Ideas I Love [Footnotes]

Emulating the lives of reformers is a doomed,
dead-end project, can’t meet requirements to
become altruistic, dreaming’s my thing, while
political meetings and making speeches isn’t

Paralysed by feelings of incompetence, trying to let go
of fantasy to be realistic all the time to focus on worth-
while goals changed life into a desert of shame and
guilt and uncertainty, seeking for meaning

Since all attempts at being a better housewife and
cook and worker led to my losing the one thing in
which I used to excel: sharing feeling conveyed in
the expressions of those who dream

No more living in a dream world where everything
is symbolic of higher meaning and stories, such as
allegories and parables - living like an automaton,
a weak imitation of someone else; failed

But when I read everybody has a unique life tailor-
made for them - no-one can take over another’s role
and even when sleeping and dreaming, we are busy
making unique spiritual journeys -

I returned to my own fantasy land and felt the joy of
a homecoming to myself, delighted by the symbolism
of crystal containers reflecting the sun like silvery
ice-castles with reigning snow queens

Where tableaus of dream characters fill the spaces in a
holographic world and the universe is a magnificent
multi-faceted jewel without space and time, living
in an infinite now which never stays the same

THIS I can do: trying to describe the warmth and love
engendered by vibrations creating colourful shapes and
rhythmic sounds - or the pain and suffering caused 
by the inability to feel the events we cause

Let me meditate on ideas I love, images of humanity
within magnificent environments with a variety of
superimposed worlds  - always reaching out to and
strengthening each other

[30 January 2014]

[Footnotes to explain the shorter poem, "A Tailor-Made Life"]

A Tailor-Made Life

Everyone has a unique tailor-made life, no-one can take over
another’s role, even sleeping and dreaming, we are making
unique spiritual journeys – I love my own fantasy land with
the symbolism of crystal containers reflecting the sun like
silver-shining ice-castles with live-in snow queens

My dream characters frozen in tableaus, filling the holes of
our world which resembles a jewel without space and time,
live in an infinite now which never stays the same. I shall
try to describe the warmth and love of colours and sounds
and the pain of our inability to feel the events we cause

Let me meditate on ideas I love, images of humanity living
in superimposed worlds – always reaching out to and
strengthening one another

[30 January 2014]

Amazing Geometry (REVISED)

An amplituhedron provides proof - time & space
are illusions known by Indian religion & Western
spiritualists. Instead of farraginous computations,
an amplituhedron’s geometry constitutes perfect
replacement of a myriad Feynman diagrams

The form of A beautiful multi-faceted jewel tells
scientists all about reality - everything they find
corroborates occult theories of ages - delightful
to follow scientists’ arduous enlightenment, it’s
towards discovering that reality looks like

 

A multi-faceted jewel - the dispersing particles
follow paths creating marvellous phenomena
and humans are privileged to exist within this
amazing geometry

29 January 2014

 

[ORIGINAL:]

Now an amplituhedron provides proof - time
and space are just illusion as known by Indian
religion & Western spiritualists, instead of a
manifold computations, the geometry of an
amplituhedron constitutes perfect replacement
of a myriad Feynman diagrams

 

The form of a beautiful multi-faceted jewel tells
scientists all about reality - everything they find
corroborates the occult theories of ages - how
delightful to follow scientists on their arduous
way towards enlightenment, discovering reality
looks like a multi-faceted jewel -

 

The dispersing particles follow paths that create
a marvelous phenomenon and humans are so
privileged to exist within such amazing geometry

 

29 January 2014

A Parallel Reality

Nothing wrong with reality, yet living in the
perspective of a pre-defined inter-subjective
world-view is boring and lonely and empty,
nothing fills the enormous gaps in-between
objects and events, realism does not work
for me, I dug up a book introduced by Ram
Dass and written by Stanton and Rodegast

Started weaving the unreal strands of a very
personal subjective world behind the smoke
screen of the one we share and enjoyed the
scene created by my characters who never
lived or existed, looked at the population of
imaginary people found in books who all fit
in perfectly and sighed in the happiness of

Familiarity, the emptiness in between the
solid blocks of general awareness is filling
in and the unreal strands of fantasy creates
a parallel universe sanctified by quantum
physics which states that whatever we
can imagine - has the right to exist!

29 January 2014

A Tango Of Intrigue [Second Draft]

Nelson Mandela  erudite, refined and charismatic,
threatening the propaganda image of rural black
people without learning, Western powers realised
he’s the ideal pawn to bring into play while forced
to give up apartheid losing South Africa to the
Marxists, discussions revealed a reconciliation
theory which seemed like a fairy tale, a miracle
too good to be true

When released Mandela entered politics, aura and
halo lighting up the scene, in wonderment we all
watched as he grew in stature turning into the Prince
of Peace, with his faith in goodness he infused belief
in magic, pulling the strings in puppet politics, those
behind the scene were speechless, a man who passed
through a furnace of painful incarceration and
endless sacrifice, emerged

As Saviour of the lost tribes of Africa, freeing all in one
mighty stride, not allowing tribal rivalries to derail his
policies – I’m gushing and so it will be when I’m talking
of Nelson Mandela who saved us before we even knew
that the gates of hell were opening to swallow us whole
- created a fairy tale of a handsome prince, not only
fighting the dragon of racialism, but saving the
sleepwalking nation with a kiss

The selfish court awakened and started a dance of
negotiation creating bewildering steps of compromise
and reconciliation, a tango of political intrigue so
intricate that we seem unable to master the steps
and continue the dance now Mandela is gone –
but the adoring public remembers, South Africa’s
citizens dancing in freedom, jumping high and
shouting holding our arms

Like the bow of a ship, kicking high in the gum-
boot dance with determined set-of-the-chin
to a music played from tomorrow…

[Marilese 23 January 2014]

Psychopath Of Indiscriminate Noise

Breaking into the silence like pistol shots she
explodes her jo-jo, hey, jo, then the machine
gun fire as rapid syllables bubbles forth like a
wave breaking on the hallowed silence of the
translation beach, making a mockery of our
whispered conversations to respect the right
of others to think as they try to decipher the
opaque words of our fellow journeymen on
the road to accomplishment –

I switch on a loud march with André Rieu
shouting an irreverent hallo and informing
the Maastrichters how glad he is to be home –
and his three tenors singing the Chianti Lied
everyone individually so that the voices over-
lap and irritate the ear, my concentration is
broken and I start to calculate how long to wait
before tackling the white chocolate that will
cause double vision and

Take me nearer to the grave, as Nessun Dorma
is belted out in uneven harmony I wish for release
from the agitation caused by my colleague’s lack
of consideration - rather short-term release of pain
than spending my last days in jail for murdering this
psychopath of indiscriminate noise in the office

[23 January 2014]
[Nessun Dorma - from Turandot by Puccini]

 

Time To Play

It is a pristine page, clean on the blue screen 

where I compose, I don’t expect it to stay that way 

as words glow from blunt, abused fingers, as insistent 

sounds in my head translate into sentence structures, 

as lips articulate the rhythms and the sounds of the 

jumbled lexis as swiftly as I can unleash them. I couldn’t know 

what might emerge tonight, I only knew the gripping tightness 

in my mind and the pressure, the indecent urge to express 

and let the dammed words flow. 

It isn’t always this way, there are times when I know 

within a line or two what I must write, like when some event 

has incited raw passion or wrenched me from my feet 

or I have staggered unbalanced from fright or fear, despairing 

its sheer effrontery, beaten and contrite. But not tonight. 

Tonight I am free to roam in the growing fields and taste 

whatever delights are imagined, to follow the whim of the wind 

and the random flights of thistledown inviting my errant 

delinquency – to go with the flow.

If I had known poetry could do this for me I’d have 

surrendered a long time ago, grown fat on the back 

of my promised muse with hair sleek and long to the waist, 

wearing kaftans with no shoes, speaking in tones. 

As it goes I have time to play without haste the games 

that engage me most, write when the urge makes havoc 

with good intent, dispense with guilt-management and 

stress, lend common-sense enough rope to tether itself 

beyond hope of poetic redress.

© 1970, I.D. Carswell

Like Family

Learning to love in the rancid wake of 
integrity lost in the lake of our shallow 
forebears takes more grand character 
than you or I can make easy; both lost 
to the Black Messiah’s modern trials - 
judged and juried falsely - robbed of a 
freedom implied as only relevant to an 
unsanctified ignorance of supremacy 

But there we differed - we saw whole 
events in succession, learned that is 
the lies they told - believed our own 
eyes only and the friends we’d made 
in rainbow resonance concurred free 
of colour or prejudice like family 

© 21 January 2014, I. D. Carswell 

Inspired by Marilese in her 'Devilish Tribe' poem

Devilish Tribe

I need debriefing after reading Mandela’s*
biography, I’m so disappointed in my own
people, the whole artificial made-up history
of Afrikaans-speaking people

Instead of integrity, found prejudice and bigotry,
my heart bleeding for the greatest love in the
heart of a freedom fighter spending his life as a
monk, separated from his love

Always dressed up for him while persecuted by
criminal elements instructed by the unprincipled
people who governed the sleepwalking Afrikaans
nation - so leave me alone

Let me cry as much as I want, tears choking me so
I can’t breathe, I HATE the history of the Afrikaans
Nazi national government in the 20th century, feel
like dying of shame

For being part of this ungodly, evil, devilish tribe…

[20 January 2014 --- Nelson Mandela's
Biography - Long Walk To Freedom]

Things I Want [REVISED]

The first thing’s a lovely
children’s book, I’ll reread
‘Johnny and the Dead’ please,
the second’s a cheap old-
fashioned bicycle, third
the ability to infuse magic
into an ordinary, hot and stifling
world - and I want ice-cold snow

The next is a flowing poem for
inspiration to wake my mind
from hibernation, I want to
create just one dream - anything -
rejuvenate my self-esteem
get me afloat awhile high
above reality in order to

Find fresh new perspectives,
rosy glasses to put a sweet
shine on a stifling world

[17 January 2014]

Eternally [REVISED]

I am evil
as evil as can be
I am turning fifty three
and bad in your eyes
telling my son
no lies

He can come to me
if he is hungry but
my telling him was
the cardinal sin 
according to you
the clever one

Who knows what’s
going on - it is only
me who is stupid not
knowing when to
acknowledge your wisdom
and my idiocy

Oh well, so be it
that is all I have left
this life is empty, only
words and images in
my mind helped
me through

I never found true
reality and that is fine
all we ever retain is
in our memory and according
to yours and mine you
will doubt me eternally…

[16 January 2014]


[ORIGINAL:]

I am evil, as evil as can be, I am turning fifty three,
I am bad in your eyes, telling my son no lies, he can
come to me if he is hungry, but my telling him was
the cardinal sin – according to you, the clever one

Who knows what’s going on – it is only me who is
stupid, not knowing when to acknowledge your
wisdom and my stupidity – oh well, so be it, that
is all I have left – this life is empty

Only words and images in my mind helped me
through – I never found true reality and that is
fine – all we ever retain is in our memory – and
according to yours and mine

You will doubt me eternally…

[16 January 2014]

Due Restitution [REVISED]

Instead of asking why they leave the Dutch Reformed
Church in droves, the question should be why doesn’t
the Church lie down, shrink into shame or die - in that
day & age condoning apartheid politics as well as it’s
inspiration is an abomination - biblically interpreting
self-fabricated gods who can’t survive such atrocities

In Pretoria the Church smugly held Synod after Synod,
a city where Africans were not allowed on sidewalks;
shame of an ugly past can’t be removed - at least let’s
start by changing the name to Tshwane - Africans not
allowed to buy and own a house anywhere, needing a
pass to prove some white person vouched for them

Gave them job and a room - & diminished education:
preparing whole generations for slavery in their own
land - church’s guilt from doing nothing more than
protesting - except an NG church of damned that led
the oppression and thinks a weak apology makes up
for the sins of the past - madness, nothing can make

Due restitution for watching people suppressed until
they’re crushed by regulations; 100 whites only from
the Congress of Democrats (COD) went to Kliptown
for the Freedom Charter, the rest were going to Hell

[16 January 2014]

Page After Relentless Page [REVISED]

Page 118 of ‘Long Walk to Freedom’ - the more I read
the more I hate white Nationalists imposing irrational
and evil laws oppressing all other South African races;
I now wish this horrible, bitter, evil and selfish Dutch
nation never defiled the coasts of Africa.

I read the name of Dr Malan - erstwhile pastor in the
Dutch Reformed Church, church of the damned which
spawned Nationalists as evil devils - church in which
Beelzebub himself was a pastor - Malan, who became
Prime Minister changed this beautiful country into Hell

For everybody; my head aches, ashamed to be white -
to share this trait with him and his hellhounds - wonder
why an Afrikaner nation that could inflict such pain on
other races was not judged & annihilated in the British
concentration camps to save the world from them

I marvel at how Mandela could forgive these racial &
prejudiced Nazis, set them free from manacles which
they’d imprisoned themselves in. Dutch-Afrikaners -
naive, stupid, ignorant people allowing criminals like
Malan and HF Verwoerd to lead them into hell where

Evil puppeteers inflicted unending hardship on people
not white in appearance - all criminals who should’ve
died on the gallows, stupid white citizens to be shot on
sight; as that includes me, so be it, I’m gladly a social
outcast deserving punishment for sins of Afrikaner

Fathers, knowing that my punishment’s well-earned.
The allergy making misery of life, causing me live in
pain is retribution justly visited upon me as off-spring
of this evil nation. Stripped of illusions by discoveries
of atrocious deeds of these bigoted racists - I’m in a

Kind of living trance of disgust for Draconian laws of
1954. I could never get along with the criminal leaders
of my tribe, was always irritated by snobbish classes.
Only problem is, while reading I’m trapped in horrors
described by Nelson Mandela in his autobiography

Wishing to read faster, get to the parts where he is
freed - suffering of his people’s unbearable, shocking
facts jumping off page after relentless page…

[14 January 2014]

His Presence

A childhood incident explains the secret that
opened every heart to Madiba: when he was
humiliated by being thrown from a donkey, he
concluded that humiliation makes one suffer in
a cruel way, so  he decided to defeat opponents
without dishonouring them

This is how Mandela defeated his opponents in
politics, honouring them in such a way that they
gave in to his requests; only he held the key to
their hearts to gently guide them into the dawn
of African nationalism, only he could convince
the enemy to destroy their own power and

Become aware of the dignity of all human beings,
only Madiba could open the heart of everyone on
earth: his respect and warm interest brought our
most honourable feelings to the surface and his
presence meant acceptance and friendship, his
honour is still reflecting in the lives

Of all he touched…

[11 January 2014]

My Colleague Annette

I’ll never forget how my new colleague
Annette came to my rescue when the
boss told me to move heavy boxes to
make space for more dictionaries

Annette saw my confusion, immediately
applied her pragmatic wisdom to help me
carry out the instruction, though my boss
derided my inadequacy in manual jobs

Though they laughed at my awkward attempts
to stack books in a box, the kind courtesy of
Annette shall always be in my memory - to
be carried forever where my spirit roams…

[10 January 2014]

Filling Our Hearts

Pictures of Madiba on my office wall,
revelling in the thought that Nelson
Mandela’s Rivonia speech is one of
the most famous speeches of all time

That his letters to his wife, the faithful
Winnie, are some of the most beautiful
love letters in the English language, that
Madiba’s inner life was in the public eye

Since his incarceration on Robben Island,
being purged in the fires of discrimination,
yet his spirit soured to produce the most
wonderful thoughts on great concepts like

Freedom and Forgiveness, his studies of
other freedom fights led him to conclude
violence is not an option, studying the
Afrikaner nation, the enemy, led him to

The Anglo-Boer war; he understood this iron-
hard nation better than they did themselves,
he realised killing them would rob the world
of its cultural diversity

And would entail total destruction, razing 
all evidence of civilisation, leaving a smoking
relic of the erstwhile Apartheid land with its
infrastructure, farms and suburbs in flames

He decided political freedom at the cost of
a conflagration would be an empty victory –
though victory is assured given the superior
numbers of the oppressed Africans, yet

They would have to start from scratch, a scorched-
earth policy is guaranteed to bring results at the cost
of everything civilisation wrought in this lovely land,
the world would pitch in to support the African cause

The enemy would be annihilated, leaving a burning
country to start anew without the guidance of the few
who knew how to use technology - newly freed men and
women would need guidance on good governance –

His hand stretched out with an olive branch had been
ignored before but as South Africans were forced to
their knees, the hand was taken by the oppressor who
saw the evil of its ways with institutionalised crime

Where criminals led the fight against freedom conscious-
ness, the small group of privileged enjoying that status
solely by the colour of their skin - and not merit - the
white population treated like little children

Not allowed to hear or see the oppression and pain, brain-
washed by church and state into regarding the status quo
as God-given rule - had to be freed from an artificial
golden cage - Madiba saw everyone would lose

In a righteous game of justified vengeance against white men;
Nelson Mandela was big enough to realise that receiving a
hesitant hand from the enemy with a tearful request to spare
their lives in a new South Africa, meant they were ready

To accept democracy, losing power and might for the price
of their lives spared and the beautiful, beloved land saved
from rivers of blood and bombs exploding everywhere -
killing civilians while the works of man would be replaced

By the smoke of cities razed – how privileged the beloved
country, our exquisite South Africa, that one Quixotic man,
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, came to share the dream for
the land and promised to save their lives if they shared

Everything - how miraculous that the oppressor chose life,
stripped from the political power which they had misused
for so long, stripped from propaganda and exploitation by
religion to keep white people docile while enslaving

The majority of Africans in this land, Mandela patiently
repeated his request for freedom until the oppressor was
on their knees, he waited and did not force it to do so at
the cost of annihilation of the small white community

Mandela is our Moses who led the imprisoned, enslaved
people into the promised land where all are free to prosper
as well as they can; where all decide who should govern and
everyone is free to go anywhere; the former slavery

And lack of human dignity finally gone, the white oppressor
unarmed and overawed by the great, Messiah-like quality
of a group of silent holy men, led by a giant whose legend
continues the fame of the Old Testament’s prophets

Whose forgiveness equals seventy-times seven as the group
followed Mandela into suffering, losing everything, family,
income, safety, making the ultimate sacrifice for the freedom
of all in South Africa; today Madiba towers over our land

A man so big everything shrinks into insignificance beside him –
thank you Madiba for waiting patiently until the old regime were
forced into non-violent submission, not storming the oppressor’s
citadel earlier because the fires would have been burning still

The minority group massacred and the land reduced to ashes –
thank you for your skill in leading the nation to reconciliation
filling our hearts with love for you and all you represented…

[8 January 2014]

Cannot Find The Door

Double vision, can’t read newspapers, an advantage
as the news is bad, Central African Republic falling
into anarchy, Congo fighting Ugandan rebels in the
east - thought January blues was a thing of the past

But no, this morning inner bleakness like the bleach
used to wash shirts, spelling death to living things –
like chlorine – enveloped me in impenetrable black
clouds and last night several strangling nightmares

Swept me into a place of wordless misery – maybe
the fact that I was born in January is the reason for
this annual depression that spoils the beginning of
everything, staying at home & the return to work

I thought modern medication would be stronger
than that – but no, mute I stare at my newspaper
wishing the letters would stop dancing before my
eyes, wishing I was young enough to dream of

An alternative to earthly life, at present reality is
far too hard and bright and I cannot find the door
to my inner Wonderland…

[5 January 2014]

Threshold Of Hope

Double vision, cannot read any more –
new pills will not be taken again, this is
worse than ever before, lack of muscle
tension and chemical depression will
combine to leave a catatonic wreck.

Ah well, this is a repetition of history –
only difference is I don’t feel anxiety
while sinking into the depths of inertia,
eyes slits enabling me to see a little bit
while looking up synonyms:

Apathy and unresponsiveness- oh, the
the fungus cure on the Thesaurus page
with yellowing toe nails is atrocious – but
I remain calm, the chronic pain and fear
of the old days are gone, I know

This forced indolence and the boredom
accompanying it will pass and eventually
I shall be active and interested in life again,
following rules always brings me back to
the threshold of hope where I belong!

[3 January 2014]

A New South Africa (REVISED)

Stormed into the office, told the first colleague I met
how wonderful our first President, Nelson Mandela,
was for me; - she coldly replied, for me he was just
anther terrorist. I said I respected her views & left
immediately, flabbergasted that a representative of
the tribe he saved, Dutch-Afrikaners, rejected their
saviour without taking an unbiased look at his life

It again confirmed my disgust with my tribe, I refuse
to identify with the right-wing and went off in search
of a kindred spirit, found Ulrike who also watched a
special Mandela channel and cried when he was
sentenced to prison on Robben Island, just as I had
cried when I saw what evil politicians did to him,
suddenly I realised that Tsavendas killed Verwoerd

Because he could not stand Verwoerd’s evil smile,
the whole corps of Afrikaner politicians were evil and
so was their church, hiding their moral bankruptcy by
firm media control, censure and falsehood - keeping
a generation of ordinary people under their spell; my
dad never succumbed and shocked everyone saying
that every political leader in life was a crook

My dad deplored the way Africans were defrauded by
conniving Europeans, could not stand their suffering
because their pass was not right, clocked them in at
work and organised passes for whoever needed it -
today I feel my dad was right although he frequently
lost his job - he took the part of the underdog - I am
so glad - what a wonderful world in which

Mandela created a new South Africa!

[2 January 2014]

Brainwash Myself

A sparkling day, sunshine making everything transparent
just to show me what I shall miss when returning to work
tomorrow, over and over I promise myself I shall prepare
a production report for December - indicating zero words
done as I was on leave, then translating at least one page,
more if I can, of the documents on my desk

I’m trying to brainwash myself into a new mind-set for
the new year; to work harder than before and making a
better life for all, stay away from the wrong foods and
be joyful all the year round, stay aware of the wonder
of life, focused on having fun no matter what job has
to be done, it might just work in the new year

So many things improved in my life, my empty heart
has been filled with joy by our nuclear family and my
government job as translator became variegated when
Nelson Mandela took charge of South Africa - fears
which marred my youth have evaporated and now I
know just how privileged we are

Living on the Southern tip of Africa!

[1 January 2014]