Month: January 2016

The walls were greyish

She kept them that way to avoid thinking about the colours

That she might like if she looked 

But it was easier to just keep everything as grey as always 

And then nothing could dim, or tarnish. 

The walls of the cell were greyish.

He asked if painting the walls pretty colours with patterns and things 

To make it a place of freedom and dreams 

She looked at him with bewilderment in her eyes 

And told him sternly to leave then because they are 

The walls of a cell which is always greyish. 

He gave up puzzling about this and dreamed of field of golden barley 

Of hills and beautiful sunsets 

She repeated an oft said phrase with more vehemence 

The walls stay grey because they are as I say 

Always destined to be greyish 

Ailsa

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

Siren wails

The siren wails her mahogany hair, ruby lips curled back
In knowing contempt
For he can and will come gladly to his doom
Enchanted by the pale white skin 
Urgent calling on the wind for assistance it seems
Not seeing her scorn as final warning
Of his own impending demise
He realises just before it’s too late to turn back
So hypnotised by her smiling sneer
There is nowhere else to turn 
And the only thing visible from shore is a figure eyes wide
Arm waving or maybe drowning
In the murky waters a moment and then sucked under
Tricked by glamour to his own end.

Ailsa

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

River of expression

She’s careful in choosing her words and expression
For they can give too much
Away or not
Enough
And usually the latter she’s been told often
She tries hard to remain inscrutable a blank canvas
Only wanting to give away a little
Not knowing that if you watch her a while
You need ask no questions no words needed
To see her simmering eyes blazing hot embers
Anger in her measured strides
Though she’s busy trying to be a nice girl
Who doesn’t complain and says things are
Fine, no really …..
And sometimes she crumbles and cracks
The furious tears flowing like a river
That’s worn through the rocks finally to reveal
Just a glimpse of the force behind that one day
Will flood out and leave devastation in their lava like wake

Ailsa

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

Unfolding fear

I watch as things unfold slowly, deliberately  

Can feel the newness like putting on brand new bed linen 

The crispness, feeling like nothing there has been sullied  

Stroking things to see how they feel, if they bite 

Or just caress me back 

The familiarity rubbing softly against my cheek 

Like a soothing hand stroking  

The fear tried to sink in its teeth slowly 

As it did once before and it was jubilant over me 

This time I turned giving chase so it skulks in the shadows hoping 

But it knew another me  

One whose fear was of being enough of everything to everyone 

A more alive me knows now that I should push back 

Unless I do I cannot hope to get anywhere  

I beat the unfolding fear with songs of my own 

It’s are drowned by my out of tune happy noise.
Ailsa

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

Liquid walls

You haunt my nights with light and dark
My days uneasy with fire or sparks
What are you? 
Being of another world seeping through
Touching at the edges burning cold
No-one can see you on edge of visions bold
I’m needing to look deeper but I might get lost
Worry less by the day of the cost
Are you the me I really am bleeding through?
The barriers broken and I am you
I find the thought enticing I can be this other soul
With something more to show a  purely fluid goal
It sounds alien and scary to have liquid walls 
But they flow these barriers best of all.
Try them, push hard they do not bend or break
Nor shatter like glass ceilings but more effort they take
One small stone, to break the glass smash it good and right
But liquid walls mean you wanted movement and put up a fight
So turn to your dark corners where you feel the world ends
Push hard, push well
For here is where worlds meet, mingle, blend.

Ailsa
©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

Execution of fate

I turn away because I have to or I will not leave
My face a mask of pretence
I am abandoning my own self here
If I were to know that it was forever I would be raging
Like a tossed about ship I feel the force of myself
Emotions race clamouring for first place
All afraid not to be noticed
Yet not wanting to be the winner of this race
The unseen bolster I have put between us
Guarding as a centurion against the destruction you wreak
And swear you didn’t mean to cause
But you have
Time and again after lulling my mind to sleep
Not this time I know
Feeling the cold wave of certainty wash over me
Keeping me alert,  cold, removed but alive
Never again will you penetrate this cocoon
I have gladly placed myself in
Only until I am strong
Enough to say the words you know are coming
No exoneration
No reprieve
This hanged man built his own noose
Whether he tightens it or not
Is no concern of mine

Ailsa

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

Edge of breathing sunshine

Feeling myself drawn into the whorls towards the seething mass
Like a deep spectral cloud of darkness
With occasional flashes of gleaming sunshine
I sense the leeches take hold to succeed
Draining me slowly, carelessly dry
Of light and hope
Fight the fuggy mass I hear
But how?
I can’t see from which direction I’m attacked
Surrounded from every angle
Till I lose my bearings and grab in the light I might have seen
To a person I might have been
And sometimes reminded of the far off promises
That you would be there
It was only words, balm you laugh
I shrink smaller than Alice
Slip under the nearest doorway close
To the edge of reason
Urged over the edge as you try to haul me back
I fling myself to oblivion
The leeches slide from my battered self
Eyes snap open as my wings hurtle me
Not safely,  never again that
Towards my own beginning of life
It will hurt but I can feel again and I whoop
For pain over slowly suffocating to extinction
Is the only option and I have chosen it
Now I’m free of your chittering spell

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

Clockwork heart

Tick, tick the seconds chirrup away
Like crickets counting between hours
Waiting for the chime
To reverberate loudly clanging
Through me
Shaking inside
The crickets stop their lazy chatter momentarily
Waiting for the explosion which
Never comes
Nothing
Happens
Thought chain almost lost in the mêlée of wondering
How did this just go this way?
Relief floods the clock face
As it sees it can go on
Ticking selfishly away
It’s tune not interrupted but improved
The information contained within it has been preserved
Behind the blank dial of smiles
Fooling nobody
Foolish to the last
Tick, tick
Stop

Ailsa

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

Purple Ink. By Chimera Poetry

Chimera Poetry

The letter came
I don’t know when
it may have just magicked itself in
from another dimension
I wasn’t looking for it
….not exactly
but when I saw it I knew
 it was all I knew
all I had ever known and would ever know again
and my atavistic DNA rose up in defense
as I felt my world start to tip over
slide
at the smell of the envelope
the scent of something young and fresh and exciting and not-me
the sight of purple ink handed me a disdain edged tool
 I wanted to hold it up and jeer 
but the words
the words
no gushing childish midlife crisis doll baby
this was a letter written in confidence
and in solidity by a woman
and that rock scree shifted underfoot a little more
a little faster
with my eyes wide and burning I tottered
waving it unsteadily as you…

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