Month: November 2015

Seeing your face

I see you in my dreams and wake with you gone
Feel your breath close by my face
Hear phrases you utter unexpectedly
So much so that I look for you
Sometimes
Convinced I will see you
Though I don’t
Whirling round as you were there at the corners of my vision
But never quick enough never damned quick enough
To catch you properly
Before
You scooted away again like a child playing hide and seek
One day
I’ll be faster or you’ll be slower
And it won’t just be in my dreams but you’ll be
There
Close enough to touch
And I will be seeing your face
One day.

Ailsa
©AilsaCawley Poetry 2015

Within

Shhhh you whispered in my ear stop looking
You cannot see me in other places always
Quiet yourself and be still
Now your voice smiles in my head
Can you not feel me when you do not search so desperately?
I am there in every fibre of your being
Existing because you don’t wish to forget me
Stop your search dear one I am where I always was
And will remain within whenever you have need of me
Look no more unless it is within
Speak and I shall hear your voice and answer
In a way you understand within

Ailsa
©AilsaCawley Poetry 2015

In a box (escaping)

You want to do something different ? Well that’s understandable (stupid,!)

Why do you think you could do that when I keep you safely imprisoned

In the box disguised as somewhere you might flourish, when you learn…  

To leave yourself behind and become the dutiful copy I desire?

His expression straining against impatience

Like a wild animal fighting in his own soft features 

That hide so well the steel cage lying behind the twisted smile (grimace) 

Slowly explaining to her what she’s wanted for, expected to be. 

Don’t be ridiculous how can you expect to obtain happiness 

You don’t get it do you?

Life is not about happy just existing, coasting with occasional sunshine 

But happy , happy

And he laughs to ensure she feels small enough

To keep in the box like a forgotten toy , used sometimes

Cruelly and briefly to his satisfaction 

He hasn’t seen that look in her eyes as her mind numbs to his laughter  

She smiles to herself and he thinks it’s at him 

But her plans for escape have just begun to take shape 

How she doesn’t know but she will break out of the box 

In a box

What could you possibly wish for ? He queried 

Squaring his shoulders waiting to go into defensive mode

You live in a house that gives no more than a basic shelter 

A domestic slave with my chosen for you friends

Narrowed eyes await confirmation of his rightness in everything 

Bore into her as she tries to tear her gaze away

I erm well I just want to have something I choose you see

She nods emphatically knowing it was the wrong thing to say. 

A tirade ensues as he tells her he is wiser, knows more

Accept the unacceptable he says

Run yourself a bath you’re obviously overwrought 

Pats her shoulder with a smile and a warning glare 

She turns away wondering why she’s so damned ungrateful 

Once again angered and disappointed,  been hateful

To even mention any dissatisfaction that’s stirs or causes a ripple 

In the mercurial waters 

She’s wishing she’d just learn to say nothing at all 

Swoop and dive like the fluttering bird he wishes for 

But it’s there deep down the stirring resentment begun

Can she ignore it? Not for long.
Ailsa

©AilsaCawleyPoetry 2015

Remembrance

Your memories are safe here enshrined at the door
Of which we nod with gratitude and thanks evermore
We may not know a loved one lost in the fight you fought
But hearts thank you for bravery given without a second thought
You gave your lives for future freedom you may never see
But that of the children at home you’d never bounce upon your knee
Our poppy it is worn with your sacrifice in mind
Of the lives you left at home and wives you left behind
You did it all with love and justice beating in your hearts
A better world you could see if we could only start
So now in the poppy fields where wildest blooms do grow
Should we not show that in the driest earth love can surely grow?
We must always remember your willingness to die
But the underlying reason for future generations to have less reason to cry.
Please respect these wishes for a free world and try again
Before we inflict upon our children more horror death or pain.

Ailsa
©AilsaCawley Poetry 2015

Gilded folly

She’d passed days there knowing there was something else

But what?

It was out there twinkling in the night skies 

Shifting on the breeze like tiniest diamond fragments

It sparkled briefly and when she turned to glimpse

It disappeared.

She grew disillusioned berating herself for living in faeryland

And held the golden bars of her gilded cage

When glancing down she noticed for the first time

A key 

Curiosity pushed forward telling her to just peek 

She could always go back pretending nothing had been there 

And forget her boredom of the pretty cell and go back to 

Being pleasing 

Deep down something primeval stirred ,escape maybe?

Pushing through the barrier and turning the key 

Taking a deep breath to force her courage

Took a step

And with not a backward glance but some fear in her depths

She pushed forward anxious to find out

To know what she could be other than a gilded bird

A golden song thrush 

 From her past of building wonderment and disquiet 

To her new existence which allows the real person free

Taking her through difficulties past everything to her own

Transcendence 

Ailsa

©AilsaCawleyPoetry 2015

With grateful thanks and blessings to Michelle Quesada Art for use of her painting .https://www.facebook.com/MichelleQuesadaArt/photos/a.548594798534688.1073741829.548514958542672/552981418096026/?type=3

Dawn procession

Gloom lifting slowly showing a pale yellow light in the distance 

Almost hesitant a lonely voice calls announcing daybreak  

In darkness you waited 

In silence

Almost afraid 

To make that first sound to wake the sleeping world from slumber

You wonder if you really heard that solitary call

So you wait

Holding your breath so long your chest wants to burst

It seems

Closer, clearer, more confident another peep, another 

Till there is a procession that heralds the dawn 

That thanks the world for the day that’s arrived 

Blessing it greatly

For its light, a new hope

An extra chance to be as new in the world

Now you understand the dawning 

It has taken place and inside you feel your soul sing in recognition 

Of earth, nature , the dawn procession 
Ailsa

©AilsaCawleyPoetry 2015

They danced the dance

They danced the dance, one two three, three three, stop…

All change, flounce away partner change

Keep looking back for the sparks fly like fireflies,

To entice the partners to dance again as they will like addicts who need the next fix,

The sparks dance prettily in the sky

They were set off long ago and burned slowly like fireworks 

Chemical reaction, boom once ,twice, three times 

Till they fizzle and die burning themselves out into stardust 

And become the flickers of something that attracted them 

In the first place 

They are sparkle dust, part of someone else’s dance 

Watching them dance the dance of all change.
Ailsa

©Ailsa Cawley Poetry 2015

Rhiannon

Taking a circuitous route to the room that sets us free
For an hour,  a while, you her and me
For we are one another Rhiannon the wild gypsy
And the quieter more held back side of she
In a tangle of warmth and sweaty Iimbs we join
I am Rhiannon she is me
All of the fears that I held in my heart leave on the wind 
As our hearts and limbs entangle, quicken
It matters not that we pull off the sheets
Or lie spent and happy without a doubt of the great beat
Hear it on the same breeze getting louder still 
Time for us to curb the wildness take a calmer pill
I do not wish to have the time back I discovered something new
I am always that Rhiannon, the gypsy wild heart remains true
So the one who thinks to hurt with bold words in my head
My heart and soul still play a song while yours is truly dead.

Ailsa
©AilsaCawley Poetry 2015

Mythical hero of never

Walking in with a swagger down the street, loaded with self importance

You carry yourself with the attitude of who shall bow to the mighty me today

I wonder momentarily if it’s just me whose skin shrivels at your touch

Like it’s trying to desperately escape being around you and your damp handshake

As you do that tie up over the pin striped suit you wear as armour of sorts

And begin asking questions that you’ve asked so many times before

I feel like answering a nonsense answer for my own amusement

Two  words in and your eyes have drifted drunk on getting to the heart and core

Herein lies your fatal flaw as you possess of these neither

Just an empty cadaver that glides along you have become a bore

Ailsa

©Ailsa Cawley Poetry 2015