Balance

no surprises in banana grove – no snakes
alert for easy prey, even crows negotiate
the lanes between afoot; it is that time of
day when peacefulness expresses scenes
of harmony and great content. I know it
isn’t meant that way, it only seems to be

feathers scattered randomly attest a kill
that left a brood one parent less – a belly
full is blessed in sleep beneath the leaves
and there I see the one bereaved with
wary eye and beak tight-pressed on food
it took to feed the young in growing need

beating rhythms old as time compete for
space within this grove – seasons come
and go and colours grace a place of life
and death in harmony; it’s never more
or less the case and dying lets the living
find a balanced way to breathe
© 14 July 2009, I. D. Carswell

Baroque Adagios

baroque adagios are playing while
the radio is on; Albinoni, Pachelbel
and Bach – the choice was mine, ‘Air
on a G String’ jailed me once again
a thousandth time. Was I wrong in
mixing sounds? The radio assays a
here and now while Bach preserves
the World I grew into a man apart

I never knew a time where silence
dwelt alone yet mournful notes and
resonance still fills the edges where
this artistry is born; the sounds do
not compete for me but warn that
I stood still while time ran out
© 13 July 2009, I. D. Carswell

Her Lips Ambassadors

an urgency which made
the staid and stable ways
too commonplace consumed
her bashfulness
she’d been aroused within
to heights that soared
all barriers of chaste 

my earthy needs take
pride of place this night
she sighs coos his name
her lips ambassadors with
roving eyes to hold in sight
the glances wild and passionate 

her hands alight place hands
where want dictates to pave
the way while ardour never
quavers urges her to ride on
crests of fervour’s waves
slide to depths and die again
to rise immaculate with each
renewed crescendo 

in growing light of dawn’s
surprise she feels his eyes
fixate upon her face amazed
revelation frames his words
you’re not the devil’s bride
you’re mine he cries – I’d sooner
die than let you run away
© 13 July 2009, I. D. Carswell

Tomorrow Won’t Let

so the World’s shut shop and I’m
pissed beyond reprieve – there’s
more wine to let admission guess
ulterior motives which prove I’m
wrong – at least while you’re, as
the game goes on, impressed

I sip Shiraz with a capital ‘S’ since
precaution ended insinuation
there’s no dictionary text to say
nay with clear diplomacy – it is
obvious tomorrow won’t let a lone
paragraph’s dissention anyway

where am I exactly; say glass or
two short of a handful? Bless me,
I’d be a fool to accept either or all
explanations which pour the next
glass of wine – I’m just happy to
see hands filled with good wishes
© 11 July 2009, I. D. Carswell

Solo Choruses

different associations apply to
terms like ‘taciturn’ or ‘grumpy’
which fail to censure when on
your own and a bedroom floor
as space for convenience
storage becomes reality

taking Berocca at 5:15 am aids
post traumatic recovery from flu
made bearable by pseudoephedrine
and if you ask why Mexican garlic
on toast with Strasburg sausage –
you’ve never really tasted flavour

these are not idiosyncratic
expressions of individuality
nor do they suggest retreat
from common misapprehensions
about social behaviour – and
they don’t explain me

it is a scene that grows around
actors in a wordless play, where
silence sings in early-morning
dew on a lawn; come light of day
dawn’s glistening fades in the
sad, solo choruses
© 11 July 2009, I. D. Carswell

Alternatives

 

while it never happened before
blowing my nose now clears
more than the toxic debris
floating in our atmosphere

sordid lumps and gristly bits
don’t cause shudders of
apprehension knowing they are alien
colonisations of failed endeavour

like ideas in the wild espoused by
vague philosophers whose views
are brayed as adroit promotion of
“what’s in it for me?”

it explains why clearing the sinuses
frees me of naive choices between
the worst conceivable alternatives
and throwing tissues away
© 10 July 2009, I. D. Carswell

Fatherly Advice

we’ve lived another year and thus are
aged a birthday more. Apologies, at times
like these a father needs proselytise;
what I’ve in mind has occupied your
thoughts before and I am not inclined
to wasting time

of our relationship you’d say you’ve heard
it all but I will try; I’ll always ponder why
freedom to change your mind must be
the most precious thing a man can have –
what I mean is: there are no fixed points
in our universe; no set destinations

living space is colonized with random
chance and outcomes infinite, what you
dream can be achieved and yet may not
attain or need – you’ll change your mind
a thousand times without the world
aware or ever give a damn to care

LCD we are epitomised – essentially, as   
individuals we don’t rate but when we do
it is a fate of rare unity, of combining with
random potential of different authorship;
when we recognise another we begin to
matter; gain a separate point of view      

find perspective, appreciate depth of field 
discover and enter new potential
and it’s not a friendly World I sagely say
to you; that is when changing your mind
becomes positively lethal –
© 8 July 2009, I. D. Carswell

Pawn Played For A Fool

one thought kept
strong to traverse
a whole backbone
and return enriched
is beyond me

I am plagued
by insurrection –
demands stream
from places alien to
my mother tongue

feet do not obey
hands and this
abdomen swears
worse than the tongue
which enables it

thoughts come and
go erratically, management
fails dismayed in places
where sense used to
mean reason

it is a state of anarchy –
I am a pawn played for
a fool possessed by
intractable ideas of
new-age humanity
© 7 July 2009, I. D. Carswell

Cobbler’s Pegs

A measure of your day’s success
counts cobbler’s pegs attached
to legs while lack abates a sorry
state of farmer’s friend maligned.

For mine I’d rest a happy man to
never see the pest again, though
it aggrieves – indeed the weed’s
a worthy sign of simplest kind.

Food for some it’s said and I’d
agree – mineral rich and easily
obtained; the seed reminds me
every day of that complicity.

Bidens pilosa is not my friend
I’m sad to say, there is no way
I’ll eat the leaf – though it is done
and I’m no vegetarian.
© 8 July 2009, I. D. Carswell

Agonies Unbid

The feeling never goes away, it’s like
an ache of emptiness – a lack of light
as dark descends; I’d even pray if prayer
was lent to easing ever unsure pain.

The things I should have said I never did
for words unheard a price in silence paid
I say them every day as promises
‘tho now they are as agonies unbid.

At dawn the sun will rise and free the light
I yearn to see in your return – although in
doubt of clouds; coolness of the night remains
without your gentle warmth constrained.
© 9 July 2009, I. D. Carswell

Requiem

 


Amazed how easily
lack of envy
deflated Argo’s
hot air.

To think I might be
up there still dwindling to a speck
against boundless
blue anonymity.

But I’m here
in corporeum sanctus
with you and the rest of
the deaf pretenders.
© 9 July 2009, I. D. Carswell

Duct Tape

duct tape repairs are up there
with neurosurgery I reckon;
today it was an heirloom
'40below' sleeping bag saved
from fatal loss of fairy-down – 

a bit like arresting premature
balding you could say, while
observing sardonically “what
a useful piece of kit (meaning
duct tape?) for SE QLD” – and
I’d agree; 

the sleeping bag dates back to 

those days where '40below'
defence was commonsense –
and the reason why I’m here...
© 3 July 2009, I. D. Carswell

Centre Of Things

6am – the coffee kicks in
backfiring brain cells grope
and for a treasonous moment
growing awareness fades

even the dogs know
argue a piece of imagined territory
a boot as a coveted
sleeping companion

freshness flows through
in a breeze laden with soft
innuendo, it is the DO moment
GO rings brazenly

but I listen to the heartbeat
of it – staid, sober – all I want
is to sit quietly here, contemplate
the centre of things
© 3 July 2009, I. D. Carswell

Epitomes Of Grace

sickness still remains a sting
that steals vitality, keenly fed
on anguish bled from trauma
deep, tension wed to agony in
thrall to grief; no pleasure left
to ease ambiguous disgrace
endured as much inured and
endlessly emphatic pain

treachery has schemed in wine
to solace-seek with shame;
I sip inspired on fine and aged
epitomes of grace – memories
weave lines embracing
features of your face
© 2 July 2009, I. D. Carswell

Good Vibrations

how gullible can you get –?
winning a download for recharging
your mobile is less a bonus
and more a trial when the process
exceeds your measly ability

enter the URL it says
which I have, six times, but nothing
substantial happened yet
or anything else which hints
at possible success

it’s a damn crying shame but
I’ll have to live with the ache
alone because “Good Vibrations”
in any guise imagined will coolly
make one helluva ringtone!
© 2 July 2009, I. D. Carswell

Er, Um, Ah

On this day when petrol prices
soared again – the QLD subsidy
deceased, I heard in Public Service
speak the words designed to give
us back our confidence

Er, um, ah...

Seems that they apply like aspirin
to reduce a fever’s bite, for free at
least in spite of emptiness that
hollows firm belief – but even no
respite is justified

Er, um, ah...

Today the price of living rose
beyond a threshold limit we were
told to be within our sorry rights –
stopped cold by fiscal mice who
stole and ate our sustenance

Er, um, ah...

I’ll have to pick my nose just to
survive I guess – with options
less a consequence than symptoms
of the State’s malaise; if I endure
I’ll be amazed for sure
© 1 July 2009, I. D. Carswell

A Sorbet’s View

after a day where targets
set in painless years were
met with ease I still feel cheated
there are a thousand things
needing attention – there
always were, it is a cheap
panacea which suggests
you’re on top of everything

but I don’t feel let down
so much as depleted
by the way in which this
simulation of the latest craze
etches memos to mortality
am I supposed to feel like
a king who was cheated
by his subjects – or a fool

not that there’s much to
discern one from the other
in my way of thinking
I’m not happy being singular
in this derivation of autonomy
I’d rather be dependent on a
sorbet’s view of permanence
than abstract misery
© 30 June 2009, I. D. Carswell

Ringing In My Ears

A little space for quietude
replacing noise that pays
for it – a place I can relax
into the mood which helps
me write

Although rash judgements
aren’t my specialty I’d like
a less rambunctious way
to process avocados
which I grow

the machine which powers
the thing which cleans
and grades them has
an unrelenting signature
of raucous noise

my ears will ring for hours
(actually – they have for
years and background
noise resides there for
eternity)

possibly explains the
radio unlistened to on loud
all day – something that
can short or vague the
ringing in my ears
© 30 June 2009, I. D. Carswell

Three Margaritas

took three Margaritas
to endorse that
mood – salt
effacing lime
playing fast and
loose – each
hand-raise
a new angle

hey, I say
remember...
looking into
loneliness

crystals
clear on
half-a-rim
remaining

we were over there
by the band I think...
the music was
amazing

...but mine to
share alone...
Were you ever
there?
© 30 June 2009, I. D. Carswell

Provisionally Unemployed

A sunny day (glad you can’t take that
away) until I got your mail, it seems
a week’s solid work will barely pay last
quarter’s income tax instalment

Good grief – who do I work for? I wonder –
if I stopped would your needs expire...
– tho’ I’d rather think not, there’s too
many mouths to feed per square metre

Here’s a novelty;
let me pay in avocados; they’re off the
trees already, waiting patiently
don’t give a damn where they go

I won't mention ATO quarterly tax
instalments in case they do and you
can feed those mouths whose numbers
grow exponentially year on year
© 29 June 2009, I. D. Carswell

R.I.P.

Jacko’s dead
- supposedly
a whole lot of weird
is laid to rest

but you can bet on an
excess of bad-taste epithets
bleeding from fringe
feeding extremes

circling the morgue dressed outrageously
savouring hints of frangible
eat-in-the-cone notoriety
filled with sappy jokes

At least Jacko’s a phenomenon
these plastic jerks justify
themselves as prisoners
of contentious adulation
© 27 June 2009, I. D. Carswell

Urgency

Urgency that waits
with patience hollows me
for every minute wasted there
will be a Sunday consequence

I learned of Saturday’s delay
when lethargy ran me aground
I arrived without allayed
intentions, always unprepared

A week’s effort stands ready to
pay wages and I couldn’t care
less I will deliver on promises
if I can remember them 

It’s fair to say I won't mend
my ways just yet – the urgency
sleeps like a slow-growing emotion
like an invitation to love
© 27 June 2009, I. D. Carswell

Cyber Speak

with less sympathy
and more prescience
I could have made
a difference – I suppose

I didn’t see too much
awry in butchered words
and sentences
that made no sense

they needed only write
for me without restraint
their keenness overcame
my vested commonsense

some would learn a
way with words eventually
but most displayed
an awkward reticence

I’d say I failed to teach
the language arts as I
was meant but rest my
case as I can see

today they’d be the
morphing queens of
SMS in cyber speak’s
ascendancy
© 26 June 2009, I. D. Carswell

Proof You Were

Whatever guides a poet’s hand
evades simplicity – meat for one
could be a blandish pap when set
a-plate before another’s apathy.

Does rhyme and rhythm set in nests
of fervoured words rehearsed with
passionate release inspire – or just
belief that anyone can pen a verse?

Are accolades from wannabes
sufficient spurs to herd the terse
and tethered words you place
apace in serried ranks?

Or do you need to free the angst
that writhes within to breathe?
To write or suffocate would seem
such worthy praise for poetry.

When silence reigns and all is said
and done it matters not that
venal praise engenders words
where even egos are ashamed.

So claim your words endure and
praise yourself as poet if you need –
the day you die concedes with
grief as proof you were indeed.
26 June 2009, I. D. Carswell

Attention Span

One of those days where threads
in mind don’t stay cogent long
enough to illuminate

moments ago I foresaw a grave
situation arising from a sentence
I half heard in the News

mass unhappy endings implied and
– instantly translated into an
indecent shift of spatial attention

probably a saving grace; I may
have missed the point by
focus drift and work-shy feet

but this attention span of mine is
milliseconds shorter than
the space it occupies 
© 25 June 2009, I. D. Carswell

Publicity

Leader of the Opposition, 
Malcolm Turnbull, was to be
my morning blast today – but
even shades of his amazing
gaucherie has failed to make
the passing grade.
If email forgery is art then
Malcolm is a rarity in dearth
of truth; rubbish from his lips
a rubber cheque to pay for
angst that breaks in waves
upon a conscience wreck.
On free-to-screen TV I find
relief in guileless teens who
masturbate for fun; clearly
less invasive than the wanking
Malcolm stages in belief
it maketh great publicity.
© 24 June 2009, I. D. Carswell

Jogging On The Spot

This jogging on the spot effect
concerns me more; perplexity
weighed less before today –
in rational sense I’m making no
headway at all. Gains were once
reward for effort made to stay in
place and counter stress of not
knowing where I should be going.

Was I sure I would vacate this
spot I’ve worn; it is a groove that
fits me sweetly as a glove and dear
a heart as any born – yet I fear
discrepancies between the where
I am and where I ought to be.
© 23 June 2009, I. D. Carswell

Relief

 

Pee on a window pane cascading
animating a clear flow closed-eye
taxonomy of emancipation’s awed
innocence weighed open-mouthed
in greeting

Release of a life span stream plagued
with do’s and don’ts - the raggedly
jailed consequence of a pelvic stasis
freed outdoors praised to pee copiously
and without lament

Limber curves of your pure rump
heals what I see - no crude perimeter
to begin and end a torrent except
where rivulets lament in bubbles
spread between your feet

Voyeurs’ feasting fades into nothingness
where eyes fail this test of glory
sure, the crouched figure raises blasé
desires but there is no rebuttal
of relief...
© 22 June 2009, I. D. Carswell

Knowing Why

I’m not in the mood to write
tonight – your good humour
disdains my parlous state
‘tho tastefully refrains from
making mawkish faces

No elixir I imbibe will ease
my case though I survive by
being last and late; as if you
ever really cared – all things
alleviate when you’re here

But then you’re gone away;
in the space of a heart-beat
things derange – I cannot
see that sense makes sane
judgements there

Better a peasant wind blows
where it pleases – surely by
chance not pure constraint;
this is a need to take to task
and a fear I have to face

I’m not in the mood to write
tonight and ask forgiveness
for my chariness; rest I’d try
if you were here – basking
in the glow of knowing why
© 18 June 2009, I. D. Carswell

Call The Tune

He sang the words which
didn’t rhyme and heard in
rhythmic beat the snap
of feet a-tapping time

The feet weren’t his that
rhythm called to march, he
stood alone on stolid feet
dischordantly unmasked

In sympathy she took his
hand, you’ll never dance
the way they do, so stand
and call the tune for me
© 16 June 2009, I. D. Carswell

Morning Sleep

Oppressed by hollowness
emptiness as bleak
depressive vacancy
nothing here to waken
mood, excite a burst
of savoured energy

A desert Erg of solitude
of shifting sand of winds
that sweep the rendering
of time and space
of footprints paced
about nomadic graves

Here you sentence me at
dawn to tell of times the
sun arose in gaiety of
choruses that crowed in praise
of softened snores you sneaked
in pilfered morning sleep
© 16 June 2009, I. D. Carswell