Antz

Been ‘bugging’ me all week
like a plague of consorting ants
meaningfully invading 
a simile 

Erasing personal space
with paraphernalia of carapace
and feelers and their damned
persistence 

Can’t get away from a dogged
dipshit deterministic stink
of formic acid when patience
fails and creams a few 

But I see a glint of reality in
a pale, washed-out hint of a
surrender flag waved – I think
by me 

Time to exit the simile
for a metaphor where the
congestion is less tedious
and ants aren’t enemies
© 26 June 2010, I. D. Carswell

Red Currant Glaze

It was a wow of an evening
began with lunch on a Tuesday
red currant glazed pork (with garlic
and rosemary) ending speculation –
who’d believe the stuffed roast
apples didn’t get a look in!

Dessert was a taste of contagiously
palatable futures tacitly free of
gastronomic pretence and
amazed diner/donors held hands
bathed in fragrances of such
rich juices feasting

The blood-red moon swung
on a string as they parted, anxious
to play a part in the swoon of
love-making – but too late to weigh
much more than a
baleful glance
© 29 June 2010, I. D. Carswell

Rubens

There’s roundness in
this thinking, opulence
of symmetry where lines
and angles cannot match
completeness of the truth

These arcs of pleasing
matter fill a space with
graceful rhythms sweet allure
seducing eyes descrying
luscious places overture

More sensuous than ever
tamed by fashions pique
dimensions freed by artistry
in brush and paint caressed
where lust bespeaks

To feast upon a Rubens
is to grace a form of love
in innocence unstressed
by staid and girdled adages
undressed of a surplice
© 1 July 2010, I. D. Carswell

Judge Not, Lest...

I’m just a bloke trying – yeah, you see
keeping the house clean doesn’t
really equate; there’s weeds ‘n shit
growing wild out there which
make louder statements

okay, if I really cared I wouldn’t be
caught in a dilemma where
no matter what I’m accused of
the jury would see an embryonic
innocence somewhat compromised

we all know how jurors pretence
their own innocence – it saves them
judgement; weighing culpability
on clean floors and less dust obvious
takes no real brains
© 22 June 2010, I. D. Carswell

Joe’s Budget

Blustering and rhetoric
are unrestrained echoes
of blimps in simulated
Newspoll confidence

We must be seen as the
alternate Power and sound
to beat a common drum it
bleats if asked reflexively

Words disbursed by Shadow
Treasury from he who speaks
thereto, the Hon. Joe Hockey
Do you really care?

Disagrees on fiscal truth
and thus reality though free
of prejudice and offers up
a budget-empty bag

Honesty? He’s full
of hoot and hollering all
posed as plans without
a taint of policy
© 12 May 2010, I. D. Carswell

Indecision

so you take the word ‘vacillate’
and pry into your own case of
imperceptible sidereal motion

apparently you aren’t
really stationary when doing
nothing avoiding decisions

of course scale defeats you
though there’s transient relativity
in thinking such things

but it is comforting knowing
greater minds than yours
already justified your dithering
© 15 May 2010, I. D. Carswell

Solo Wind

There may be better ways to deal
with loneliness – can I assume your
practise works for you because I
never see your days of blue despair?

For mine I cannot break a silence
fixed behind the mask I wear, a painted
face contrived with smiling eyes
allays what should be seen so easily

Where you are free I am confined
within a narrowing of who I am
a faux expression of the man who
holds onto your image sacredly

Move on you say, release the past
and breathe again; there is no shame
or failing in a love that simply ran
its course and sadly passed away

I listen for a harmony to lend me
wisdom’s ears – a peace contends
within the silence of a parting then
but I can only hear a solo wind
© 20 May 2010, I. D. Carswell

Confectionery Jar

Though I am old I can recall their
quiet repose – a subtle silence sung
as only sirens can upon a counter
in our dusty country store

Crammed with magic things to chew
in colours bent on luring eyes made
visits bliss awaiting enterprise in
naive shades of sublimated taste

Confectionery jars of olden days
conveyed illicit dreams to me, sweets
forbid unless indeed an unexpected
treat expressed as rare largesse

Feelings all returned and flaunted
memories the day I chanced to see
an empty jar; where did you find it I
enthuse – too graphically I guess

A market stall had sold this one he
smiled – a gaunt and haunted smile
while she denied it would be filled
with every gaudy sweet for kids

A gift intended for a child no less
granddaughter Penny who was blessed
an angel’s countenance and doted
on her dear grandad

It’s for my ashes he confides when
cancer runs its course, I’ll die before
a year is gone and she agrees – while
I am compromised with grief

Shocked to silence like a fool who’s
fallen off his feet – my only thought
composed in quiet rapport; His soul
at least will rest in sweetest peace
© 11 May 2010, I. D. Carswell

Headlines

Today’s headline news proclaims
the usual doom and despondency
from a proposed 40% super tax
on the mining industry to shrewd
Taliban IED manufacturers in
Kandahar and arrests for failed
Times Square car bomb linking
Faisal Shahzad to terrorism

Still yet a Gulf of Mexico oil spill
bests the rest in longevity ‘tho it
fails to rouse a muted consensus
where conscience counts victims
as unfair rent – too big to ignore
I guess and a bit too messy
© 5 May 2010, I. D. Carswell

Watching

A plate of thinly sliced Spanish
salami, real cheese – Jarlsberg
I make no apologies, gherkins
and chunky salsa with attitude

it’s just me preparing to watch
Match Of The Night – Rugby of
course, the game from Heaven;
did I mention Sao crackers?

the beer is Cerveza which I like
not just because I make it and
with slice of lime, compliments
of the Orchard which provides

say what you will, I survive on
simple indices and proper taste
developed in isolation – I am
not driven to dreary excess

I’m now ready to trust that the
referee will see the same spirit
blessed by good food, fine beer
& allow a game worth watching
© 3 May 2010, I. D. Carswell

Late Afternoon

In some respects it was late
afternoon; lunch an hour or two
spent ‘tho still fresh in memory – I
suppose they had intended changing
clothes preparatory to going wherever
and undressing together simply
inflamed something

perhaps an irresistible ardour
left them breathlessly deranged
these were not newlyweds playing games
but seasoned conjugal athletes used
to physicality of work and play
yet on this day they were children
caught in a relentless bent of
unflagging passion’s grip

let it be said she exclaimed
I didn’t start this thing but I’ll be
damned if I let it end in a whimper
if you can’t arrive soon I’ll arrange
a deputy who’ll see more with
eyes closed than the tip of a
gossip’s wagging tongue

and he did as she wished
so she came and went …
© 4 March 2010, I. D. Carswell

Little Missy

Her view, a wildly expressed
shake of the head suggests
disapproval, although eyes glow
wide where they should have
narrowed 

I think it is a quid 
both ways you gamely
guess and bob your head
hoping she’ll agree  

She does easily but 
there is no malice
intended when
she says “No!”
© 9 March 2010, I. D. Carswell

Get Energised

Ambivalence
wounds by being an inchoate feeling
yet needs scream celebrate rowdily;
that ubiquitous retreat to reason
is camouflage of narrowed eyes – you
knew it too, ambiguity
doesn’t mean defeat 

So spontaneity blazes
in flames fuelled by raised and excited voices
the chaos of emotions getaway –
all too easily packed and weighed
by the last supposedly sane
voice braying delightful
pathways to somewhere 

Get off your goddamn
pedestal she says disapprovingly,
join the band or miss another chance
to get energised – as if it were
only another transitory arrangement,
one more haphazard incident
in an urchin’s flight
© 8 March 2010, I. D. Carswell

Like An Unravelling

Decent or indecent wasn’t the
way of it – no obvious intent as
far as I could tell, things merely
happened like an unravelling

no conscious planning meant it
sprang out of deeply subliminal
space – arriving at a pace that
maimed suspense breathlessly

she merely reined forces bent on
devouring her soul – welding a
lover’s ears with whispers traded
as unabashed compliments

to this day he knows no more of
what went right or wrong in the
moments before volcanic events
enslaved their fragile mortality
© 8 March 2010, I. D. Carswell

Great Little Idea

When you think about it the
great little idea was a dud
spent an hour making fiddly
arrangements – you could
say delicately threading a
power cord for the portable
radio through a study wall
suggests ingenuity but in the
event made no difference

static still invades ABC

defending complex relocation
as overtly rational cries insanity;
one can propose it runs off
batteries therefore is infinitely
relocatable – if said batteries
are in it, have been recharged
recently or are in contiguously
strange places pending
rediscovery

yet again, supposed roots in
commonsense invade what
is both everyday and benign
territory – I freely admit the
idea arose because of Plasma
TV! It is complicated, I agree
but I did succeed in reducing
interference on said radio by
moving it around the room a
little bit in the first place...
© 1 May 2010, I. D. Carswell

Unwrapped Honesty

Yes, it is me, in a “Bargearse” T shirt
and cut-off jeans – feeling refreshed
from an hour the spa; it was a joke
from sons whom I never lost faith in

they both rang today – no particular
reason, perhaps to say all’s well but
I already knew the lay of their land;
they impress as new fathers

it is a connection I never made with
my Dad except as courtesy – as if to
say I love you but you don’t have to
squirm too openly or reply real soon

my boys don’t rest on ceremony and
their daughters consume rich love as
sustenance with no holds barred – I
dine on their unwrapped honesty
© 29 April, 2010, I. D. Carswell

Golden Fleece

a golden lambskin hid from view for
years has broke a drought about a
questing and the searcher’s life

it wasn’t rain that bathed this chase
although analogy well suits an arid place
and tears suppressed are rain no less

why am I affected so he tries to ask?
she left me for a better life with all the
right and valid reasoning in place

I knew I had to find this fleece on her
request though crying means that I
have yet to set her free
© 22 April, 2010, I. D. Carswell

Honesty (á la Tony Abbott)

When he says,
“I could be telling the truth”
you can believe him,
he might be – from his hallucinatory
stance what he wants you to hear
justifies the double entendre.

But if you were to ask for an
assurance of veracity he would still
aver there might be truth in it,
albeit such that the discrepancy,
in innocence, escaped the censor’s mark.

So we listen to a barking dog
whose carping voice implies
impenitent duplicity while
waiting for an honest bite
which never lies
© 18 May 2010, I. D. Carswell

Poetic Messages

if it pours out ceaselessly
you’re likely freed of
what you couldn’t
safely keep contained

a homily which brightly
says ‘better out than in’
explains your rogue impasse
in purely personal terms

and ‘getting rid of’ it is
closer to reality we mostly
shun for fear of shameful
compromise – but that

isn’t to say there’s no
message inherent in
a seemly pile of heave
beyond its fluent delivery
© 12 February 2010, I. D. Carswell

Splendid Isolation

a choice as drear as
village rap or news release
explains this place

Truth owes nothing less
and has no ownership
unless it pays

then in an eerie instant
versions of it spawn
with clear intent

by hiding way out here
I’m freed of it - but
rarely entertained
© 12 February 2010, I. D. Carswell

Tune

Tonight I miss you
tears are just a blink away
robust thoughts of you which
kept an emptiness at bay
have fallen short too easily
and hopelessness
invades

I know you’d say
I need a focussed way
outside myself by caring less
and being more in tune
with other vibes but I
am deaf without
your ears

Habit surely
weakened what had made me
strong and fears of insufficiency
prolong a pain I must endure
because you’re gone –
tonight has simply played
that tune again
© 2 March 2010, I. D. Carswell

Realisation

For sure, it’s
a hundred kilometres
beyond a half bottle of
tequila – the realisation
isn’t all that fucking smart;
you’ve recognised you’re
a small part of the picture.

Okay, if you want, tapestry.

If you’re already pissed
it won't go away;
indisputably
the next sip will
tell you why
– again...
© 26 April, 2010, I. D. Carswell

Spiders Webs

at least scratches from lime picking
bear honourable scars – an unseen
stickiness of spiders’ webs attest
unease, spread discordancy;

damn things cling with perversity
that defies even my form of chary
manliness, bearing residues of ugly
death and dormant pestilence

mosquitoes shriek a dirge to fragile
mortality in blood-crazed mist around
my head – sure in death’s obduracy
as phobic fear of spiders’ webs
© 13 February 2010, I. D. Carswell

Straw Hats

Try not to see them as
ideograms; they are just
straw hats hanging on the wall.

You see vacant space for a
head intended but it doesn’t
persuade personality is gone.

A silk scarf wound around the
hat demanding most hangs
gloomily, memories are no relief.
© 4 February 2010, I. D. Carswell

Cleaned And Purged

Rising from a raucous sleep at 4 am finds
nothing much has changed. PC takes an
age in start-up sequencing, reveals a raft
of system safety checks have failed – it
then reboots but can’t or won't explain.

You could remark intrigued the similarity
to life is underplayed – but callously a
disrespect for standards long established
still engages greater minds in ugly dreams
of the infallible though deemed unstable.

‘This is the here and now’ it seems to say;
whatever else you wish will be in future
scenes for contemplation – if you make
priorities, submit requests in triplicate at
least one month advanced!

You’d think that waking up legitimised an
entrée to the day, that’s but the first faux
pas; breaking flaky sleep would seem a
crime until the system’s cleaned and
purged repentant souls of yesterday.
© 3 February 2010, I. D. Carswell

Last Of The Dinosaurs

A quaint case of an Abbott and
two Bishops on the Front Bench while
the rat Minchin is to be content with
resources and energy; Ruddock
back as shadow cabinet secretary –
hard to believe, but true, whereas
Barnaby Joyce is to head finance!

Shaking one’s head in bewilderment
suggests the mix is a heady cocktail
of head-in-sand incomprehension
about where the future stands;
unless one views it as already
behind us, being unattainable
and therefore sacrosanct

I like the way Abbott says ‘if I’m
proved wrong I’ll be marooned
on an island of stupidity but I
might be right and a hero’
He could be, I agree, and still
doomed to extinction within an
hierarchy of dinosaur proclivity
© 14 December 2009, I. D. Carswell