Ernie Dingo For President

Ernie Dingo for Pres!
Yeah! Cut thru all the
crap, elect a bloke we
admire. We’ve seen a

few too many fat-cats
prance their lick-arse
dance for titbits from
PM’s plates – selected

by rye-grass peerage;
yet here’s a sterling
fellow with roots in
The Real Australia!

Oondamooroo, that’s
his proper name, ‘Shield’
in the Wadjarri language
of the Yamatji people.

A good bloke too,
no prejudices; he’d
be the last bastard
to knock the great

Australian dream –
a damn good shield
for future uncertainty.
We need changes tho’,

this Monarchy thing
is too dated to be more
than aspirin relief from
mean colonial History.

Ernie reminds us gentiley
of that. But in any event
he’d aptly champion a
new Republic, be the

best First President of a
new and, God forbid,
wash your mouth out –
United Australia!
© 8 June 2007, I.D. Carswell

Death Of Civilization

Seeking art in minds of simple men’s
fey shadows wrong-sides me. I am a
simple man, yet I see an argument
for brighter lights as worse than the
gloom we try to escape; there are greater
fates than the death of our civilization –
annihilation of my mind amongst them.
The mindlessly numb already berate us
where we should be religiously quiet.
I can wait in the graveyards and the
backwaters of time, a penance for me
as I have lived forever – I can survive
in the sceptic waters while seeking the
keys there; simple as I am I would know
them when I see them. Raised by a woman
it is easy – so let me lead...
© 8 June 2007, I.D. Carswell

Lead Me To The Narrow Way

I am content at last – freed of
vanities restraint by your consent;
I wasn’t meant, you say to take an
extra yard there was no need
to play a loser’s game.

You’ve refereed where judges
failed to heed the code of love,
a book they found above their
tomes of lust and precedent;
the dust of sentience.

And in the mellow sweep
of your awareness, deep inside
the tombs where life is
resurrected in effete
and loving tenderness

I am enshrined. You glide
about me as glyph that’s
come to life; a way that
shines – a single light to
lead me to the narrow way.
© 9 June 2007, I.D. Carswell

The Givers

It is gratitude of goodwill, a sense
of rare respect seldom present in
an ordinary sense. When you saw
a beauty in the words you came on
my side of the fence, joining me in
pastures rich in grazing. In a soft
and salutary way you have saluted
me with gest. I now return in favour
free of any hint of artifice that I am
pleased in heart and soul, you’ve
seen a dream of splendour where
I wrote in words – glimpsed the air
resplendent, heard the very chords
I heard. Your thanks confirms me
right; I’ll sleep the angels’ sleep and
soar tonight in dreams content.
© 10 June 2007, I.D. Carswell

Awake, ‘The Dream’

It was a parody – a tasteless spoof
on lover’s leaking fluids, a delight in
making light of night’s sweet congress,
of soulful sex’ insightful whim in bodily
awareness. It might have seemed
much more than that, sounded right
and proper melody for praise; in fact
it was a base and blasé send-up of the
way we seek a glory in our acts of selfish
need. The words were plain, indeed
the climax came and went like echoes
in an empty head completely drained,
the hollow feeling framed in bliss that
bled its warm munificence in arms
wound tight around a dream that
wrinkled wet and meekly waned...
© 10 June 2007, I.D. Carswell

They Care Enough

Unless you shared a beer you’d say ridiculous –
yet these are people whom you’d trust because
they really cared enough to want know your name.
In love with fun and love as such – delighting in
the sun as much as children can, these sons and
daughters all have seen a privileged light.

The flame that brightly burns within each one
cares less of age than pastures free of monuments
– space to see and move within, places where the
pace keeps time at bay, and there they go in droves
to play their games of structured innocence, revel in
a welcome sense of family, a unity of diligence.

Just young, you’ll say. One was meant to frolic in
the early years; desist, I say – for sure they play
at life, laugh and smile a lot, greet each other in
a welcome way of glowing warmth, friendship
rated greater than career, they work to play not
make their work the centre of their daily cheer.
© 11 June 2007, I.D. Carswell

Forget The Weave Of The Bassinet

When you can move within spheres of
ideas free of dimensionality, when the
boundaries binding a flat plane stand on
end, embracing scale and bend into an
infinity of instant and forever; when you
can see all possibilities then you can begin.
Where you stand keeps your eyes closed,
blind to words untried and unused, deaf
to phrases not raised in – bound to finite
origins. We heed only the calls of past
generations – like muezzin wails from the
minarets. One must forget the weave
of the bassinet to know what is lost.
© 11 June 2007, I.D. Carswell

How Would He Write The Poem Today

How would he write the poem today?
He couldn’t wander aimlessly
trespass Laws and vagrancy
are rather clear – with right of way
he could well be a lonely cloud,
see daffodils in crowded dance
but dare to pick one – not a chance
(you’d better know it’s not allowed)!
And where they danced along the bay
the waters gone – the margin lost
the trees are lopped the Lake reclaimed
the waters left have all been drained
to water grids at torrid cost
a-twinkle like the Milky Way...
© 11 June 2007, I.D. Carswell

Breathing In The Here-And-Now

Is it disease that sours the intellect?
Fame or notoriety viewed in any other
way exacts its toll in heresies; a mass
belief of factual fallacy is still no less a
fact. We’re in a poets’ cloister here –
and all too well aware of that.

A younger man would take his pen and
run; flee the savages who fawn around
the feet of idols incomplete, token men
and women who compete with flashy
jibes and trashy innuendo, deriding minor
scribes, write with fleas for eagle’s eyes.

Where I’ve scratched the rashes red and
raw, bound the bloodied stumps of limbs
torn less from anger than distress a lick
of passion won’t redress this sorry state.
The ashes of a cold and dead cremation
make a better place to start afresh.

So fade to black, start anew and cut the crap.
Save your adulation for those figurines on
crowded shelves in gaudy porcelain; read
the verse and think again – will it mean a
goddamned thing in twenty years? Breathing
in a heady here-and-now won’t alter that.
© 14 June 2007, I.D. Carswell

Clichés In Bad Taste

Pretentious old poets finagle words once used in place
of their failed physical presence, attempt to usurp
where their powers once used to command –
dwindled since to damp and hollow innuendo;

they dress grandiose and pretend or stretch
imagination with strut-bouffant inventions;
combing a lack of hair that once stood aloof,
afire and untamed in smooth, denatured tho’

artificial locks drawn across wrinkled pate. I
stand at the museum’s gate and gaze reverent
at busts of the late great bestowed on
ivory pedestals by a generation in awe,

aware there is no room for them; their words
are toxic insect waste, ritual gyrations of an
antique form, a crude parody of the mating
– artifice and sad clichés in bad taste...
© 3 June 2007, I.D. Carswell

Election Erections And Fiscal Peace

It was a debate we always had to have;
we’re close mates of that kind, mirrors of
similar ideas but beneath each essentially
his own man – in the event quite different.

So we trade clichés, walk quietly around what
is meant, recognise Political peerage. I am
sort of socialist but not bent irrevocably to the
Left, able to glory in ideas; he is more or less

astride the centre – fears for the lack of its
cerebral weight and the baggage of years, of
casualties. We were soldiers together and knew we
were used, there is strong consensus and true

unity in our sense of family. We agreed in the
end there is more to this election than the
hollow rhetoric of an out-of-touch PM, or a
rash of fine ideas from a would-be successor.

The battle-lines once again raise banners of a
Union spectre; right or wrong the issues of our
needs eventuated by votes cast in the light
of a supposed bogeyman. Right or wrong

he sees the issue’s simplicity as one where
Kevin Rudd might win the people’s hearts
but Julia Gillard holds the keys to industrial
peace, and thus, our future prosperity.
© 4 June 2007, I.D. Carswell

Pay In Bastard Kind

Piece of cake we say, too
simple, or a breeze, but no, I
never understood the meaning.

To easy to mistake it for
that pleasant something
though I’d weigh the chance

it came to pass as payment
for a nasty deed. A piece of
cake for me? Do I get to say

which sort? The answer will
of course dismay romantics;
you cannot chose your cake

and eat it – a trophy for display,
symbol of the heady sum of
good you’ve done within your

dastard’s deed; that’s why I say
I’ve never kept the need in mind
to pay with cake in bastard kind.
© 4 June 2007, I.D. Carswell

Where The Old Men Stare

Young men dream
with eyes wide wakened,
staring deep in passion’s faces,
drinking in the sweet awareness,
blinded to fate’s celebrations.

Chase in pairs
rare energies, dancing
errant of a caution,
feasting eyes will fail to see
the dangers present in a warning.

Young men waken,
wary eyes are worn-out arrows
dreams dissolved in flickered shadows
dusted schemes are pillared billows
dreams that died or bent like willows.

Mud of lust
repairs the vision, eyes now blind see
sights unrisen, comfort cares of mother’s
ensign, sheeted where the old men stare
sleep alone in sainted peace.
© 4 June 2007, I.D. Carswell

Plainly By The Same Blinkered Eyes

Which persona do I correspond with,
may I ask? More so I get a gender
than a name? You know I do not care
how many times you clone yourself,
you’re all essentially the same. Now
let me see; there was a vibrant minx

with chocolate label, claimed to be
16, an older guy – middle-aged with a
ladies handle, at least two pseudo
dominatrix by trade if Lady Lash & Puss
in Boots has any meaning, and a fly-away,
Moon Chime Swoon, vaguely oriental?

And you, of course, LMA Male. Eccentric,
definitely, respectable, maybe. Mad as a
hatter, true – surely by your dysfunctional
definition of separate entities doing
business successfully. But you do need to
talk to each other, get roles squared away.

What I wanted to say was, please refrain
from leaving comments on each other’s
verse too easily attributed to your main
persona; I’d rather pithy observations
placed there weren’t plainly by
the same blinkered eyes...
© 5 June 2007, I.D. Carswell

One learns that human nature is too easily exploited.
The 'personas' mentioned are commonplace in the
Poem Hunter site - what a waste of effort!

Sweetest Liquors Of The Night

The sound of steady rain relieves
a constant, nagging state – a feeling
of suspension; it started late bringing
sleep as sweet as sugared dreams
and dream we did in pleasant peace.

I am awake, at my feet an old and
trusty friend, a wary dog advanced
in years who’s pleased to sleep inside,
wonders why it isn’t always so, but
frees anxiety to rain’s hypnotic beat.

My mind’s eye sees patient clouds in
blues and greens sweep majestically
over vastness brown and weeping, love
of the singing bringer ekes out smiles
were frowns have creased for weeks;

and in the coming dawn will be a
solemn revelry when sun’s rays seek
early leaves delight, grateful trees
exhaling, breathing deep and easy,
drinking sweetest liquors of the night.
© 6 June 2007, I.D. Carswell

Taking Tea In Avon

Is that a hand of welcome? I guess not,
palm uppermost suggests you want a tip;
I’ll offer you my hand to shake instead,
take a grip on friendship’s hand for free.

Life’s full of expectancy, I’ll grant you one
glimpse without fee, ponder on this cast-iron
certainty – Hell will freeze many times
before you get a tip from me!

You’ll get no tip from me for merely being
who you are, polite for sure, agreeable and
neatly dressed; impressed as I should be a
tip for fancy clothes is truly gross largesse.

A tip for serving me a cup of tea is beggaring
either you work for the emporium or you’re
an agency condemning work opportunities
indicting government employment policy.

Oh, I see, it is because you speak English!
Thank you for that, I wondered what it was.
Quaint, almost Early Modern, around 16th C.
Yes, I recognise Shakespeare; William isn’t it?
© 6 June 2007, I.D. Carswell

Santana Playing In My Ears

Santana playing in my ears – infinity of
thoughtful silences expressed in music
dressed with liquid care to ooze through
barriers; rhythm’s cachet beat impressed
with voices misting through a central
theme, a raw and wailing chord shrieks
warning.

Times I found a solace in the sounds
respite, from noises in the street, the
pound of harried feet, whispered
voices echoed loud, daunting voices
shrouded in a past I never shared, of
vagrant memories, disembodied faces
shouting.

Carlos eases agonies, plays his poetry
of soulful joy, soothing voices croon the
rhythmic tunes I wear to set me free; I
read the lines that sear the blinding air
with light – lines that ring with clarity, it’s
there within this warming sphere I sing
the words and dare to write.
© 6 June 2007, I.D. Carswell

The Tail-End Of Their Conversations

I caught the tail-end of their
conversations, forty or more
as they left roosts in our trees.
They were heading West

for the day’s grazing in pairs,
riding the air with slow, sure
strokes of articulate Black
Cockatoo wings.

Calling their fellows – ‘kee-ow’,
come this way, ‘kee-ow’, come,
follow me; the sombre grey of
a damp-dawn-breaking sky

alive with sinuous silhouettes
animated in a rare display of
beauty. I was pleased to be
there. Just to share, to see.

A magpie chortled goodbye,
reclaimed the empty air, a crow
jeered his sentiment from
a lone perch nearby.
© 7 June 2007, I.D. Carswell

Occasionally I Need To Say

Occasionally
I need to say
I love you in another way –
a love that hides
disguised inside,
hidden from all watchers
eyes.

It is the private
me,
the one you seldom see
but might have glimpsed
in moment’s rare,

Moments of emotion
where we share a luminescence
clear in skies that bind
us by a breathless spell.

You know it well,
you knew it on the very day
we joined our minds
eternally.

I am a slave to Nature’s plan,
joined are we, woman,
man
and out there in the spirit
world my energies
are free to say,
I really,
truly
love you girl...
© 12 June 2007, I.D. Carswell

For Anita - 13 June 2007

Much Less Derived An Artefact

So you think the Nike symbol on
your shirt is less derived an
artefact than that expressed
by swastikas. Fancy that! There
was a time a swastika blessed
kindness back before the birth

of Christ. In some societies it
never lost the claim of good,
but then the Nazi Party came
and turned the symbol to a
use despised with ugly deeds of
inhumanity beyond belief.

There it lies, victim of its own
success, evilness in black and white.
But I digress, there is no way you’d
know what either meant beyond
a visit to a library – much less
fuss on Internet. Thus inoculated

by antiviral antibodies we never see –
‘flu-like symptoms without the full
disease, a virus in the form of truth,
keys that trigger queries in a classic
sense of disbelief, formed outside
our sphere by actions of an algorithm

meant to pare all data to a common
core. And there it dies a nasty death
to unitary consensus. Rather like the
swastika you cannot see a wood for
trees disguised by patent rights allied to
Nike’s pernicious brand of market might.
© 31 May 2007, I.D. Carswell