008;
a short but eminently memorable Chicken Pen  Jester’s life...

Seems There’s A Delay

searching questions
meticulous self-examination
but you’re still the same
– nothing changed
along the way

now you’re not even sure
where you’re going
– at least that’s
reassuring
you’ve been there before

today was to be
an end to feckless
speculation
a melancholic progression
a beginning of certainty

seems there’s a delay
© 8 October 2008, I. D. Carswell

Way Of The Wild

an ego trading zero
in commodities
leaves little room for excuses

but you’ll coin them anyway

despite titanic efforts
to stay afloat in a sea
of moral bankruptcy

you’ll shift the blame

...it is the way of the wild
© 6 October 2008, I. D. Carswell

25 un-momentous, soporific nonentities of me:

 

 

1. A list with numbers still lists – whether canted or not.

2. Agreeing with a pistol aiming accuser is not an implicit approval.

3. Telling lies saves time initially.

4. Knowing the difference is insufficient ground for appeal.

5. Judgements are purely logical decisions until you make them.

6. To err is Human, to laugh is Divine.

7. I’ll bet I’ll change this list tomorrow anyway.

8. A first sexual experience isn’t worth waiting for – the tenth, maybe.

9. Marriage is mysterious incompatibilities masquerading as affection.

10. Love is... And it’s pointless denying it.

11. Writers’ block isn’t terminal but sods tossing sods won’t tell you so.

12. Great guitar music still makes me shiver.

13. An oath is both commitment and expletive in a word.

14. Rabbiting your own spuds is deliriously confused fun.

15. Be your own critic – who else gives a shit!

16. Give me a dog’s life any day.

17. Loneliness is self-discovered incompatibility.

18. Bombay Sapphire Gin is a just reward for just about anything.

19. I’ll take mine on crushed ice with lemon twist and tonic please!

20. I can’t imagine life as a vagina.

21. I can’t imagine life without vaginas.

22. The pleasure is in the word fitting flawlessly.

23. Editing is the overindulgent art of applied malice.

24. I think therefore I am thinking, I think...

25. If I exist what am I doing here? Or wherever 

Rat Philosophy

been living with rats for years
mistook turds as quaint seeds
teeth marks as odd messages
– even had words with one

we’re a different family you know
he said quietly, described their
taxonomy, rodentia muridae,
apologised for raiding the hens’ grain

but there are thousands of you
I said amazed, so where on
earth do you all fit in – there
can’t be that much room

we adapt, get by on crumbs he
sighed – like you we find the
space to breed and live life lustily
because there’s no guaranteed
tomorrow
© 26 September 2008, I. D. Carswell

It Is Sad

it is sad
not all poetry
is good

a wry smile
provoked
says maybe
and a laugh
perhaps

but tears
touched
in a heartbeat-echoed
hallow hollow
says

yes
oh,
yes...!
© 26 September 2008, I. D. Carswell

Bitter Sweet (rev)

The events of September 11th 2001
remain too bitter sweet; as well as
2973 innocents confirmed dead
(with their 19 terrorist murderers)
24 are unaccounted for.

An act of violent callousness, cogent
in defeat of true belief, horrific in
every rational sense except its
deplorable and immediate impact.
Now what you ask is bitter sweet.

The facts are too enormous to
contain a sweetness while the pain
endures. But we can surely find a
purpose in our hour of grief, recall
that just revenge is grievous sweet!

Don’t let terrorists defeat you; it is no
religion where they swear their vows –
it is perdition. Slay them with desire
for vengeance, tear out scraggy beards
strangle them with jeers in public streets.
Stone and blind their bloodied eyes with
grinding truth; bode their loathsome
epithets to martyrdom as vaporous lies
– expose and compromise their naked
useless, futile lives.

And when they whine we’re hypocrites
– just smile...
© 2005, I.D. Carswell

No Way Of Going Back (rev)

It was my life in fast review,
initially at double speed until
I learned which functions
scrolled the images on screen.

I could pause, freeze frame advance,
endlessly replay and alter sound
although this piece would not allow
fast forward beyond the here and now.

But I could live with that – for hours
I was enthused then bored I pressed
the little square assuming I could watch
another life with more to share.

At best I had expected what ensues on
channel change. I regret the manual
even says – when you press the stop in
Life there is no way of going back.
© 2006, I.D. Carswell

Still Be The Same

if you’d said a week or more before
we’d have it back – maybe
just a day here or there
I’d still be thus resigned
I always take the tragic view

those years in the Military
put paid to essential naivety
about the equipment
– if it was broken
you lived or died without it

it is a motherboard failure,
that is to say – nothing too serious!

okay – an end in sight
at least a progression defined
in PC-less wrenching uneasiness
between now
and when normality returns...

amongst other things
there’ll be new memory boards
and a new case to fit it in – while
it will look different, essentially

it will still be the same
© 1 October 2008, I. D. Carswell

Joining The Crowd

Clearly the one thing that you belong to
says she is the exclusivity of being you
– but of course you don’t see it that way

I belong to the Team says he defensively
I am a Team man through and through
– and be assured, I’ve come to play

in your dreams says she – a Team of
one whose game is to too obscure
to draw a crowd of more than you

he asks surprised whose is this unkind
view – must I aspire to your good Team
in colours, word and deed to earn true blue

that’s up to you she says – chose any Team
or game or rules or who you heckle out aloud
but first you have to join the Crowd

that’s right, the crowd, the mob or throng –
a riot if you will but go along willingly with
the mores and attitudes pertaining thereto

outrageous says he – and I must protest
it chills the essence of the man, explaining
what it means to be essentially Australian
© 27 September 2008, I. D. Carswell

Less A Burden

this love is less a burden than
those arrows of cupidity
those fleshy rigours seated deep
within the breast of reason

the how of it is that I do not
love you as you say I do nor
is my love unique because
of yours for me 

manic years are now estranged
beyond their aching origins – of
breathlessness of elevated fears
in love for lust that duly waned

the why is hard to say – and yet
I know no other way to meet
your eyes less welcoming
surprised in warmth of greeting

we waltz a minuet in learning
love anew – an intimate complicity
that paved a way from where
we used to be to here

rapprochement has redressed
the where of it from coin-invested
vanity to warm-hand-touch reality
reformed as friendliness

the dance was dearly bought in
furnaces that forged the steel
we wield with confidence from
all those nearly broken years

the what of it is that of me which
heard the best of loves’ expression
rests in nested rhetoric
of sweetly written words
© 3 October 2008, I. D. Carswell

You Promised Not To Wake Me

She snores softly in a tunnel
of cognisant darkness, unable or
unwilling to roll onto her silent
side, rumbles along rhythmic
tracks of her dreams clacking in
an entourage of warm memories;
You promise not to wake me she
sighs soulfully, I hold you to that.

Each morning she opens her eyes
in a glowing crescendo’s climax of
awakening intensity; each morning
she claims these orgasmic leavings
bring her back – she lies quiescent
in imitation sleep thighs apart and
tranquilly contemplating, moistly
waiting the day’s expectancy.

In the day’s first phase, warmth of
recent love-making paints lingering
veils of lace filigree filling the hard
vacuum’s vagrancy; the uncontrived
portraits of ancient love hung with
secure smiles – joining the day with
effusive greetings she says again,
You promised not to wake me...
© 16 April 2007, I.D. Carswell

Random Esteem

what would you pay for a scam
to lift you off the back page of
anonymity – boldly launch you
into life as a poetic celebrity?

the fee’s lame-duck-ass integrity
in tatters – meaningless as the
random IP addresses appraising
a wholly imagined faux esteem

amazingly numbers seem more
meaningful to your peers than
words written; be that as it may –
who actually reads them anyway?
© 4 October 2008, I. D. Carswell

Peace Denied (rev)

He cried and brokenly confessed, I lied,
and all those years my dreams were
torment by his pleading mouth, bright
blood bubbling wordlessly, accusing.

I lied because it was so useless
how he died, killed by freakish chance,
a flash of movement in the corner
of an eye, a frantic trigger.

Alas, malevolent bullets
know no friend or foe
and unleashed go with
unseemly haste true to destiny.

He died while we waited for Casevac
in shock, dumbfounded by the enormity –
we had killed a comrade
were scared for our lives.

And while we waited the black-clothed
enemy attacked. We fought with disbelief,
then anger, they’d sensed our grief
sought to kill us easily.

In the battle’s aftermath, wits
regained, I reported his wounding
and death in the first moments
of that exchange.

The gunner who squeezed
the trigger ending his life,
sick with remorse, cried
his choke-voiced thanks.

Now I, too, need peace denied.
Please release me from my dreams.
© I.D. Carswell

Thieves Of Light (rev)

thieves of light
those words
an agony absorbing energies
a silence destitute

I heard the sigh
before the light
went out
my ears denied
the death I heard

the past had died –
is
passed
and gone into the night

dear heart, you said,
and I had
loved
you too
© 2 June 2007, I.D. Carswell

Wine Before Ideology

if it meant anything less
than the comfortable stretch
of a pair of old, well washed
and thoroughly unsurpassed
heirloom underpants I’d be
voteless –

but I’m not and it is what you’ve got –
of course
I’d chose wine before ideology
© 19 September 2008, I. D. Carswell

How The Crash Began

who’s to blame – this thing is
credit’s failure isn’t it?
simplistically –
no-one’s paid the man
repo agents ceased to roam
in debtors’ streets – it’s not PC
we’re told so agencies bought
risky debt with no sequential end
business driven needs they said
to keep the fiscal blood aflow
in veins and arteries diseased
and weak from greed
so far your super’s safe – or
so they’d like you think; just a case
of short-term pain our leaders
bleat at crisis talks
convened to bail out failing
banks with cash –
don’t be deceived
that’s how the crash began...
© 20 September 2008, I. D. Carswell

Koel

the vibrant call comes shrill
and haunting in – a male
Koel’s heartrending voice
retells at night a cuckoo’s choice
distressed with poignancy

no-one is completely free
of omnipresent anguish he
expresses well in simple notes
repetitive from loft of tree –
one rarely sees the red-eyed bird

we know for whom his calls
beseech – a fleeting rainbird’s
raiment drifts in mist that cools
at dawn’s debouche – and there
she flits, trills a shy reply
© 22 September 2008, I. D. Carswell

Koel - Eudynamys scolopacea
When the summer rain comes, so does the distinctive call of the koel, or rainbird. These large cuckoos call during their breeding season from September to February, which corresponds to the summer rain season in many areas. You can hear them day and night, but their call seems especially haunting after dark.

Koels are migratory birds that travel to Australia to breed, arriving in south-east Queensland in spring and staying until March-April when they head back to Indonesia. Australian stopovers also include coastal areas in northern Australia and down the east coast to Victoria.

Male koels are blue-black with a striking red eye and a long tail. Females are slightly smaller, with a black face, chestnut throat, red eye and olive or green beak. Females leave the hard work to someone else, laying a single egg in another bird's nest and leaving them to raise her chick. You can often spot males perched in high positions calling and displaying, but koels are shy and are unlikely to let you approach them.

Pigeon-Hole & Perch

ask your questions if you dare
intoning disbelief – you say its
fair the listener hears those views
expressed in simple terms
mock controversies –

get off the air, you’ve failed
the test of relevance – to
keep your peers in check
preach beyond the pigeon-hole
and safety of its perch
© 22 September 2008, I. D. Carswell

Having Each Of You As Friends (rev)

For more than 40 years we’ve been good friends,
since 1963 in fact, from college where we met (and
managed there to build a strong quartet of campus
friendship – which kept those years intact still yet
as clear as yesterday).

We were The Musketeers, four sons of Nereid, or
perhaps Persephone, as different each from each
as one could be, shared a camaraderie unique and
of the time, fasted in the line to learn the dreaded
pedagogic trade.

We graduated well in ‘64 and left that year to infill
spaces our seniors vacated in a vastly stolid World
beyond the barrack walls of trainees’ sphere, young
and unafraid, packed with zeal and energy, imbued
with the unflagging acuity of a probationary year.

Our meetings in those days were great events of
poignant merriment and risqué cheer, exploits
which shred the bounds of better judgment (as
decided by our management) and often while we
fell afoul we always brushed up well.

I recall the ‘Grande Affaires’ of early musketeers,
Aramis, Porthos, Athos and eclectic Monsieur
D’Artagnon, but never knew who was who. I thought
I’d be D’Artagnon, introspective, droll, or Porthos
muscled with a fork and dark intent

singularly bent on righting wrongs, but the talk
was wasted in a whirl of traded places, perhaps we
traded faces in that candid space. I relive it now
and then, would live it all again in hope
of having each of you as friends.
© 1 September 2006, I.D. Carswell
For Scotty, Seal & Gerry

The Last Excuse (rev)

what is left now that we’ve
used the last excuse – what
is left to justify excess?

the rhetoric at best was very thin when
things began – but to suggest we must
remain and play the hand we’re dealt
by Forces wed to selfish aims
is just insane

the politics of power are lofty heights
with heady flights of fantasy to draw
one on – just playing in those eyrie halls
belies the size of tiny men with hairy
brows and massive heads

we laugh aloud at leadership in debt to
intellect but have we gone beyond our
needs do we exceed capacity to self delude
one must conclude the case – we’re stuck
here in this war to save somebody’s face

or are we whores who’ll sell their souls and
glorify their nether holes in plastic greed
to mollify self-righteous monks who reek
deceit in fiscal grease – believing that our
bowls are filled implicitly with offertory

And is it true you’ll
never see a yanquis’
gift that’s truly free?
© 1 September 2006, I.D. Carswell

Remember With Affection (rev)

They’ll always tell a story those
obscure mementos stacked on
dusty shelves demure and silent
like all other gaudy tributes tacked
to walls in floodlit halls and if you
could suppose their lusty origins
and still allow the glory
they impute you are in thrall

I recall that tiny pot
a plastic flower in pink and green
an orchid made by ‘Ponn’ whose
proper name I could not spell
or even get my tongue around
I still perceive her blinding spell
of Asian prettiness impressed
so neatly on an entity which
though I try I cannot see

So it is with treasured objects
stranded out of space and time
and kept in silent places with
our memories intact a focus
which brings back the feelings
warm and sweet so vibrantly
with baubles vested in largesse
to pay a tithe we will remember
with affection all our lives
© 3 September 2006, I.D. Carswell

Secrets Of The Universe

oh, such bogus modesty!
a poseur with self-acclaimed gift
obtained thru watching Dr Zhivago
– now how about that!

whether real
or figment of imagination
who could tell from the company he keeps
withal he’s pure fiction

and he says gravely
hearken unto me – I’ll tell you
Secrets of the Universe and
explain how to write great poetry

can’t wait ‘til the knell for that travesty
of pigs-ear misrepresentation
to be
revealed 

– but Secrets of the Universe?
who’d care about trash poetry
if you’d’ve cashed
in on that...
© 23 September 2008, I. D. Carswell