Time poems
/ page 649 of 792 /
Your noble reign
© Ivan Donn Carswell
The man whose term we would remember as our longest,
constant serving Head of State, besides the late Sir Robert
Gordon Menzies, turned 67 yesterday. Congratulations John,
youve run a long and torrid race, kept up a frenzied pace
Worthy Places
© Ivan Donn Carswell
There were some worthy places where we could escape,
avoid the heavy weight of living in a densely
peopled space; the first was to the outside loo
(the only loo but where at least the toilet paper
The Death Of Nelson
© Adam Lindsay Gordon
'TWAS midst the battle's echoing din
And the cannon's thundering roar,
When We Were Young
© Ivan Donn Carswell
As a child I played in the same frosty fields
barefoot as my no lesser loved classmates,
whom we challenged to show courage in the numbing cold,
then together we held our chilled fingers over the roaring stove
that warmed our prefabricated, asbestos-sided classroom.
When I Close My Eyes
© Ivan Donn Carswell
When I close my eyes I cannot reconstruct your face
but the three-dimensional solidity or you
bursts through the tissues of my skin,
transmogrified by a tactile binary fusion.
What does it take?
© Ivan Donn Carswell
Is the current rate of global warming
a serious and cogent warning?
Do we need to think about the fact
that higher tides will drown Pacific island states
What a weekend
© Ivan Donn Carswell
What a weekend, it certainly defied all the pundits trends,
the World Game French were trashed by Versace and petulance,
the Wallabies by a graphic haka, while Wimbledon saw the Amazons
revenge and Switzerlands answer was Roger Federer in eminence.
We reflect this day on the essence of intimacy
© Ivan Donn Carswell
We reflect this day on the essence of intimacy,
from its origins in the spring-tide of youth
to an afterward secured in distant mist
in awe for the reason and to what end it endures.
Water Babes
© Ivan Donn Carswell
We were water babes, born in the arms of a sparkling brook
that patiently took us into its heart. At the very start we
were never far from its shingly banks, playing amid ranks
of serried wildflowers. When one of us all but drowned
Uncommon common sense
© Ivan Donn Carswell
The other day I listened to a man on the radio
who made uncommon common sense, specially since
it was an interview on ABCs noon talk-back show.
He was a Professor, of what I hadnt heard,
Travelling on the thumb
© Ivan Donn Carswell
Travelling on the thumb, it wasnt hard to do, you took
the rides that you could get with no regrets let shrinkage
in the mileage to your goal provide your measures of success,
strode the grassy verges thumb erect and cursed the surly
Olney Hymn 66: I Will Praise The Lord At All Times
© William Cowper
Winter has a joy for me,
While the Saviour's charms I read,
Lowly, meek, from blemish free,
In the snowdrop's pensive head.
Tools for life
© Ivan Donn Carswell
Has life ever dumped you in a heap?
Perhaps youve found self belief so strongly
reinforcing that doubt never enters it,
nor divorces you from your own reality.
To keep the ambience alive
© Ivan Donn Carswell
When you thanked me for the day I felt ashamed,
I couldnt say it wasnt much because it was for you,
I had enjoyed it too although it was another day
like any other day weve had before in our association.
To Henrietta Lyn
© Ivan Donn Carswell
We're going to miss you little girl, you leave an aching space
way out of all proportion to your size. Tomorrow we must face the day
without your lavish greeting - without your urgent bark to wake us up
and say, "Let me out of here, the sun is up, I want to play."
Time to play
© Ivan Donn Carswell
It is a pristine page, clean on the blue screen
where I compose, I dont expect it to stay that way
as words glow from blunt, abused fingers, as insistent
sounds in my head translate into sentence structures,
Tickets to the game
© Ivan Donn Carswell
I asked my Dad about the War when I was very young,
he said it happened a long, long time ago
and a long, long way away, he seemed a little vague
on the subject so I relented, I thought he hadnt attended.
Thought it was America
© Ivan Donn Carswell
Is there anything which isnt made in China?
The answer is
of course there is, the question
was rhetorical, a crude attempt to palliate
Chinas late renaissance; eighty years ago youd say
that nothing was or nothing much that
mattered was, and still been wrong.
Malcolm's Katie: A Love Story - Part II.
© Isabella Valancy Crawford
O, Love builds on the azure sea,
And Love builds on the golden sand;
And Love builds on the rose-wing'd cloud,
And sometimes Love builds on the land.
Thinking of an Afterlife
© Ivan Donn Carswell
When was the beginning,
in the fertilising, in the flower,
or was it deeper,
in the earth beneath?
