Time poems
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I Mark Your Courage
© Ivan Donn Carswell
I had no profound feelings of shock or surprise
to those matter-of-fact revelations
which spelled the end of this chapter of your life.
It was, as you put it, too late for recriminations,
and the horrendous realities could be no worse
for having faced them.
The Sentry
© Wilfred Owen
We'd found an old Boche dug-out, and he knew,
And gave us hell, for shell on frantic shell
I cannot let the moment pass
© Ivan Donn Carswell
I cannot let the moment pass without a weary greeting,
or retard the recent past where shadows still are fleeting,
Id sabotage the future by just staring in a mirror
and never let the glimmer pass and try to hold my image fast
Hostel Beach, Oneroa
© Ivan Donn Carswell
The cliff sprang from the sea at end of Hostel Beach,
if the tide was out youd reach a tiny bay beyond
the cape without wet feet, an easy stroll but too effete
for blood as hot as ours. We watched it at full flood;
The Nativity
© William Cowper
Upon my meanness, poverty, and guilt,
The trophy of thy glory shall be built;
My selfdisdain shall be the unshaken base,
And my deformity its fairest grace;
For destitute of good, and rich in ill,
Must be my state and my description still.
Having each of you as friends
© Ivan Donn Carswell
For more than 40 years weve been good friends,
since 1963 in fact, from college where we met
(and managed there to build a strong quartet
of campus friendship which kept those years intact,
Stoves and sunshine
© Eugene Field
Prate, ye who will, of so-called charms you find across the sea-
The land of stoves and sunshine is good enough for me!
I've done the grand for fourteen months in every foreign clime,
And I've learned a heap of learning, but I've shivered all the time;
And the biggest bit of wisdom I've acquired-as I can see-
Is that which teaches that this land's the land of lands for me.
Gimme n F
© Ivan Donn Carswell
Gimme n F the spruiker cried,
gimme a U and crowd near died,
they knew before he came
to, Whatzat spell? Whatzat spell?
Touched my family
© Ivan Donn Carswell
Even from afar came shouts of recognition
joyful voices rang across the years disdained and
faces of our childhood unforgot fit instantly familiar names;
voices still the same despite the extra grey, the extra lines,
Futurelessness
© Ivan Donn Carswell
Time to count the torrid cost of careless words inflicted on
your battered dignity, time to close the ugly face that chanted
out invective foul and shattered amity, time to quell
the fervid rush of feckless wrath which weighs
against the bloodied loss this manic madness brusque
and hot has flung across the face of sanity.
In Time of Revolt
© Rupert Brooke
You say I am your brothers only son.
I know it. And, What of it? I reply.
My hearts resolved. Something must be done.
So shall I curb, so baffle, so suppress
This too avuncular officiousness,
Intolerable consanguinity.
Free from intrusion
© Ivan Donn Carswell
You awaken this time with a welcoming smile, an experience
sublime, not a dream the boner from Hell
has presented itself like a prospect of fate, and reasoned
debate be damned, youll argue its merits later.
For Harry (My College Room-mate who Died)
© Ivan Donn Carswell
He cut his hand and it bled, the flesh
inside was red and the hurt discounted the flood
of red and vibrant blood that pulsed
from the wound. But he was a warrior,
Every Time I laugh Aloud (An Ode to Short People)
© Ivan Donn Carswell
Every time I laugh aloud, who springs to mind but Johnnie Howard?
Cathartic laughter eases stress which Johnnie causes in excess,
so when I hum acerbic lines of Randy Newmans quirky song
dont want no short people round here,
Ekka
© Ivan Donn Carswell
The Ekka institution bares us all, though call it Exhibition, Royal
Queensland Show, its that time of year when you will go in
liberal spirit where the spectacle of fantasies escrow.
Echoes in an empty room
© Ivan Donn Carswell
The strident sounds of silence echo
in a darkened room, a beggars tomb
of emptied space and barrenness, a
shameful waste, a bitter sadness.
Dreams of a lifetime
© Ivan Donn Carswell
Ronald Hi Khong Wong is gone,
sadly he deceased
the commencement of this week.
It wasnt unexpected.
Dont talk to me of War
© Ivan Donn Carswell
Dont talk to me of War or stalk the ground
our fabled soldiers died upon, Im sound
of limb and strong of will, my mind as clear
as when we learnt those gory lessons founded
The Exposed Nest
© Robert Frost
You were forever finding some new play.
So when I saw you down on hands and knees
Dead thoughts of corpses
© Ivan Donn Carswell
The symbols that we use are T shirts of the dead
thoughts of corpses without heads, a rictus
without sound open-mouthed, empty, unbound.
And if you ever write those clichés which incite
my approbation, fuck you, I am not amused.
And if I ever do, then fuck me too.
