Thinking Survival Poem by Ivan Donn Carswell

Distancing yourself is brave
it takes more than a Devil’s chance
to face scars of burdened conscience
without bearing similar marks

A bizarre maxim of
read-between-the-lines intent
gained your attention too easily
admittedly you were a pushover then
though now you refuse to reason

Today I have to ask again – what
is the sense of continuing the farce?
it proves nothing to be right
or wrong or ashamed – loneliness
is still the end event

Thinking survival in a blue funk
dressed in nothing more circumspect
than faded positano T shirt and
pair of green ocean one board shorts
hardly makes me a guru

Nor am I blessed with optimism – could
one find lesser fashion sense so obtuse
it doubles back on itself becomes
de rigueur because so fait accomplis?

Wearing ugg boot slippers you’d
approve of for security hugging
my feet with tenderness absent
in this monastery
© 25 September 2009, I. D. Carswell