The porno didn’t do anything
imagination wouldn’t make happen
though the ‘boy’ fixation
was overplayed
just sitting drinking rum from a bottle
passed hand to hand shooting the breeze
after a vindaloo
it fitted naturally
but there was no way we
for all our addiction could be responsible
for the breathy oohs and ahs exhaled
by her shamateurism
© 15 June 2009, I. D. Carswell
Wasn’t what was said
that really mattered
more the madness
of excited words
in rhetoric of
sequencing
Silence in
between was
eloquent and clear
words that sprang
to mind implied but
deafening
Each utterance
embedded fear where
stillness kept the peace
too much to lose
to free this toll of
reckoning
© 13 June 2009, I. D. Carswell
My friend calls them ‘pensioners’ naps’,
these easy midday siestas I indulge in now
and then – he claims they are necessary
to maintain a benign view of the World.
Ok, it may be true but I’ll bet he’s never
been wakened in the middle of one by a
mobile phone playing random tunes.
This time it was ‘All About Soul’, not too
bad a choice I might digress. Of course the
damn phone doesn’t have a sense of humour
or other excuse as a character reference –
possessed by demons as near as I’d guess.
Sure, I’ll send it back. There has to be a rational
explanation – which is kind of weird, I mean,
I’m admitting I like its quirky idiosyncrasy.
Not many people can say their phone
is possessed, or possibly blessed with
waking one gently.
© 17 January 2008, I. D. Carswell
Facing facts instead of dreading
gloomy endings swallows me;
I vacillate between the rational
man of steel and he believing
fairies must exist – and if they
do I’m ever left a-wondering.
There are a few with whom I
disagree – by letting panoply
of sages rail against the norm
delight in farce of dawn without
a cincture to contain the lustful
bursting free of brazen light.
Hasn’t yet occurred that what is
right is never more than where
one stands – while being wrong
explains the place you’d rather be;
for me I’m over there complete
with fairy fables at my feet.
© 11 June 2009, I. D. Carswell
The simple way to ease those
nagging agonies which writhe
within the National Rugby League
is change your guiding star
There’s no need to be seen
espousing codes of conduct
detailing behaviours which
bring the NRL into disrepute
You’ll see THEM do it without
agreement or seeking your help
believing they’re keeping you taut
on a precocious moral string
Strange fringe groups leap with
alacrity into centre stage and
whine tuneless controversy with
such vehemence the game reeks
If someone hasn’t resigned this
week from an historic incident
painted blacker than Satan’s ailing
heart they feel they’ve failed
I advise you Gallop from such
trite controversy, abandon TV
news shows where CEO NRL
falls on his apoplectic face
threatening past and present
stalwarts of the game with dire
consequences and imminent
infamy if they don’t repent
there is no day of judgement
pending – Gallop into the sunset
give yourself a break – after
all mate; it is only a game...
© 8 June 2009, I. D. Carswell
To hear it second-hand does not
equate with what you said – your
voice an avatar has faked I fear.
Nonetheless in gravity it threatens
common sense, the choice of kind
to burn within another’s ear; a
case was never placed before
so grievous to your sanity.
No room for compromise at all
a proxy view declaims – who
was it paraphrased debate?
you’re placed in jeopardy of
shame assured, as if you knew
just whom it has defaced.
© 7 June 2008, I. D. Carswell
Eating chocolate cake won’t abate
the angst, rules which take a
gustatory argument do not apply.
There is no easy recipe to fake an
exit from the words which fried
your brain; they’re words worth
space as ecstasy in free domain.
I don’t advise to listen less than
resonance allows – while hearing
more observes a sable law of truth
diminishing returns. I’m proud to be
a confidant concerned with polity
I say resist and hint at least you
can persist and still survive.
There are no words to act as keys
betwixt neutrality and gloom. What
you do with fantasy exists within
the loom you energise; the mood
presumes and makes a play begin
when actors speak. It isn’t ever
simply words
© 6 June 2009, I. D. Carswell
These words are not to say
I do not care because I do
they are because the place
you were is anywhere but
here; aired pretence no-
longer bears me up or cheers
my anxious countenance
I’m sensitive to change as you
well know, this coolness takes
some wearing even though
it isn’t new; back when you
first declared this newly gelid
state I was prepared to learn
to succour too
Today you made it clear whose
space was wasted when you
tore apart all semblance of a
heart that cared; if life within
your veins of ice occurs then
where the flow constrains we
lie a stolid state interred
© 25 May 2009, I. D. Carswell
human innocence
constrained in
cultural derivation
stays my hand
we’re the same
by common roots
but see with
ethnocentric shades
too many of you
breeding irresponsibly
in the name of your
mezzo archaic gods
too few of me
shielding the last
open spaces against
relentless clamour
the reckoning’s not
gods’ righteousness
related second-hand
but living space
it disappears at
the same pace as
your virtuous march
to self-actualisation
any World we are
to share is substantially
larger than this
hedonistic hallucination
© 25 May 2009, I. D. Carswell
The rhetoric dismays my
misplaced sense of decency
if grace had meaning
other than the one assumed
by adding God I could agree.
I’ve never met the man
I am ashamed to say
embarrassed as so much
I learned was in his name
– yet he still stayed away.
Without his hand upon the
lips from which the words
ensue I can be only sceptical
that they are true; and if he
said them, then to who?
“The will of God will never
take you where the Grace of
God cannot keep you” is the
oddball phrase – an argument
embracing eccentricity.
Must I abandon what is me for
two replies which are by right
rewards of mine; I can decline
to send the message on but
surely then the sun won't shine.
I ask my inner voice for its
advice – am told the choice
is never nice, with stipulations
splicing matrices I know the
will of God would never go.
© 23 May 2009, I. D. Carswell
So,
at lunch today you
turn TV on and stay engaged
tête-à-tête with your sister;
you’re saying something
I shouldn’t ignore
Or,
I’m misreading the
lines – hey, perhaps it
means I’m merely not
a current centre
of attention
Explained,
when you leave to
play euchre on the patio,
TV beaming vacantly –
yes, I get the feeling
clearly
© 22 May 2009, I. D. Carswell
the thing I like
is there’s less
distraction
trees don’t pass
judgement, leastways
not on me
I’m a good guy
I opine, without
apology
of course they watch
unwaveringly, never
avert their eyes
could YOU do that
without ever
blinking
© 21 May 2009, I. D. Carswell
cold toes
perhaps a case of wistfulness
misplaced as passé memories
ages past
the path to warmth embraced
a host of special ways
a ghosted smile
a kiss displayed in
always winsome eyes
warm caress
disguised in gentleness but
sanctified kept hopes alive
even avid urgency
divined in feral need conspired
to feed and comfort me
but today
the words you want to say
are tragic cries unheard
whereas
the words you said lie dead
beneath those frozen feet
© 21 May 2009, I. D. Carswell
i don’t have a drink in my hand,
the nearest bar is at least 12km
from here – beer’s in the fridge
& spirits stacked for a lonely day
in an obvious liquor cabinet
try as i may i don’t see much in an
argument i’m held captive; what
is the sense? emotionally i agree
there’s enough evidence although
it shouldn’t convince a jury
if i believed frailty is best made clear
by reflecting on malcontents’ failings
i’d at least have a drink in my hand
– as it stands both hands are free
and the need (to do so) tacitly pales
© 21 May 2009, I. D. Carswell
changing your mind midstream
seemed expedient in delaying
angst’s appalling after-flow
but you knew from experience
the weight of current opinion
equates increasingly vogue
is it too gauche revealing late
those grossly shameful bedroom
happenings impacting your sanity
you are not insane – this reason
you know accurately, but within
there’s only yourself to blame
media touts sold you short of
salvation anyway – indecently
claimed a moral ascendency
so-called welfare agencies merely
saturated minds already suffused
with bigoted, self-polluting germs
© 18 May 2009, I. D. Carswell
easy answers run
and hide on this – can’t say
why today nothing planned
eventuated
sure, I did consider
each and every thing intended
long and
careful like
maybe read too much into
an obsession with intense deliberation
decided instead on
spontaneity
then lost my way disgracefully
when even it
seemed
somewhat premeditated
© 4 June 2009, I. D. Carswell
It ceased to rain enough to
break insane world-weariness
even if a fleeting sun changed
moods beset with desolate and
abject views of commonplace
I know you only left today, to
be exact 9:10am – and in the
wet of faceless showers but
going sent me back to where
coming back inflamed despair
Your final words were, “please
take care,” – and I will for
there is hope of your return –
I agree it is my optimism only
fuelled in surreal guarantees
But I see you driving the Pacific
Highway (glad you’re not alone)
exchanges in the car say what you
mean to me; I needed to leave,
you say, I didn’t have to go
© 2 June 2009, I. D. Carswell
When these moments come
again you’re killed no less
the hollow dread’s an artefact
of expectations’ ache, a legacy;
she’s been and gone beset by
weltered messages perplexed
of fragile confusion – of six
weeks amending reality
Two weeks we’d celebrate a
double anniversary – revelry will
have to wait propitious times
wherein she finds a niche. It isn’t
here and now and that’s a bleak
reminder forty years has failed
to settle proper peace – for which
this place still censures me
From here where does my love
survive; as wings a-glide, riding
slipstream of passage, rising in
her wake, fed by dreams from a
lake of our memories – rapt in
the melodies that sing into tears,
safe in the rhythms we’ve shared
forty years
© 2 June 2009, I. D. Carswell
Euthanized – by accident! Am I
surprised? Hardly here nor there
excepting where a family is sore
amazed their aged mother died.
Too old to cut it anymore, full
of ills without a cure beyond
what palliative care could ever
ease she lay ostensibly ‘asleep’
Claiming medics failed is not a
point of moot, they botched their
brief to keep the family appraised –
were placed in jeopardy for saying
death’s a pure release of suffering
before she’d even passed away.
© 1 June 2009, I. D. Carswell
These are not tears in my eyes
I was done crying when the
future died; years forbear
me in a younger man
I am not new to this state, to
this disassociation where who
we were became cause célèbre
to what did not eventuate
But I am what you’ll become
Time embezzles faith – there’s
no secure endeavour in place
to stay its compromise
Memory’s a sacred flame – we
set this one alight when freed
restraint in piquant yesterdays
– still burns, still bright
These are not tears in my eyes
but joy; ask me again just why
pleasure’s mirror reflects only
your shining, familiar faces
© 1 Jun 2009, I. D. Carswell
this struggle to capture
and release a bird’s whirling
quest of winged dreams
keeps me from sleep
true flight eludes feet
wedged in clay
a flash of black and white
twirled in a heartbeat
an instant suspended against
viridian green is all I have to
cling to – magic’s immaculate
lack aches in empty space
I cannot make sense of
fragility glimpsed briefly
with no clear reason
sustaining its fate
I am lost
to explain
© 1 June 2009, I. D. Carswell
seldom have i felt as easy on my feet
hesitancy fled in chill-growing
winter’s expectancy even though
there
familial warmth fed footsteps
seeking distant paths and i walked
where blood of my blood kept counsel
knew where i came from
in morning’s bas relief
mementos were sure
and comforting
memories filling gaps
polished from constant
use and the sounds
returning
i see tomorrow now
with no regrets
i know where
i am going, know
that i did not
come back
to return
© 1 June 2009, I. D. Carswell
If the way you chose to die
imposed an unfair burden
on those extradited souls
sitting bewildered at the patio
euchre table, so be it
I never invited you to alight
willy-nilly in the avocado grove
to raucous squawk and pugnaciously
rend fruit from limbs
but you did
Dogs that wait with salivaceous
irritation for you to fall
limp at their feet
will doubtlessly tear
you apart
It is no
celebration
for me, those
were MY trees
you trespassed in
© 30 May 2009, I. D. Carswell
They closed the Range road to
Peachester, it was one lane and
subsidence-reduced for a week
after the spell of torrential rain.
Next three weeks the only way
out will be by Bald Knob, a sad
wee goat track to Landsborough,
it’s got locals spouting mad.
Being stuck here is bad enough
they bitch but that damn road adds
30km and half an hour to what
should be a ten minute trip.
Not to mention increasing risk by
dicing with death – Bald Knob is
the pits, someone will surely
get killed up there.
And me, I’m not going anywhere!
Don’t mind the wait. Construction
crews working 24/7 – never seen
that ever in this sleepy place.
© 29 May 2009, I. D. Carswell
I do not feel invaded, no
dislocation manifests raw
anger or despair, things are
much the same yet they are
there in thousands – scented
traps bear evidence
Indianmeal moth (Plodia
interpunctella) – from a
cornmeal package if one goes
along with ‘LivingWithBugs’
prose, where we, as innocents,
inanely protect those gainfully guilty
1856, Entomologist Asa Fitch
first named them – no racial
vilification intended, back
then cornmeal, where the
larvae were initially found,
was known as ‘Indian meal’
Nothing has changed since,
granaries still give Plodia a leg
up in life, lax warehousing
practices aid survival, retail
chains rarely agree the
problem is theirs as well
Meanwhile we have moths in
the air from larvae-infested
food packages bearing a common
point of origin. Where? The
friendly aisles of your egregiously
in-denial grocery store
© 28 May 2009, I. D. Carswell
get professional help they
say, break out of the cycle
– share a burden, make
moves to dissipate shades
of the black dog hounding
your heels
easily said topped up on
dopamine fearing no-one
or anything excepting a pale
fringe to a mirror’s discrete
reflection of events you guess
are yet to happen
sleeping fitfully in fear of
sliding from the road of reason
crashing – guilt feelings
painting no-passing lanes in
don’t-dare-to-comment tinctures
dawdling along highways
irrelevant events ignite self-
loathing where esteem fails in
motion, shrink to a disappearing
point of nowhere on an incident
horizon of nothing highlighting
where you are not going
© 9 April 2009, I. D. Carswell
