Category: Blogs

Creeping season

Slowly, quietly the days creep forward

The nights darken with ever faster depth

What were skies of varying shades

Suddenly deepest navy or ink black

That nothing can penetrate.

The chill in the air passing through sunshine

As everyone remarks on Autumn’s arrival

Pulling a coat about them for warmth

The fire set to warm their bones

As they wonder if it’s too soon, just yet.

Walking they see the leaves a justification

As greens have scattered to jewels

Rubies among the rubbish the child kicks

Playing in a park where everything crackles

And the only thing growing are toadstools.

The luscious promises that autumn gives

A whisper of leaves on breezes

The words called down since forever

Saying that everything will begin again

If we but only wait patiently.

Ailsa

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2022

Written for @Paul Brookes Autumn poetry challenge

Advertisement

Galaxy

You told me that I was above myself

With friends who had dreams

Of things you didn’t understand

And nor should I

Things were shrunken into the uniform

Sludge brown of your world

Every time a green shoot showed

You’d STAMP on it until crushed

Broken you’d say

So intent were you on the world around you

That you didn’t manage

To break my imagination and

I hid it down so deep until I left

When I unleashed and unlocked

The galaxy I’d kept hidden from you.

©AilsaCawley 2022 inspired by Anjum Wasim Dar – Galaxy

Blanket Days ~ for a friend.

Hunkered down

Pull a blanket around

Hide in a warm cocoon

Where tea flows

And nobody knows

If you’re staying or leaving soon.

Take a blanket day

Ease the cares away

Running everything to ground

As you nourish your soul

Stop the world grabbing hold

Stay invisible to the crowd

Give to yourself the things

You’re suggesting for others

Treat your own body carefully

As if that of a lover

You’re filling up from the inside

Receive till it oozes out of edges

That you never knew you had

Smoothing away the harshness of days

And making you full once more

Until then stay in your blanket

Warm and caring for you

With what you need and a brew.

Ailsa

©️AilsaCawleyPoetry2021

What you see

With thanks to Paul Brookes at the wombwellrainbow.Wordpress.com for the ekphrastic January challenge.

Picture credit Kerfe Roig ‘handeye’

Every time you look at me you glance

At your hand and I imagine

That in the centre is an eye

Because you say the same thing

I see in an all knowing way

Generally you don’t see, but it’s said

The expected comment to pretend at

Listening to what’s being said

Instead of what you want it to mean.

A shell described becomes a butterfly

A key a lop eared rabbit and so on

Until my heart says why share the acorns

That grow into truth trees

Or rose bushes that hold thorns

And not everything is neatly packaged

As a diamond ring

The sky doesn’t only hold pretty birds

Or the sky hold only sunshine.

All is a mix , unpicked threads that make

Something different or new

You see imperfections, ruins

Rusty keys, thorny flowers, cold nights

I look for both sides neat and messy

Both bring their gifts making up a new

Pattern in my palm to see the world

In colours swirling in my palm.

As I watch the moon shine and stars

Vie for place in the palm of the sky.

Ailsa

AilsaCawleyPoetry2021

Flame in the snow

My feet are blue with cold

As I trudge the snowy hills

To find the signs of those gone

Ahead leaving wispy wisdom

Like golden coins in the drifts

Of feather like flakes

Heart thudding as I hear a whisper

It is your turn to pick up the baton

The lit torch in your path

Forge on with it, it’s magical light

Guide for head and heart

My feet cold no longer I see

I am clad in shoes to protect

A cloak grown warmer around me

Heart steadier and surer

That my path however different

Is the right one to take

And so I shall

Head bowed I thank the ancestors

The hills, and wind

The quiet now gone and a bird sings

Heralding my newness.

Ailsa

©️AilsaCawleyPoetry2021

A thank you and a sharing of good news!

It’s a while since I’ve done a post and just said hello, I hope you’re well, and thanks for keep following the page.,

It’s not an easy year for so many people and it’s not getting easier yet. But, it will. People have shown this year that they rally round when the going gets tough. I’m so grateful for that.

If you don’t like stories that are of the crime genre, or a bit gory, then maybe don’t read this. After I finish what I’m currently writing, I’m going to rewrite this, as a full length story. It’s a competition I was fortunate enough to come runner up in.

Thanks for the support from everyone following the page. Hope you enjoy it!

https://baytales.com/2020/12/22/bay-tales-christmas-competition-runners-up/?fbclid=IwAR31m5gMZ4TeYCkYdu2laFEhuMrkeO9EvPNjuvEVb9vItpquzZmYgp4OA0k

Thanks

Ailsa

Climbing

I see the hill to a hard road ahead

Slippery climb through earth

Wet, sliding and falling

Hit the ground, teeth grinding

Against pain as I force myself on

Enduring to win and take back

My power , my path.

©️AilsaCawleyPoetry 2020

Do you see me?

Do you see me, really?

Not who you want me to be

Or think I should be

Would be if I shaved my edges off

So you could see what you want

And I would be what you’ve desired

All these years your vision skewed

Have you ever once seen me?

Looked at me closely without distaste

Because I’m not who you envisioned I’d be

When you first started pushing, pulling at me

Trying to remove my awkwardness

Angry that what was there wasn’t desirable

I’ve noticed you still trying to cut

Little bits off when you think nobody sees

But here’s the thing

Even those who don’t know you have it

The vision to go beneath your veneer

They see you too and you’re blind to it.

Ailsa

©️AilsaCawleyPoetry2020

Lightgiver

Teaching not preaching or leading

Words that said this was me

I can tell you how light is in everyday

Sun shining through a crack in curtains

The lightgiver taught me that

You don’t need baking sun

To warm a scared heart

You don’t need much of anything

To make a new or brighter start

Only one thing is necessary

A willingness for light to flood

As it washes away the dark

Ailsa

©️AilsaCawleyPoetry2020

This is not a poetry post but a Thank you

Today on the birthday of the NHS, it’s made me sit back and see exactly how much I’ve needed and used the NHS over my almost 50 years.

I’m not going to say I recall being born in an NHS hospital, though I was. My first proper memory was the NHS making something not done then possible. I was 11. My Grandad who was heroic to me, was in hospital. As was the case then, nobody said the word death to a child. Children didn’t visit hospitals, especially the dying, or go to funerals.

I’d picked up from conversations he wasn’t coming back. I needed to see. So I didn’t go to school. I went straight to the hospital. He demanded they allow me in. We talked, laughed, said our goodbyes. The nurses were fantastic, but without their agreement I’d never have said goodbye. In fact, I’m crying as I recall it today.

My next thing was finding out I am epileptic. I was 13 and I suddenly had a seizure in my bedroom. From then until I was roughly 18, I was mostly OK. I’d just started to see a fantastic neurologist, and the morning after my birthday, I was rushed into hospital. I’d been prescribed a wrong tablet dose. A mistake no doubt, from an underpaid overworked junior doctor. I was 10x overdosed. I was chuntering about leaving as my mum entered my room and the ambulance arrived after the doctor literally ran across from the surgery. I was lucky. Thanks to the NHS and their speed and care.

I was in hospital week in, week out for a long while and I’m talking years.

Then a good few years where I tried not to bother them!

They took care of me through pregnancy and then during post natal depression and depression.

I saw my dad having a spell in hospital after 5 heart bypasses when he thought he was having a double. It was just business as usual, we’re going to tell you everything. I can’t praise the staff more. My Dad has now sadly passed away, but we had him for many more years than would have been possible without these wonderful people. The people who care, in every sense. They understand how the patients feel and they’re there .

I’ve lost many family members over the years, as have we all. But if we were without the NHS, our NHS, I ask a simple question. How many of us would actually be here? Medicine doesn’t come cheap, hospital care is not cheap, and seriously having been on the nursing side, though not a nurse, I know how devastating losing a patient can be. How those people are taken home in worries and not forgotten about.

For all this and so much more. Thank you NHS. Happy Birthday NHS and here’s to many, many more.

%d bloggers like this: