Of Such Simplicity (rev)

You and me,
the proof is there to see,
our lives are held within the spell of great simplicity,
we’re free of all the shadows in the hall,
seen in awe as pictures hanging on the wall;
was it meant to be, intentionally,
of such simplicity?

The pace of Life
is not predictably
ever free or very easy, from the swift and mad
to cruelly sore and sad, good times were had
amongst the wrenching sorrows, but mostly life
is quietly free of strife, meant to be,
essentially, simplicity.

We have the time
now to reflect about
the things in life that we have surely gone without,
we could fixate no doubt on what we’d never see
or make our lives to be of great complexity,
but it was meant to be, implicitly,
just simplicity.

Here we are
the pantry door ajar
the shelves within are filled with living memories,
stored carefully, thoughtfully, in perpetuity;
it’s where we see a precious legacy,
which is meant to be, uncontentiously,
of such simplicity.
© 6 August 2007, I.D. Carswell

Raspberry Tart (rev)

Formerly: Of The Raspberry Tart (in you)

I love you for your fat.
Your thin intimidates what
attraction contemplates –
and no respite from that.
My avid eyes make peace
with nascent curves that
grew into a joyous, rounded
you from waisted space.

Beauty’s eyes behold,
afire in bounteous sight,
a-captured in the light
of burgeoning desires.
The thin of you recalled
is lost in reverie, buried
in sensual devilry of the
raspberry tart in you.
© 3 July 2007, I.D. Carswell

So Let Us Dare (rev)

How do we discover cures to proof us
of each other? Are there antidotes
attuned to you and me? Can we meet in
spiteful space without effacing hopeful
calm – or cause alarming conflagration?

Our bleeding hearts and noxious farts tie
us in a hopeless chase to free this place
of evil quarks of energy that detonate
without behest; distress the poise we
need to keep our sanity.

Profanity which vents each manic crash
so rends the fabric where we weave our divers
ends and tangles in the warp and weft; we’re
left to ponder with regret the bolt of
cloth unwoven, the promises betrothing,
the futures that are stolen.

And yet there is a silence in the loom,
a space as free of curdled dreams as paradise
appends; it’s crashing quiet assaults the senses,
overwhelms the sad defences, avows
a calm which would eschew an armistice –
a synthesis of each of us, an end of war.

Before we tear the loom apart let us
heed the healing quiet, listen to the tick
of time, hearken to its here and now,
let it invade our where and how and open
up our seething minds before the cloying
blindness sends us mindless.

The quiet and calm and dignity needs no
antidote from me or you nor do we
need a place apart, we start right here in
peace and light and in the dome of silence
where our voices join in common prayer – we
know that we are free to care, so let us dare.
© 2005, I.D. Carswell

Anniversary

Almost forty years; cannot
recollect to say the date exactly
when we met, but here and now
the place and time remains as
clear in mind as yesterday

the change it wrought sustains a
knowledge new to solitary thought
to be precise I never knew a time
without the meeting of your mind
and mine that meant a damn

– like how it doesn’t pay to count
the days secured as lessons learned
clearly you have changed the matrix
of our lives in ways which earned
a permanence and rite of place

and when I ponder how and why
I am amazed and quite surprised
the little that I really know of you –
you are the same yet not the
one I met those years ago

it is a mystery benign – enclosed
in enigmatic folds and wraps of
secrecy which holds the hand
of fate and fuels familiar furnaces
which welcome love’s dictate
© 14 June 2008, I. D. Carswell

For Anita – on Anniversary 39

Another Way Of Flying

An easier call would have been to ignore
the whole scene but you wanted to soar
without leaving the ground – explore
another way of flying. You never explained
this to me, afraid I would not understand.

At least that part was true – I am not afraid
of flying although landings do raise the
body heat. I am not bloody minded, the
deliberate meeting of two dissimilar
states of motion is gracelessness to me.

You laughed when I closed my eyes, said
are you afraid? I denied it but knew I lied,
knew a small dying in the euphemism
for release – the cry that precedes is a
dying breath expressed before you arrive.
© 1 Feb 2007, I.D. Carswell

Mountains of Delight (rev)

The problem was in manner of choice
or whether there was a choice for that
matter. You reduced them as you had
to do, choosing what was right for you;
there is no shame and no reproving,
it’s legitimated by your doing.

Odd conventions weigh against events
believed logical but not in your natural
reality. Denied restraints I am poised
halfway to lunacy’s sanctuary – buoyed
by useless knowledge which cannot aid
defence against prescriptions of fate.

Hoped for better life, fairytale endings
expressed as fine destiny. Too late to
make it thus I know, but I won’t desert
an ally of the same romanticism, born
steadfast and true, grew worldly wise,
at least in light of my colour-blind eyes.

Cannot choose other than this singular
place, of which you know as do I there is
no manner of choice in the matter – and
accepted irrevocably in choosing you. It
was never a question of winning or losing,
was purely a matter of simply choosing.

Can we face this flight in concert, judging
not a road to come by looking backwards
where we’d find no pathway we could climb?
The mountains of despair which rise out of
the distant past are no surprise; our plight
should make them mountains of delight.
© June 13th 2005, I.D. Carswell

Waiting Game

The waiting game begins;
scene is set, actors fresh
and ready for the fray but
not a word is uttered yet,
nothing heard to start the
play on words of warring
genders set in clay, fixed
in clefts absurd by never-
ending septs acclaimed
as proof to win the day

the mood begins aloof in
gauzy femininity a word
they say exists as truth in
speech so one may seek
without a need to prove a
right to speak and yet still
say the things one thinks
agreed without explaining –
and you must hear or lead
yourself at peace away

and where the power to
disagree demurs in shades
of masculinity the words
offset from lips redressed by
blows of fists which asked of
whose authority this came
we level fields and fill the
cavities aware the peace
is merely temporary until
she says – you will desist
© 21 May 2008, I. D. Carswell

Yep

Yep, trimmed the beard – like ‘a see her
do that and not lock th’ bathroom door!
‘Course I was hirsute at 17, b4 I really
had to shave, while she was barely 13,
and I’ll bet a brat – but we hadn’t met

B4 you condemn me I gotta say I neva
seen a girl like her eva – & neva since.
Like she was a bloke she’d a be a Prince
or a damn fabulous mate. So when she
did close the door it was a grate concern

But rest at ease; wind, or rather breeze,
chills the air in there. So when you give
the pins a shave an open door becomes
anxiety. But bearded bush or not to trim
the old gal still looks good to me
© 11 May 2008, I. D. Carswell

.

.

Picture: The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife,

an erotic woodcut made circa 1820 by Hokusai.

Saccharine Clouds

apparently innocent until the wick is lit; then
wham, instantaneously a whole damn factory
explodes in bits! Guess it’s too late for – Sorry!
Have I missed something? A whiff of smoke,
perhaps, suggesting the hidden smouldering
of resentment – or the puce-like glower of a
thunderous countenance; even hooded,
steel-hard and narrow-slitted eyes?

No! It comes a complete surprise! Never
fails to amaze you can drift for days on
your saccharine cloud of innocence, blithely
blotting out all forms of treasonous light;
yet when struck by today’s flash of
blinding reality, it wasn’t your fault...
© 10 May 2008, I. D. Carswell

Affable Conjugality

This affable conjugality
seems a trite light-weight.
You like it obviously, it’s
an ecclesiastical arrangement
of your making; perhaps
pay-back for years of male
dominion – if that was how
we originally agreed to
share quiescent space.

These days we have
our own rooms to populate.
The marital bed is vacated –
wasted munificence although
the paraphernalia remains
in place awaiting resumption
of non-connubial hostility.

That mute invitation to
convene is refused by
negotiated intransigence –
which says ‘camp in the
study on your own terms
and free of restriction’

– while you wilfully
explore a miniscule
bed in a spare room,
finding it an agreeable
place to snore loudly
between solid books
and etheric TV shows.
© 26 April 2008, I. D. Carswell

Agendas

You didn’t guise your query as
a question – it was a statement
part concealing some vague need;
I felt no pressure then in answering.

The game was squared and drawn
by my weak reasoning, you’d made
your play; and silly me – I’d left our
discourse free of clauses binding.

So it’s ok to change your mind again.
Yes, I care, but that’s no way to lose
with grace to curiosity – and any case,
I haven’t an agenda to defend; I wish

that you could say the same. In time,
no doubt, you’ll state the reason why
you needed me agree with you – before
I ever knew the physics of your aim.
© 11 March 2008, I. D. Carswell

Saying Why In Ways

Saying why in ways that leave no strained
associations yet implies to whom, quite
clearly, blame applies - would be the classic
case. No feelings hurt, no egos dragged in
dirt or trampled in a rush to flee the tragic
scene. Surreal it seems, especially when a
point of view exists there is no image of a
broken dream, relationship or link between
your feelings and the face disgraced. You’d
leave with only mild regret if that was true,
expecting them to soon forget you anyway.

You know that wasn’t what took place upon
the fateful day – it was a frank exchange of
trust; beauty glimpsed by hearts that lust for
brighter hues enhanced in artist’s eyes – a
fragile clutch of sharing minds. But that was
then, such yesterdays do not return. So move
along, your term’s expired – you’re free to
leave. If someone wants to grieve no doubt
they’ll find a way to tear out hair, beat their
breasts in thespian mourning expressed
with dramatic thanks and great respect.

But for egos sake you need to be chaired to
the door by a coterie of neo-sybarites, to
pay homage – placate your sense of worth.
You dream their fawning adulation. It is a
farewell tryst with worst debauchery forsaken
in a lifelong search for purest glory. This is
who you blame. You’ve sold out to ideas of
your own infallibility – with good reason, if
worthy souls remain they would no doubt be
there to cheer your passage on, line the walls
respectfully, shed a seasoned tear.
© 18 February 2008, I. D. Carswell