All Poems
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Dead mans clothes
© Ivan Donn Carswell
Growing up, I propose,
is like wearing a dead mans clothes.
Death has a way of levelling the ground.
I have found the closer your relationship
Days of the slow roll
© Ivan Donn Carswell
It was the days of the slow roll,
times when we dextrously dressed
our hand-rolled cigarettes
with a dearth of fine-cut tobacco,
Crying to be written
© Ivan Donn Carswell
Dawn has reached the ridges to the north and a thin
line of light chased the night west; it is the best
time of day for me a cup of coffee, Benson & Scud
pretending to sleep in their baskets at my feet,
Courage is a motherless lamb
© Ivan Donn Carswell
For a small child crossing the pen alone was a courageous feat,
occasionally, with a maniacal bleat, the wether would burst from cover
and butt whomever graced his yard. He meant it in fun, something
he had done since his bottle-fed youth, he knew no other form of greeting.
Consciousness Of Our Return
© Ivan Donn Carswell
Night's grating of steel on stone and splash
of water crashing from the buckets
brings back that moment in a flash;
the night burnt bright in limb's caress
and flesh yielding flesh in passions
blessed by sealed lips.
Congratulations
© Ivan Donn Carswell
Congratulations, youve succeeded,
youve acknowledged 60% of you at least
are the incredibly dense and mindless people
needed to make sense of incomprehensible
Good Night
© Jane Taylor
Little baby, lay your head
On your pretty cradle-bed;
Shut your eye-peeps, now the day
And the light are gone away;
All the clothes are tucked in tight;
Little baby dear, good night.
Colours in lamplight
© Ivan Donn Carswell
Colours in lamplight are previews,
scarcely eschewed as wave-length turbulence
tuned to closeness and friendship.
Colours in firelight are skin-warmed
In Imitation of E. of Rochester : On Silence
© Alexander Pope
I.
Silence! coeval with Eternity;
Thou wert, ere Nature's-self began to be,
'Twas one vast Nothing, all, and all slept fast in thee.
Clouded dreams
© Ivan Donn Carswell
Tonight Ill dream of stratus clouds and gentle rain
to drench the shroud that binds the earth in powdered
dust, rising in asthmatic puffs about our dusty feet;
and sleep I will with cirrus wings to soar above
the earthy things that strive to snare my clouded dreams.
© I.D. Carswell
In A Lonesome Burial-Place
© Mathilde Blind
In a lonesome burial-place
Crouched a mourner white of face;
Wild her eyes-unheeding
Circling pomp of night and day-
Ever crying, "Well away,
Love lies a-bleeding!"
Prayer XXIII
© Khalil Gibran
Then a priestess said, "Speak to us of Prayer."
And he answered, saying:
You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.
Cherry bomb
© Ivan Donn Carswell
I said goodbye and went to bed to die;
I never knew that they had lied was quite
surprised they didnt seem to care, I agonised,
refused to cry although in time the tears
To A Pair Of Gloves
© Margaret Elizabeth Sangster
Jus' a little pair o' gloves,
Sorter thin an' worn;
Carbonara eyes
© Ivan Donn Carswell
Nicky said I couldnt write, shes got a charming
sense of social etiquette given shes a bitch
(the canine sort, cant spell for shit or even write
a word) but then she has the most expressive eyes.
The New Year
© George MacDonald
Be welcome, year! with corn and sickle come;
Make poor the body, but make rich the heart:
What man that bears his sheaves, gold-nodding, home,
Will heed the paint rubbed from his groaning cart!
Cappuccino smile
© Ivan Donn Carswell
Ah, the aromas of that conversation,
the brimming, cappuccino smile
swirled in chocolate rich and cinnamoned,
the gentle coffee curlicues interlaced
Faustus And Helen
© Arthur Symons
HELEN
Have I slept long? You waken me from sleep.
I have forgotten something: what is it?
