Indigestion

don’t want to sound
smug about it but
where on Earth did
you get that belief?

you’ve couched
all that there is;
fundamental
uncertainty

as rational and
coherent structure
determined
extra-terrestrially

gee, was this another
random outcome
of something you
ingested?
© 24 November 2009, I. D. Carswell

Information Plateau

you’ve graduated from idiot
to imbecile to moron and
sagely claim you are dully
normal

by your standards
you are

with less structure to get
in the way you’re only
judgemental of those
whose thinking opposes
your unilinear
views

the simplicity of it
means everyone with a
plainly higher IQ is wrong –
leastways you say this
as if it is a matter of
commonsense

in deference to
dull but normal thinking
I agree – eagerly awaiting
your elevation to the
next information
plateau
© 23 November 2009, I. D. Carswell

Spill

His Grace,
Tony Abbott, MP, made the
grade today - one vote in it
though he’ll crow with manic
majesty that he’s true
saviour of our plight 

or in a dearth of 
drought-worn selfless
accolades from lesser
lights be forced to
clench his fists and
bully-boy his views 

Malcolm Turnbull 
graciously amused that he’d
been done and dusted well
but with integrity could
say at least Joe Hockey
stayed unbent 

so why are we who 
need intelligence on
climate change through
Liberal dreams about to
see extinction of the
Dinosaurs again?
© 1 December 2009, I. D. Carswell

Knowing

 

knowing what I know won't
make it an end but there are
things in a failure which intend
less – so that is where you stand;
the late dilettante illusory flame
elite with panache – derivative
high-class hype that is still yet
to be released

sadly it makes no difference
to me; knowing what I know
means I keep under wraps the
same things you seek in the
public domain – too little to
burn for such a bright light
© 10 November 2009, I. D. Carswell

Accomplice

 

a day spent assiduously
avoiding events ordained
in a bigger universe than
this tiddly one seems

but like an accomplished
gymnast I manage to do
handstands on one arm
while clutching the means
to remain upright –

if you could imagine
cleaning your glasses
with a single hand you’ll
be close to what
I mean;

and if you can –
and be entertaining
– you’re the perfect
accomplice
© 13 November 2009, I. D. Carswell

Effluvium

 

you proclaim doggedly it isn’t a blank
page only space undefined in potential
– but we’re on the way to filling it

preferred ciphers need firm consideration
hence window-dressed anxiety which you
see as procrastination

not that we avoid writing – see,
there are tangible words echoed here
that hint at even greater things

like a case of lèse majesté – farting in
the face of regal dignity lends less to
true treason than insouciant disgrace

effluvium, brief and out of place in words
expressed casually means more of what
I dream than what I sought to say
©20 November 2009, I. D. Carswell

Liberty Of Trust

 

not my plans as such but residues –
ideas that never flew for want of
gravities’ largess; and yet a taste
of camembert between suggests
maybe they did

one needs to fail in little ways to
learn success; as yearning grows
it plays a subtle tune within, a
harmony to spurn an easy score
– of sun-drenched lazy days

therein a ripening begins for
those whose egos never dream
as adulation’s slave; in learning
to be free of faux prestige a
liberty of trust is duly paid
© 21 November 2009, I. D. Carswell

Delinquency

 

giving in to rage will not replace
the waste they idly wrought – instead
one has to sublimate the energy
in ways creating useful space

three hundred pieces lay in shreds
at least beneath the trees – fruit I’ll
never see arise magnificent in size
and shape or ever take a penny for

though they’ve declared a raucous
war I will abate my animosity and let
the rancour brew; I’ll have them stew
in pettiness afore I make ‘em pay

I will not start the feud today – I need
to scheme, assemble men with dreams
and arms and hopes renewed to beat
these jackass cockatoos
© 10 November 2009, I. D. Carswell

Focus

 

they say it won't be suicide
we’ve every rogue and vagrant
angle mapped on that unless a
finger flips accord – it isn’t quite
unmatched to be exact; so crikey
he’s a bit eccentric do you say?

in fact he’s one and same as any
left to rot as refuse of the game
that failed to make a perfect World
his trust in god is not exemplar
of the faith he lost to voices of
divine dissent that led astray

he planned revenge in thoughts
that gift him views beyond the
scope of common man because
he can – and stands alone askew
of where he’d like to be but lost
to what the purpose of it means
© 11 November 2009, I. D. Carswell

Having Or Not

 

It wasn’t a billion dollar idea but
the notion that going into the rain
without a raincoat and getting wet
could be connected was revelation –
plainly it was the raincoat’s doing;

tried the same plan on a homeless
soul whose mackintosh had seen
better days but she demurred. Ain’t
the case for me she says, more like
one of having or not – if I weren’t
wearing mine then I wouldn’t have
it rain or shine you see.

But I didn’t and it still escapes me
how a waterproof can change duty
between ensuring you get wet in its
absence and simply not being yours
if you weren’t wearing it!
© 9 November 2009, I. D. Carswell

Angela’s Poem

letting moments like this slip
regales a dream’s allure
insubstantial drifts of form are
sure as melody to inner ear

thoughts are clear and echo
in the bells’ carillon clarity of
massed accord – resonate to
peerless themes of simple call    

wonderment entrapped in family
gauze has kept this seemly state
attentive to each living breath –
and that’s the awe

your caring words are piety to
void the sphere of blasphemy
epithets of selflessness are 
where I’ll make accord
© 14 November 2009, I. D. Carswell

Effortless Evasion

it rates as exceptional effort
hardly raising a sweat while
avoiding smallest commitment

yet guilt stays upfront and intact
can’t play that off a straight bat
nothing allays ambits pedestrian

how long did it take you blather
realising the game is up and
where’s the damning evidence

nothing’s there and nothing
changed you digress despite
efforts to maintain pretence
© 7 November 2009, I. D. Carswell

After The Recession

The bitchin’ never stops does it...!
If it’s not for becoming a Republic or
Remembrance to be preferred over
ANZAC Day its speakers stirring
about ‘refugees’ aka ‘boat people’
expediently deemed ‘asylum seekers’

And then there’s a lobby to suspend
fiscal stimulation immediately with an
equally vehement counter-claim that
to do so will kill the economy despite
it being pretty much back on its feet
and nearly in the black again

Concerns regarding carbon tax and
global warming echo insanely in a
chamber of confused debate fuelled
by entrepreneurs straining to abet
a sure way to make money out of
the most catastrophic event yet

If I wasn’t such a sceptic with less
than profound views of essentially
septic scenes of commonplace I’d say
we are back where we were before,
on track, and that rabid self-interest
rules supreme once more
© 6 November 2009, I. D. Carswell

If It Proves Anything

A statistical arbiter
accords two discrete IP entities
with 100 hits on 45 poems
listed in review

One I know left a comment,
thank you HG, but the
anonymous one needs to
be thanked too

Such dedication to have
read so many – even if
popular reads, or so
said statistics say

fake IP address
generators explain why we
as poets fail and fungus freely
grows - if it proves anything
© 5 November 2009, I. D. Carswell

IP: An Internet Protocol (IP) address is a numerical label that is assigned to devices participating in a computer network utilizing the Internet Protocol for communication between its nodes.[1] An IP address serves two principal functions in networking: host identification and location addressing. The role of the IP address has also been characterized as follows: "A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A route indicates how to get there."[2]

Being Frank

Let’s call you Frank,
Josaia Voreqe is a bit too,
putting it mildly, Fijian
I might add Bainimarama
is a mouthful of unsolvable
vernacular but I’m used to it
Frank, what can I say? Ensign
when we met and now you’re
Commodore CinC FMF
Not to mention Prime
Minister, acting President,
Chief of Defence Staff, etc
You’ve come a long way
from the shy, self-effacing
mild but good mannered boy
Become a martinet for truth
and loyalty to a Service ill-used
by its corrupted political chiefs
Today you’ve paid your Pacific
neighbours a fair compliment
in eminent diplomatic sense
Bugger off you Envoys you say
it’s my pseudo-coup and I’ll
get it right my way
© 4 November 2009, I. D. Carswell
Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama
prime minister of Fiji
also called Frank Bainimarama
born April 27, 1954, Kiuva, Fiji

Fijian military leader who led a 2006 coup that resulted in his becoming acting president (2006–07) and later acting prime minister (2007– ) of Fiji.
Although Bainimarama was a Methodist, he attended the Roman Catholic Marist Brothers High School in Suva, Fiji. From 1975 he pursued a career in the Fiji navy, rising to become commander (1988), captain (1994), and chief of staff (1998). On March 1, 1999, he was appointed commodore and commander of all Fiji’s military forces.
On May 19, 2000, a group led by disgruntled businessman George Speight overthrew the coalition government headed by Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry. Bainimarama persuaded then president Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara to resign on May 29, 2000, and took over as head of an interim military government in what many considered a countercoup. The Muanikau Accord, signed by Bainimarama (as head of government) and Speight, led to the release of the insurgents’ hostages (including Chaudhry) on July 13. A few days later Bainimarama returned power to an interim government led by newly appointed Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase and Pres. Ratu Josefa Iloilo.
Following elections in 2001 and again in May 2006, Qarase was returned to power, but the dissension between him and Bainimarama continued, particularly with regard to what Bainimarama perceived as the prime minister’s soft treatment of high-ranking chiefs and politicians who had been convicted for their roles in the 2000 coup. The government tried to oust Bainimarama while he was overseas visiting troops in October 2006, but the government’s alternative commander declined to take over, and senior officers rallied behind their commander. On his return to Fiji, Bainimarama purged the army of senior officers whom he considered disloyal and increased pressure on Qarase’s government. In November 2006 Bainimarama demanded the withdrawal of two bills, one of which included the power to grant amnesty to coup leaders; he also demanded the dismissal of the police commissioner, Australian Andrew Hughes. Qarase said that the bills would be put on hold and Hughes’s appointment would be reviewed. Unimpressed, Bainimarama’s troops effectively took over the reins of power on Dec. 5, 2006. Bainimarama had the parliament dissolved, and he deposed Iloilo to become acting president.
While his supporters claimed that the military takeover was necessary in light of Qarase’s corrupt actions, others believed that Bainimarama undertook the coup to avoid prosecution over his alleged mismanagement of military funds, which was then the subject of a government investigation. On Jan. 5, 2007, Bainimarama reinstated Iloilo as president and became interim prime minister; he also promised to hold democratic elections in 2010. In April 2007 he dissolved the Great Council of Chiefs—an administrative body of traditional chiefs with the power to appoint Fiji’s president and vice president—after it refused to accept his choice for vice president. In February 2008 Bainimarama reinstated the council and appointed himself chairman. He continued to put off the date for the promised elections.
Morgan Tuimalealiifano
In April 2009 the Fiji Court of Appeal ruled that the Bainimarama government had been put in place illegally after the 2006 coup, a ruling that effectively dissolved the government. Two days later Iloilo announced that he was abrogating the 1997 constitution, and he dismissed the country’s judges. He appointed a new interim government with Bainimarama again as prime minister and postponed national elections once again, this time until at least 2014.

First Tuesday In November

it isn’t subtle but then
we’re used to it although
the past month seems
to have been more equine
than influenza alone contends

it is a virus spread in a
series of controlled releases
gauged to culminate
on the first Tuesday
in November which is today

the fever hasn’t gripped
me and my punt is clenched
fists kept in pockets
resistant to cues saying
Alcopop will win easy

but commonsense explains
a horse trained by
a Cummings has better
chances – there are
four of them!
© 3 November 2009, I. D. Carswell

Democratie

They’re only words
but I live where every nuance
clubs sensibility; you speak
of Democracy as if it’s earned – 
where on Earth did you learn that?

Here? Were you a convict?
I didn’t think so – you’re a Public
Servant, by no means the genre
who made Eureka Stockade
resonate in our History

Yet you say it is only
a matter time to a position
where the Internet will decide
whether you have a job
as an Electoral Officer

I am glad you’ve equated
public opinion with the state
of anarchy mass media creates
but have you learned anything
other than fear?
© 2 Nov 2009. I. D. Carswell

Nod To Agree

going to be
a day where
the plan is stated
upfront
agreed
progressed directly
beginning to end

nothing simpler
no diversions
delays
no excuse things
to be done:

wash the Ute
vacuum and scrub the cab
(needed it for years)
polish the dash

easy

I see you’re
shaking your head

you NOD to agree
© 31 October 2009, I. D. Carswell

Day The Future Died

you see it in the wavering
there used to be a ‘can do’
flame to power this man, a
light that burned the brightest
when the hard times came
– but now he quakes

hesitation rheums once smugly
eagle eyes – he looks away
taloned hands are bent like
crudely battered remnant
lips that can’t efface
a righteous sneer

shambling gait explains
an ingrained fear of falling
set in place; for years he made
affection claim dependency
in she who gave with gracious
love but sadly went away

parody in awful taste or
phoenix in its ash, he knows
he cannot rise less crash with
no surprise or deep regret
– I can’t forget the day
the Future died he says
© 30 October 2009, I. D. Carswell

Tactile Cues

 

Well he said
the worst that can happen is
you fall down a disused
elevator shaft because
the sign’s in Braille

meaning I ask – you
shouldn’t have
been there

meaning
you don’t
read Braille
© 29 October 2009, I. D. Carswell

Blonde

 

Brazil nuts and
home brewed beer
an alliterative feast
for the aesthete; too
fine to let by without
annotation

It’s where gourmet
fancy plays loose and
the feet slide easily
into discrete stirrups
astride discerning taste

An adaptation of the
once infamous ‘Blonde
Australienne’ tamed
in a riot of dissent
we don’t drink that here!

Well Bluey, me old Mate
we do, I called it Lager
which you liked yesterday
& Bitter the day before
but today it’s Blonde

Now drink ‘n stop
yer bloody whining
anyone ’ud think it
wasn’t cold enough
– or something
© 29 October 2009, I. D. Carswell

Rules Misread

 

So I was wrong
it proves I guess I am
the kind of guy whose
outside the square thinking
determines where he gets
misinformation

Helen Rowland said
‘To be happy with a man you
must understand him a lot
and love him a little
To be happy with a woman
you must love her a lot and not
try to understand her at all’

It didn’t reach me except
as a woman’s oversimplification
of an impossible study and there
is the rub; I do understand the
woman I love but her happiness
won’t stay intact

I saw where Rowland’s words lead
in this infarct following exodus of the girl
who loved me a lot but understood
me not at all – and I claim foul
We were deceived by a call
from the rules misread
in another’s game
© 29 October 2009, I. D. Carswell

Wrong Side Of The Rail

 

If it wasn’t for the Melbourne Cup
coming up Tuesday, November third
we’d be stuffed for exhilaration, otherwise
closure of Beerwah’s rail crossing this
weekend has a few hearts dismayed

I heard one 30 year resident planned to
parade nude along the road in protest on
the day it closes; it’s no business of mine
what she does with her clothes but that’s
patently a ridiculous extreme

Commerce on the wrong side of the rail
would seem to be opposed to closure for
purely business reasons - complaining
they face ruin when customer numbers
fail to ring their tills enthusiastically

Wasn’t it always that way (and who gives
a damn now our bespoke overpass – see
diagram, is to be put into use); if they fail
it won’t be from lack of access but the way
they displace their businesses acumen

And the benefits outweigh the whining
although the Pub may not agree; their
modernisation seemed a cue for the
protest to flourish on the other side
of the town’s conflict-ridden rails
© 29 October 2009, I. D. Carswell

Few And Far Between

 

Friendship brakes where reckless
race regardless; it’s not the scene
of magic mayhem where a greater
weight is placed on states of seeing
views unique and consummate

The pain of leaving always pays a
torrid price – when seen alone is
death; and keen a company as is
bereaved the torus speaks out of
that same mundane geometry

We’re friends because we each
forgave ahead of vicious prices paid.
One cannot choose the cost before
the pact is made – true friends are
few and far between
© 27 October 2009, I. D. Carswell

Superwhirly

 

‘Superwhirly Turbine’ vents adorn
this roof as credos hyperbole
in ‘doohickey’ ostentatious-ness

Given attic credence that hot air
will rise ‘til trapped the rationale
would seem to be defensible

That is until one creaked incessantly
moaned for no visceral elucidation
upheld by ordinary reasoning

So three severe trips into confines of
superheated dimly lit roof space and
a precipitously steep learning curve

At least the noise abates such that
sleep may patch together a few more
moments of repose contiguously

Intense discomfort and some grease
learned this home repair recalcitrant
to conquer fear – balance on a beam
© 26 October 2009, I. D. Carswell

March Flies

 

Playing games
with Tabanids while
picking avocados surely
is one useful way to
stave off boredom

Tabanids you ask?
March or Horse flies –
those big, viciously
biting nasties that fly
like drunken sailors

Got twenty (at least)
today – bitten thrice and
felt it fair trade despite
being disgracefully
outnumbered

It’s mated females who
get on the bite – males
are do-good vegetarians
withal, notwithstanding
it isn’t even March yet!
© 26 October 2009, I. D. Carswell

Conscience

 

And if it is but pride
distressed no price of
pain will pay for such
absurd rigidity; an
obstinacy of thought
precludes less stressful
ways to make amends
as yet the mirror turns.

Agreed, it isn’t hard to
see who’s wrong and
fathom why accepting
that forever and a day
is bound to conscience
duly burned.
© 24 October 2009, I. D. Carswell

Mementos

 

No escaping them and
they are blessed by
origins survival true

A fleeting glance cannot
allay devotion beaming
through reminding me

There is a life they say
in tones and colours
of the palest shades

And these mementos
blaze above the pyres
of love’s mislaid lament

Your sentence is to die
a thousand deaths with
each enamoured glance

I cannot look and try to
turn away – nothing left
but pungent memories
© 23 October 2009, I. D. Carswell

Surrender Better Sense

 
Resolve collapsing in upon
itself enfolds mythologies
unbarring blemishes – no
energising oddity is manifest
in making light of sense
impaired directionless

But nothing’s there, no
glimmered passing shadow
shrouded breath of fragrant air
echoes of a lilting laugh
mellow tone so redolent
an absent presence sensed

I’m lost to what I knew
before you grew apart
and flew away – yet still
estranged from whence it
came to grant this daunting
gauntlet you passed on

My loneliness despairs and
knows no reason to prolong
a vapid sham – no motives
weigh defence against my
giving in because it makes
the better sense
© 22 October 2009, I. D. Carswell

Indemnity

 

So many leeches preying
on the frail – a grey
industry veiled by claims
of justice in indemnity

A feeding frenzy alright
for anyone who’s claim
spirals to major repair
from broken tail-light

Ethics lost set values
where ego judgements
gouge rather than be
deemed to make repairs

It’s an insurance claim
they say – no-one really
pays so how’s that a
breach of morality?

It is in inflated grins of
skimmers glibly taking
their prodigious share –
padded maliciously
© 22 October 2009, I. D. Carswell

Nuptials

 

Occasionally I am impressed – it
doesn’t mean I can be bought
by tawdriness which scoops the
cream too easily yet today I saw
evidence where men who usually
ignore ceremony were bound by
its circumstance

The scene; a campfire of durable
lineage in the middle of the day
and four men. I knew from the
previous evening’s debris there’s
no escape – littered wine bottles
some nearly empty kept counsel
in ritual silence

The beer we drank excused why
we were there and the Marquee
for Saturday’s wedding said it
more eloquently; I guessed your
company is somewhat sullied by
the event of a daughter’s nuptials
I say ingenuously

Yeah sure – but the bugger’s this
fire, it’s too hard to invent another
way of everyone seeing where we
are at, like it’s a traditional tract
that says ‘gather round and look
at me you tossers, this is the only
thing that matters’
© 21 October 2009, I. D. Carswell