Ghostly Hands

I sense it now and then, a ghostly
silhouette that flickers at the edge of
sight – a vague and fleeting shade that
fades the moment when I turn my head.

I know it’s there, caught a glimpse by
subterfuge, a sneaking glance of avid
eyes and furrowed brow in hazy guise
of boredom lest it guess my game.

Saw a pair of ghostly hands
which briefly waved
and disappeared – saw
again the same today.

I watch my hands with interest now –
try to memorise each line, don’t know
how it's done, or why, but I’m
convinced they’re surely mine.
© 14 August 2007, I.D. Carswell

Harmonise As Sleepless Dreams

Let me sleep with you in common sense of
somnolence, let my dreams arise and take
the road in easy stride.

I won’t be the bleeding of your conscience,
make demands, seek comfort in your arms
without consent.

My wants are easily declared; my needs are
less specific to redress but drift within a state
of indolence undressed as pride.

And where you sleep a deep and eminent
contentment I will harmonise beside you in
my sleepless dreams.
© 15 August 2007, I.D. Carswell

Residue Of Self-Pleasure

Having experienced a
God-awful feeling that
SOMEONE
is listening

– Heaven forbid the
idea means more
than a vagrant
sense of relief –

just where does
the legitimacy,
or logic, come in?
Tossing off to the idea

you’re actually getting
somewhere is but a
gratuitous residue
of self-pleasure.
© 13 August 2007, I.D. Carswell

Much Was In The News Today

Much was in the news today, Pauline Hanson
on the way to register a new ‘Pauline’s United
Australia Party’ – done just so her name appears
above the line for a Queensland Senate seat, a
piece of sublime wisdom indeed – meaning
voters who can’t read that well wont have to
fill in each and every box below the line this
time around to make a valid Senate vote, Oyez!

Pete Costello reached fifty yesterday –again denied
he said he’d see that Howard was fried in oil if he
wouldn’t stand aside (so Pete could be PM). We
know of fiery Pete’s ambition to a man, woman
and child – so who’s kidding who and who cares
who’s lied? There seems to be a glut of such denials
amongst those anxious Liberals out to lunch on
Johnny’s chances come November. Wonder why?

Work Choices seemed an issue dead and buried as
the polls declared it killed the very vote the Coalition
needed to succeed. And yet the razor Gang still cries
against belief that wages aren’t the cause as much as
policies designed to keep them cheap. Inflation is the
key they claim; the blow of Labor’s fiscal sense to
economic management would cede the checks and
balances keeping industries’ relations under wraps.

We’ll have to wait and see on that. Julia Gillard is they
say a key union lass with leftish fetishes. But she’s
also Deputy Dog of the Shadow Bench which may
succeed where they have failed. Be that as it may, in
Howard’s seat of Bennelong Maxine McKew may make
him rue the day he chose to play it fast and loose. Polling
there to date decrees she’s cooked his goose, he
conceitedly stayed aloof, failed to heed his constituents.
© 15 August 2007, I.D. Carswell

Out Of A Toothpaste Tube Darkly

A toothpaste tube
that’s left uncapped
a sign perhaps
of absent mind or
consequence
entrapped in acts
of cataleptic malcontent –
a parody that lapsed
when humour failed
to raise the bar
enough against
this day’s necessities.

There’s no collapsing
eccentricity in matching
decor or to catch this
sleight of hand –
no gain in understanding
that extracts the workings
of this oddity; no
untoward extension
maps the future kine’s
complexities
tho’ I’m amazed
at what I see – at
what I can’t in any way
begin to comprehend.

How can you plan a
future when
you leave the past
uncapped?
How can you set a
solid track
from there to here?
© 9 August 2007, I.D. Carswell

Balloons With Barefaced Lies

It takes a harder head than mine
to crack the rocks which line the
calloused minds of men in power.

By analogy I understand the rocks
are there as substance where an
airiness expresses vacant space.

Without the weight they’d float aloft
on bloated egos stroked and blimped
within an inch exaggerated.

While stressed to bursting point and
blind to it these sightless blimps define
the mire they wallow by excreting it.

All’s fair in politics they say, the dirty
tricks are sticks and stones to break
your bones and call you nasty names

while adults play their mindless games
of power with rocks for strategy that fill
balloons with barefaced lies as promises...
© 11 August 2007, I.D. Carswell

Don’t Have The Need

I have been looking
for something
recently – quite
sure it is neither
lost nor misplaced
and though using

deductive powers
honed in hours
of similar searches
all I have found is:
a two dollar coin and
two sachets of seeds;

silver beet
and
curled parsley,
– and ennui
which threatens to
defeat me. An eraser

was all I wanted,
something
to clean the slate.
But it seems
Fate has dealt me
a belatedly off-hand

compliment, suggesting
perhaps, I don’t
have the need.
© 9 August 2007, I.D. Carswell

Dust Covers All Equally

Surrounded by the paraphernalia of a mere two
generations of technological change, seduced
into believing the next instance will make even
greater innovation commonplace – aware how
the balance is weighted against anything more
than a sedentary procession of the same pace.

Too easily wooed, assured it is not a race – just
the inevitable taking place; casualties collect, are
ritualistically swept from the crowed aisles of
corporate abattoirs, simplistic displacement of
failure fuelling insane desires for more power,
greater speed and less exclusivity while greed
burns hotter in the foundries forging less and
less agreeable excuses.

There in the corner of my mind’s eye I see the
debris, the carnage of this age, the corpses of
despair and redundancies, carcases gutted of
rare or precious metals, laid bare to ribs rotting
a thousand years in dedicated mountains –
symbols of our undebated insanity.

Here I see the old and the new side by side in
this birthing room of ideas, this aperture thru’
which I commute between two states uneasily,
seeing the brand new with objective clarity,
seeing that no matter what the claims may be
dust covers all equally...
© 10 August 2007, I.D. Carswell

Learning To Live With Love

No – I won’t condone it
but I know the what and
where and how it came
about; if you shout your
argument I’ll still not hear it.

I’m deaf to what this means
about my hearing – there is
no doubt but that you’re right
despite my libelled feelings
I’m the one who’s in the wrong...
© 13 August 2007, I.D. Carswell

Nothing Could Be Simpler

Nothing could be simpler you’d think,
a pencil, some paper – lined if you please
but blank will do, a place to sit and drink
in the ambience of this morning; so how

did I end up here? This toilet is the least
rated for inspired choice. As for ambience –
it stinks, not an olfactory consequence,
everyone know your own shxx doesn’t,

but still no compensation for the chaste
economy of being roomed where there
IS room. Room graced with ample space,
space to spread out in, space to anchor

the firmament, views to take at a glance.
No environment of chance to inspire
towering thoughts, a dunny door closed
on small, four-walled worlds bounding

finite existence. Yet it explains how I am
here. It began when SEQEB begat Energex
begat AGL. No need to tell infant tales out
of school or elucidate how these bodies

supplying electricity created my indecent
incarceration – my needs best left unsated
to engendered change; cyclonic winds and
the coldest of irony blew a strange cause and

effect, power surges killed my broadband
modem, maimed and maligned my ‘infallible’
PC’s auto-recovery system – which regressed
into infinitely repeated boot sequences.

Technically my brain has been isolated from
an unconscious facility to machine-translate
words to progressions with meaning. Painfully
I’m learning hand writing again...
© 10 August 2007, I.D. Carswell

Brevity Is...

The idea was there,
a poem that said all
one needed to say
about brevity – in a
few, pungent words.

And I never wrote
those words down
like I ought to. Now
I have just bones of
an idea with no clue

how it would look
when fully fleshed.
I think it started
– and ended,
“Brevity is...”
© 21 July 2007, I.D. Carswell

Nothing Unusual?

Bugs
I can live with,
even deplorable
fungus that drifts
in clouds of
microscopic
spores unseen –
devouring leaves
clinging to fruit
tenaciously –

but hard frosts
of such ferocity
are new – a state
of complete
bewilderment;
a lingering
ill-at-ease.

We’ve had cold snaps,
chills that ate grass and
spawned clover before.
But we’ve never seen
trees burnt of all their
leaves by sheer cold in
events indigent to this
Orchard of 65 years;
events utterly
unprecedented.

But you still
shake your head,
saying its
nothing
unusual...
© 26 July 2007, I.D. Carswell

Judgement Before Lunch

Having seen the impassive face of a
better man making judgement (yes,
a death sentence) there were
unmistakeable signs you merely played
at make-believe; you wore a visage

as grim as a face officially displaced by
judicial intolerance. And you looked at
your watch – that pimped your pretence.
Prosecuting Council, a uniformed Sgt of
Police, winced, refused to meet my eyes.

Defence Council sighed, shook
his weary head, knew the
outcome the moment you
took the bench. In my heart
I brooked no offence,

an eye for an eye, a life for
a life; I smiled at your theatrics –
your thunderous augmentation of
an odious, tenured and self-righteous
arsehole tolling a pitiable crime,

a pathetic slight to the Nation.
At least you got that bit right.
And when your hysterical diatribe
dwindled to a recumbent snore you
fined me $400.00, adjourned for lunch.
© 25 July 2007, I.D. Carswell

Dear Bob, Stand For Mayor Again

One wouldn’t want to make a martyr out of him,
though anti-hero strikes a chord with some – a
Mayor who stands four-square and fat upon the
land he claims is theirs by tenant right – a grand
and eloquent expression of an arrogance which
brands Bob Abbot’s claim audacious in it’s very
least or specious when weighed against the fact
he represents a precious few by tenets of a view
enshrined within amended Local Body Acts.

Bob maintains that Noosa is a special case. Its
residents proclaim it in his lengthy reign as
Mayor. Amalgamate? No way he says – a case of
‘over my dead body mate!’ Mayor Abbot passed
away would still not save the anguish yet to
roost upon a pristine piece of coastal paradise, a
view restrained in truth – they have a cogent case
for wards against the mess which urban
life impressed upon their Sister Shires.

But he really fears their cake would disappear
when bites from ravenous outsiders eat away
the vital substance of their righteous pride.
Noosa’s fame was earned by Bob’s reluctance
to give way on fiscal gain at any cost, he disdained
the leaning to high-rise development, wooed
instead the rich and famous, traded tinsell for
a legacy where only those he pre-approved
could buy or sell within Fat Bob’s domain.

Alas, the end is near. Bob will burn by pyre
upon a beach he never graced in swimmer’s
gear – thank Christ, a sight revered no less
especially by those whose views oppose a
future bearing changes made disgracefully on
years of gross negelect – a future to repay a
sullen debt. But what a useless death. He’d
shame contenders for the mayor in ways
expanded councils are yet to comprehend.

Dear Bob, stand for Mayor again,
represent a balanced man who
fights for rights of all who take
the beauty of our land to heart.
Start by telling how United Councils
can, and will, with your good grace
give us all an even chance...
© 9 August 2007, I.D. Carswell

Let Me Dream In You

Let me dream in you –
my length and breadth imbued
in depthless mystery, my strength
subsumed in currents infinite
– adrift in timeless seas where
shadow patterns ripple
peacefully in seamless scenes
of harmony. Let me indulge in you –
your bounty feeding me content
the sustenance I need to grow
beyond the narrow man who sees
with angry eyes; encourage me
with subtle signs, the shuddered
sighs expressing indolence in tune
with inner peace, a token glimpse
of reservoirs of energy unleashed,
the heat of lava wells that flow
through faultless veins. Breathe
for me, release the words
I need to understand you’ve
reached surcease but succour
me with gifts of love – please me
with your promises I may return...
© 8 August 2007, I. D. Carswell

Excuse Me While I Pour Again

Why should I despair? The beer
I just poured has a great head,
it’s crisp, clear and dry – tastes
like something I brewed back in
the good old days when I wasn’t
into too much hygiene.

Man, is it dry! Each sip desiccates
the palate such – necessitates
another taste for a bloke who
thinks he’s retired each day
he wakes wearier than when he
went to bed. Having framed that

idea reminds me I am retired, or
would be except for this Orchard;
but it sure explains a great thirst.
Damn and tarnation – an empty
glass, now how on earth did...?
Excuse me while I pour again...
© 20 July 2007, I.D. Carswell

Content To Grow In His Countenance

He was a giant of a man
loomed over every horizon
like a beacon, cast an
unwavering light in the
seasons of my blindness
held me up to the stars
and the moon
said,
see here,
this is my son –

I remained where
his feet were rooted
in the earth, in the fields
and the streams amongst the trees,
content to grow in his countenance.
©18 July 2007, I.D. Carswell

Will Be Summer Again

It hasn’t rained for days, the last band
of misty cloud fled East whimpering –
blotting out the sun in an afternoon of
doubt before the cold again invades,

seeping out of ruthless blue, promising
nothing; a barren landscape chilled with
icy air in silence, clear as the soundless
beat of bird-wings seeking trees touched

by the rays of a benighted sun, ears burnt
in a rare dissonance aware of blood-heat
radiating into an atmosphere of larceny.
We watch wisps of woodsmoke gently

dissipate from a flue which heats our
home – three months, you say, three
months and it will be Summer again...
© 19 July 2007, I.D. Carswell

Life As A Nostril Hair

Is life simply
a nostril hair
in a nasal
cavity of the
Universe?

Occasionally
it irritates,
perpetuates
a bout of
creative
sneezing.

Or where
fingers
of fate
excavate
in pensive
solemnity

a solitary
hair is torn
free, cast upon
the eternal
keyboard –

and life
abruptly
ends...
© 21 July 2007, I.D. Carswell

M79 Grenades Are 40mm Rounds

No classic cause arose to elucidate the
tragedy and tho’ so easy to deduce
a case of boys as stupid boys this young
cadet was neither dumb nor lacking
commonsense – or so his records said.
Yet he banged explosive rounds he’d
found head to head to prove they were
inert. That’s what his classmates said.

Numb with shock when asked the cause –
odd that no-one saw him do the deed, all
heard the bang, saw bleeding stumps for
hands, his shattered head. That he died
as quickly as he did was Heaven sent; that
injuries were his alone a blessing guised
with sweet lament – scars to wear as
aching evidence of hearts so sorely rent.

M79 grenades are 40mm rounds which
kill efficiently, spread shrapnel round
a five metre lethal range. The deceased
cadet, a boy soldier trained but not yet
old enough for combat impacted two
unexploded rounds he found on a
live range together with his hands in
his barrack room. He died instantly.

The net effect of pointless death made
sway for changes in the way we trained
our boys for combat. Most far reaching
meant our soldier roles extracted from
conflict’s inexorableness – its patent,
deathly allegation, to a state we practised
every way to not permit a simple thought
or taste of it. I regret I still abjure the taste.
© 20 July 2007, I.D. Carswell