Echoes In An Empty Room (rev)

The strident sounds of silence echo
in a darkened room, a beggar’s tomb
of emptied space and barrenness, a
shameful waste – a bitter sadness.

It violates all sense of reason, strips
aside all causal meaning bound inside
encasing wraps that insulate the tap
of time, clings to surfaces debased.

Rhyme of sleep declaims a dark illusion,
deep confusion drains into the random
spaces interspersed beneath the sheets,
the crumbling breath of gentle death.

In sweeting dreams a nothingness that
firms to trap the feeble feet, arrests the
weakened limbs and wraps what lies a-
floor abandoned in this wretched tomb.

Echoes in an empty room embalm you
in a plaster cast; you laugh aghast until
the dawn, jeer and cry, clap for more,
call encore with reverent voice.

And lie alert alone at night listening for
the closing door that ever shuts you out,
defying sound in deafness bound before
your pleasure’s sense was bought in

gentle arms you’d dearly die for.
© 21 August 2006, I.D. Carswell

What Is Yet To Come

I prefer to write
than read poetry
enlightenment is rare
time spent wondering what
was meant is energy wasted
sensitivity dissipated 

it’s not about lacking empathy
I care to read but I’m rarely able
to grasp those cryptic terms
expressing things I wouldn’t
have said that way
anyway 

I imagine you listening
– a quizzical look, nodding
occasionally and drifting
visibly between lines, your eyes
lost to intangible distances
and I despair it is me 

we have to reconnect
to where we were somehow
to know it is right I need
to feel a jolt of return energy
that a circuit is complete
but I cannot find it there 

I must hear the inner voice
vocalising wonderment of birth
in each new word’s creation
relaxing and flowing into a verse
listening with a sixth sense tuned
to what is yet to come
© 3 August 2008, I. D. Carswell

Day-After Blues

How easily events conspire to weigh
the spirit down when loosed to empty space;
the negative assumes a pride of place
and takes a power in curbing dour dismay.
The great success of evening crowns a day
where doubt redressed itself less incident,
without the hollow shout that booms intent
where buoyant spirits met in field of play.
Yet even as this day unfolds the blight
despairs in weary eyes turned from the light,
shrinks sweet resolve from yesterday’s delight.
Our hearts and minds are lost to barrenness
which bears no clear resemblance to the best
of times we shared in fleeting happiness.
© 6 August 2008, I. D. Carswell

Wouldn’t Get My Money Back

pathetic thing is
arrangements were made
in good faith and I
rashly disappeared...

exactly like paying a fare –
or personal insurance for
funeral expenses then failing
to turn up for the event

could easily understand
executors diverting the funds
elsewhere – if ever
they could agree

the dilemma remains in check;
I’d rather not turn up dead –
but I wouldn’t get my money
back either way
© 30 July 2008, I. D. Carswell

Whole Grain

you know conversations about the
crumb of a whole wheat loaf don’t
usually rise to great esoteric heights –
although it is satisfying knowing at
least someone else sees the beauty

the recipe makes a good reputation
safe – wholegrain flour produced the
old way steeped patiently before the
knead enhances hidden tastes in a
way you would never believe

we’ll take a freshly baked loaf with us
as a gift when we go visit today – we
are not moved religiously nor seek
compliments for the feast – but it is
a folksy way of saying we love you
© 30 July 2008, I. D. Carswell

Hidden Dangers (rev)

Which things excited you the most
when you were young, can you recall
the pleasures they would bring? Indulge
yourself, dispose your mind of daily
care and take the plunge – but beware,
there’s hidden dangers here.

Have you ever sucked your thumb?
And if you did would you admit you did?
Did you ever lick your plate, masturbate,
cogitate an evil fate for siblings who
offended you. You know you do, or that
you did, although you’re no recidivist.

Were you ever lost in song, sang along
in perfect harmony in what you thought
was sweet accord, to find indulgent faces
soon disgraced, distorted as in pain,
derisive claims you sing off-key?

Ever take a book to heart and read it
end to end, delighting in the hero’s part,
falling for the heroine? Were you lost for
days and days in roles they played, amazed
real life declines romantic endings?

Did you chose to be approved so that you
could chase your dreams? Do you wake
alone at night wondering where the story
ends and life begins? Are you real or just a
dream – or is this what your fiction seems?
© 2006, I.D. Carswell

Strawberries Again Today (rev)

The berries wreak an awesome spell that
some should dread; others, weak and
soulless, must succumb - they treasure
with their eyes the plump and soulful fruit,
its shape inspires a heady heart that beats
aright as if in love; and love it is that drives
the buds described strawberry red.

You treasure with the tongue, suck the
juice august and pure and thus are done.

The journey back to reason stings with barbs
that cling in shadowed shame of juices in the
blood and blushing on the skin - tightness in
the chest, the crème you swear has done you
harm, you’d best pass up dessert today.

But reason begs you to delay, to wait until
the season ends. And so, dear friend -
strawberries again today.
© 2006, I.D. Carswell

Joys Of The Chase (rev)

Colours fade in nameless
shades of gray and where
the tonsure of bas-relief
stands crudely effete –
symbolism degrades
into semantic
meaninglessness.

The artifacts
of an old existence
deny you humanity
but you don’t recognise
them anyway, they
are not bound to objects
of power which belay
access to reason.

In this flat world of
monochrome un-ambiguity
and ceaseless movement
you hear in a spectrum
of sound that defies
tympanic sympathy, sounds
you feel in your teeth and in the
hair that covers your lean shanks
and in the scents
that surround you.

You move in a world
of here and now, where
yesterday was a stomach full
and tomorrow is an extension
of your hunger for
tastes and sounds
and joys of the chase.
© 2006, I.D. Carswell

Still Hear The Waves (rev)

It was a brave day under an endlessly
clear sky that extended from forever in
our valley to the unfathomably distant
sea. It was a day to remember amongst
days of classical splendour, from an
unoccupied beach and the virgin sand crisp
and crumbling under flying feet, to the
tumbling vastness of twinkling ocean
lying invitingly within our reach.

We shrilled in the whip of the wind that
blew into the bay, growled with the clap
and crash of waves always in motion, waded
and splashed in an unnamed ocean, fell in
pools filled with wallowing froth, coughed
and laughed in wavelets and troughs shouting
defiance ‘til stopped by cold.

And when the sand chafed beneath our trunks
and the salt sea dried to crystals of coarse rime
on our reddened skin we still ran. Do you
remember it then, do you remember how that
day would never end? Though there are years
between now and then I can still see the sand
and the twinkling sea in the nameless bay, 
 
still hear the waves.
© 2005, I.D. Carswell

Azaria Found!

The headline read ‘the dingo’s got my baby’;
Needless to explain I didn’t read the article –
it reeked of puerile adolescence in a way that
claimed too loudly of the depths to which this
rubbish journalism sinks. A ‘please explain’
why Aussie culture’s dead and readers only
read the words of single syllables they boldly
caption in Brisbane’s ‘The Sunday Mail’.

Baby Azaria Chamberlain was indeed a victim
of a dingo pack; it took eight years to prove
the prosecution erred as did the Media whose
bias slewed the views of jurors back in 1982.
The tragedy was greater than a simple ‘please
explain’ could ever ease – now dumb shits like
Jim Tucker, journalist, use equally bad-taste
epithets reporting victory in a rugby test!

His joke that dingoes took the Kiwi coach who
framed the victory smacks of gaucherie which
far exceeds his writing wit – supposedly a jibe
about the All Black team who lost to Wallabies
with praise for ex-All Black Cantabrian, Robbie
‘Dingo’ Deans who coaches them. That in itself
amuses me, with zombie’s brain-dead laughter
being journalistic plaudits that he’s duly earned!
© 28 July 2008, I. D. Carswell

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24082736-5003411,00.html

Ancient Avarice

does it make any less sense to stay
trapped in the mesh of needlessly
perpetual and specious argument
weighing meeker choices against
counter-claims serves only to maintain
what already IS – and is a no-win game

your claim is that no array of self-evident
and better conclusions spawned today
will gratuitously pay the workers’ wages
as if that has ever been a limiting anxiety
– or ever will be a real consideration unless
repugnant profits are still to be made

I am sure that you know change is not a sign
of broken faith nor must one necessarily seek
new allies to address future concerns
today’s distress sanctifies meanness
of spirit not Malthusian prophecies
set in motion by ancient avarice
© 28 July 2008, I. D. Carswell

Massacre Aide

fancy
trash posing
contumaciously
as poetry alongside
the real thing

an unconscionably
conceited synonym
for grievous bodily harm
one might be
tempted to think

yet perpetrators are praised – heaven forbid
for braving an august and austere
establishment
risking ridicule
by saying something poetically

it isn’t always the case
they succeed

but writing that formulates a concentrated
imaginative awareness of experience
in language chosen and arranged to create
a specific emotional response
through meaning, sound, and rhythm
usually makes the grade

– listen, you don’t need to know
the definition to write
good poetry
but you do
need ears to see
what I mean
© 1 August 2008, I. D. Carswell

Random Esteem

what would you pay for a scam
to lift you off the back page of
anonymity – boldly launch you
into life as a poetic celebrity?

the fee’s lame-duck-ass integrity
in tatters – meaningless as the
random IP addresses appraising
a wholly imagined faux esteem

amazingly numbers seem more
meaningful to your peers than
words written; be that as it may –
who actually reads them anyway?
© 4 October 2008, I. D. Carswell

Saturday Morning

Saturday morning after a wet
week despair-wretched
sunrise commences repair
of magnanimity dressed in a
sheer smile and a chorus of
comforting birdsong

there is no retreat into last
week’s expedient illness
no wagging the censorious
exhortations to rise above and
bear a weekend’s ill favour like
a man whose duty weighs

there is only the sun’s clear call
in a bright blue of amnesty and
the raucous jeers of tree-proud
crows parochially venting good
humour in their gutturally
regional accents
© 26 July 2008, I. D. Carswell

Joining The Crowd

Clearly the one thing that you belong to 
says she is the exclusivity of being you 
– but of course you don’t see it that way 

I belong to the Team says he defensively 
I am a Team man through and through 
– and be assured, I’ve come to play 

in your dreams says she – a Team of 
one whose game is to too obscure 
to draw a crowd of more than you 

surprised he asks whose is this unkind 
view – must I aspire to your good Team 
in colours, word and deed to earn true blue 

that’s up to you she says – chose any Team
or game or rules or who you heckle out aloud
but first you have to join the Crowd

that’s right, the crowd, the mob or throng –
a riot if you will but go along willingly with
the mores and attitudes pertaining thereto 

outrageous says he – and I must protest 
it chills the essence of the man, explaining 
essentially what it means to be Australian

© 27 September 2008, I. D. Carswell

A Catchy Phrase (rev)

It was called Farm Fantastic, a catchy phrase,
and potentially a day’s wasted sweat. Even
after the event I can’t say it wasn’t, and I’m
kind of glad we went, for better or worse,
to see if it was.

Actually, I went because my Better had
prefaced a day away from the farm, her
invites are harmlessly issued, but rare.
Whilst getting there was a torrid affair,
driving home I said sincerely, you know
it really wasn’t wholly wasted, sure I’m
still short on ideas, learned nothing new.

The displayed machinery was all old
hat, I inspected a tractor (or two),
priced a few dreams, bought some
woollen socks, watched alpacas and
llamas disport themselves in the ring,
tasted some wine – the sauvignon blanc
was barely drinkable, talked to some
friends and was comfortably taken aback
when my Better said, Okay, let’s go.

Maybe I learned something new after all,
not to presume I couldn’t enjoy a day at
the fair, agricultural show, farm fantastic,
whatever…
© 2006, I.D. Carswell

Piscine Kind Of Kinship (rev)

To glibly say that Joe was sort of odd
quite missed the point. Peculiar may have
been applied quite easily – and kind of weird,
I would have been afraid of him were I a child
(if I ever was a meek and mild retiring kid),
avoiding him as if the plague.

But he was good to Mutti, and that
Mutti was so good to me was cause
enough to bear his eccentricity.

He taught me how to fish; oh, a
blissful art it is, and just as Art exists
beyond relationships we were not friends,
instead we shared a piscine kind of kinship,
a sensitivity in which we learned to tie the
special flies that fished with great success
in streams around his home;

we blended with the river banks, cast
our lines in rhythmic, trance-like ballet dance
that looped and swirled in gently rippled peace,
rarely spoke, we had no need,
we always knew which piece of water each
of us disposed.

We drove the many miles to fabled Lakes
and fished in legendary tarns and breaks,
watched each other’s backs in places
anglers have a wont to go.

On the river I would know within
an inch where Joe would be, studied
his impressive ease of cast, his reach,
retrieve, the placing of the fly, the
gentle rise of rod to set the hook;

it took me many years to even part
achieve his awesome symmetry. I
should, with true humility, mention
I was never near as good.
© 2005, I.D. Carswell

Mein Host

What are you going
to sell me today?
I am from the first waking
moment an empty vessel
poised, eager, waiting
for your dulcet tones
to penetrate – though,
mind you, not listening
specifically, cued attentive
to background tones.

Distorted voices on
the telephone fuel an
ethereal debate that flows
with synergies you seem
to conjure from a hat.
I would argue if I could
with that – the speakers
seem a waste of weird,
no-one takes relenting
views on radio.

But I’m too full of news
which sates my needs –
overfed and bleeding from
your morning show. I know
you will remind me of my
duties as a citizen; no
way you’ll let me play a
dilettante with views
on issues of the day –
other than your own.
© 24 July 2008, I. D. Carswell

Yesterday’s News

it is a bit like yesterday’s news
an excursion into territory where
though familiar things seem a bit
distorted by what is next to them

events that don’t have starts and
ends; where everything progresses
fluidly and you assume reasonably
even when you are not there

you suppose a continuum that goes
on around a bend and into a future
where what is foreordained comes
into being precisely as expected

but everything stops when you turn
your back – you really never notice
because you’re there; when you’re
not - garden gnomes rule the World
© 25 July 2008, I. D. Carswell

If It Ever Bloody Rains (rev)

I never said I would,
I only said I could do
what you wished,
a subtle inference
that should
have raised a cautious flag;

maybe I bragged out loud,
made it sound as
if it was intent,
I never meant to make
it seem that way.

So today I wear your
brittle animosity –
just out of curiosity,
how do you manage that?

It smacks me to the core,
though I’ve felt it thus
before I’ve never managed yet
to live at ease with towering
dread that’s leaden
in your steely, silent gaze.

I suppose my only road
is plea of raw insanity,
I’m bruised and battered
from a false belief that rain
would fall and give relief,
that you would see
the consequence of acting
out too soon.

I should tilt the moon,
I knew you’d never fall for that.
Alright, I’ll clean the goddamn
drains; God forbid, if it ever
bloody rains I’ll take the chance
and also dance
a naked jig.
© July 2006, I.D. Carswell