Subjective, Strange Way [Rev]

Guess who’s been told to butt out - & guess who’s
been told to cease talking & hold her peace - moi -
of course - I’m the one banned from verbalising in
our little family overseen by regulated, organised,
official Scorpio; STOP, he cries over and over as I
try communicating my concern about the Duchess,

My twin sister: you are NOT allowed to influence or
derail OUR perfect New Year’s Party - we’re happy,
perfectly satisfied with life - your twin WILL NOT be
permitted any influence on our delight with the end
of 2016 - & I turn away, write down my feelings; my
comfort & happiness depends on Scorpio’s mood

So I shall desist; no more telling the world how I feel,
no more expressing the concerns about My Duchess
since my Scorpio wants to feel so carefree & to heck
with anybody else, especially my family - I accept it
because without rules I’d make a sacrifice to my

Past, a youth in a loveless house; at least Scorpio’s
loving in his own, very subjective, strange way

A Boyish Rogue [R]

When switching from one language to another I
become a different person, in my mother tongue
a boyish rogue like my irrepressible dad - as for
English I’m restrained like my mama, in French
an ebullient, outgoing extrovert feeling helpful &
righteous, in German a boisterous, noisy singer of

Quatschlieder, while Latin hymns makes me into
a devout seeker of the symbolism of the Divine –
actually I’m multi-dimensional in Afrikaans since
the lullabies mama sang, the stories dad told and
my childhood dreams of becoming all-knowing &
wise, were formed in the tongue of my birth…

Confronted with an exquisite friend who’d increased
in dainty sophistication with the years & who sounds
even more adorable over the telephone; I just backed
out, not able to recapture my previous role of learned
researcher in various languages & philosophy -as I’m
now a lilac humanoid stomping around -and laughing

With my son when he calls right-wing colleagues kinky,
I can’t pursue dignity, sitting in the kitchen with a beach
umbrella to keep the sun away from the sliding doors; -
like a Golem with a sacred Chem in her head - or rather
resembling a purple mermaid with a strange tendency to
change into Quasimodo when confronted with anything

Fragile & delicate beyond my reach though it’s the epitome
of my desire: my exquisite regal friend can depend on me as
a loyal subject without my competing her coterie of dignified
underlings & since the little alien in my head now feels safe
from any pressure to pay my respects in person, I celebrate

My decision with coffee - and washing dishes in the crystal
bubbles rising from pristine white, soapy foam…

So Would We [R]

Although it’s drizzling this mermaid keeps swimming,
always choosing a different outfit to wear afterwards;
the new red kaftan - awful; red & black top - so bleak;
the butterfly top - clean, zebra stripes - boring, a blue
forget-me-not top; trying to change herself with every
change of clothes: now the mermaid’s wearing a lilac
dress that makes her feel like an oversize fairy fallen
from the sky, seeing Dynamo the Magician changed
her a little bit, renewing old belief in a universe that’s
infinite where natural & supernatural is the same: the
only part of existence where boredom enters is human
feeling, if we were allowed to retain our love of life and
belief in joy with which we are born, we would live in a
different world where perspective would be free from
all coercion - and naturally - so would we…

My Own Shell

Finally I accept the Agony Aunt’s advice about the
communication problem: “If a husband contradicts
everything you say, it means YOU are wrong and
should stop talking” and since Scorpio contradicts
my every opinion and theory on principle, and the
sting of his negative replies makes me feel bad -

Keeping quiet will be easier, it seems a successful
relationship between “Alice in Wonderland” & an
Absolute Scorpion Monarch in his own Universe,
implies that Alice has to find her Astrogenetic sign
& act accordingly: my sign is Cancer, retreating into
my shell is one way to find my own happiness -

I shall quietly rest within my own shell and play at
being a mermaid in the pool when it stops raining,
maybe I can become an oyster and start covering
Scorpio's irritating verbal sand with all the wisdom
of quiet reflection until several beautiful pearls are
formed - thus solitude can lead to my creating

My own strings of mental bio-luminescence and I
shall delight in MY own universe deep within my
own protective and aesthetically pleasing shell…

[Saturday 24 December 2016, South Africa]

Mermaid Thoughts

I’m a mermaid alone crashing through the depths
of the open seas, sinking into the abyss to watch
the strange creatures there, then back to the ocean’s
surface, swimming with long strokes far beyond the
breakers on the reefs - as shape-shifter I get up to
walk on the beach and lie down under my favourite
fir tree where the North Wind, a great friend, sighs
his message through the needles and other trees

Leaves - I enter my cave to erect my own bulwarks
against the sun’s merciless heat with a big gift bag,
towel and beach umbrella - everything in blue-green
within the turquoise sheen of the blinds, I already
have fruit cake to celebrate Christmas within the
beautiful Miracle-Play symbolism constructed by
consciousness – currently I think consciousness
is a unit of many different electric cables conducting

Energy; after leaving the signal box of a physical body
turned into a corpse, the electric energy particles flow
into new cables which weave themselves into beings
as eternally continuing individuals which form part of
the virtual reality within an indestructible hologram
always creating new patterns and designs forever –
at this point in my musings I decide to look for my
Scorpio who would be strutting his stuff in his own

Virtual universe which affords all kinds of thoughts
and amusement when I visit him…

Alice And Duchess [Rev]

A lost drunk, My Duchess declared the Lord and Master
of the Crocodile Castle, while HE divulged she was the
deluded wreck of a failed interior decorator; the Queen
of Hearts deigned them out of existence, while Conan -
the reformed Barbarian - said they were both irrelevant
given the hungry people forced to steal from his freezer
on the outside patio - and then Conan -

My dad lurched off to his room and my Duchess played
a keyboard with human wraiths wailing their lives away
while the Queen & I, Alice in Wonderland, couldn’t hold
a conversation given the level of noise; we went to the
Duchess’ Castle where I found the bed so soft I had to
sleep on the floor; - next day the Duchess drove me to
see the Queen in her liturgical phaeton

Where she again played those wailing voices, and when
Alice got home Scorpio said the Duchess’ largesse didn’t
impress him; my sis - Alice observed, is extremely remiss
in good manners - she ruined all conversation with those
wailing electronic banshees on the Queen’s keyboard; &
Alice didn’t know what to think: was she hearing the song
of the crying Gryphon

Or the irrational anger of the Duchess upon discovering
that the Duke kept her changeling child’s wedding plans
a secret, she didn’t know it was on public show; whatever
the cause, while Alice is sad for the Duchess who has to
live with a Wayward Duke, the Duchess laments on Alice
having to live with a Scorpion - preferring the honest

Scorpion to a brilliant, though fractious, Duke…

Larrikeet

We’ve a brightly coloured bunch of utter larrikins 

who share our space, they’re chatty & amenable 

on most occasions when we’re face to face - tho 

give ‘em room to spread their wings and bare an 

eccentricity or three, and there you see what’s in 

a Lorii bag th’ Rainbow Lorikeet declares; & yep, 

beware, they don’t pretend ‘consensual’ sharing 

other species grain acclaims their fey largesse 

So we’ve renamed them Larrikeets - it fits a tee 

they use to bend the way our rules apply, seats 

their aptly greedy dominance where truth is not 

denied, tells quickly how th’ other species wryly 

make adaptions to the way that they relate with 

we - who are the ones who shared them grain 

© 19 December 2016, I. D. Carswell