Category: Imagination

Plated

Stepping forth in her armour she felt invincible

Her resolve not to be broken

The looks on their faces were shocked

Astonished at her audacity

That she’d not done what was expected

Her face cleared of the usual paint

Sleek hair left to be wild and exuberant

Suddenly in her nakedness she felt it

Powerful, in control

Their shock at her being as she wanted

Scared them

No heels, paint, sleek dress just her

Armour plated by being naked

She stared them down when they demanded

Smile pretty lady it’s not the end of the world

Yeah? She replied it is.

Ailsa

©️AilsaCawleyPoetry2020

Fireside secrets

Listen girl keep looking you’d say

Watch that fire flicker with dreams

See pictures of life cross it

And swallow the future whole.

Tell yourself you can see and you will

Shadows of orange flame become futures

Worlds of opportunity open to you

If you only believe they are.

I’m not talking magic or hocus pocus

My words are meant to convey

The simple life you can make

If you should need to escape.

The rat runs here no more comfort

Than the days when I was small

Well, in some ways it is but really

I’m only saying why have the same

When you could have it all?

Written about conversations with my nana as a child

Ailsa

©️AilsaCawleyPoetry 2019

Destruction of the threat

Words dancing like squirrels feet

Scampering through my head

They go faster faster to a frantic beat

Do they lessen the sense of dread?

The words are my words

Thoughts are my thoughts

No longer like broken swords

Never again to be dulled with phrases

Such as maybe, could or ought.

You’ve misunderstood me long enough

I’ll fight until the death

The world where you threatened tough

Has ended and you misread my intent

Let me be very clear once friend

I’ve learned how to fight by stealth

This is not a quiet warning war of words

You have never seen me angry

It’s there for the times I need use it

I have gored like an angry bull

Through bigger not stopping at blood

Carrying on to destruction and only

The leftover strands of something once

Described as human

Do not keep pushing, poking, prodding

I may be a human of faith

Untethered I can become the savage animal

Who would heed your call for mercy?

Ailsa

©️AilsaCawleyPoetry 2018

Little tin man

It pours slowly and carefully on the place

You tried to say was a heart of good

Malicious skeletal grin on a face

Rusty metal box that passes for a heart

Purring out a faint drumbeat

A-v-a-r-i-c-e. A-v-a-r-i-c-e. A-v-a-r-i-c-e.

Words clatter forth telling of broken lives

Who were you to do anything?

Who were you to change something?

Leave it to the rest with perfect worlds

That you tell yourself they live in

A way to accept no responsibility

For the destruction that you’ve caused

Because it’s always someone else’s fault

You ask me to do it, beg me

End it all because you have misery

And I look at the acid that bubbles beside me

Pour only the water as ask for venom

To burn out the golden heart you say is there

All I see is rust, nothing gold even the hair

It’s dirty with the acts you carried out

And however much I’d love to see you scream

I won’t.

I’ll let your greed and the water, the tears shed

Rot what’s left of you

Little tin man, who never got a heart

Nor a brain just a mouth that shouts

Endlessly and desperately to the air

Scream on tin man I’m done.

Ailsa

©️AilsaCawleyPoetry2018

The woman with no name

The woman with no name

She wanders around cast adrift

Back and forth wandering

Never acknowledged not ignored

Young and tender as a shoot

Leaving new growth in her path

Life springing where she has trod.

A whisper in time maybe, maybe

Is she real or imagined?

The woman with no name

Snowdrops rising shows she’s back

Giving birth to a new spring

Secrets passed down on the wind

Unwritten, but there’s the tales

Pass as milk from mother to child

Kindliness nourishing the land

She is real not imagined

She is a woman with many names

Touching all with her mantle of life

Ailsa

©️Ailsa CawleyPoetry 2018

Jack

He’s back, back that gentleman Jack,

Springing into action once more

Lithe and bowing low

Blue flames he does blow

Fiery eyes burning to your core

He’s back, back the gentleman Jack

Be wary of his charm

As he links your arm

Binding you in his spell

Till he can return you to new Hell

He’s back, back that trickster Jack

Have you seen him?

Would you even know?

Be careful now he’s back

Whisper his name Spring Heeled Jack

Ailsa

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2017

Palette of time 

Hardly able to breathe and skin tingling 

She watches as it creeps forward 

Awe filling her very being 

Almost as if its unsure of welcome

It begins to glow 

Not certain of how open to be 

In trailing upward tendrils her escaped breath moving 

Small wisps not disturbing the movement 

Legs sinking down onto the dry earth 

No knowledge of her descent 

And closer, brighter it moves 

She couldn’t shift if she wanted to 

She doesn’t, 

Won’t, can’t till it’s ended 

Fierce hues spring forth envelope all 

Flames licking the trees and they succumb 

Grateful or compliant? 

Crimson to purple all shades combine 

A palette of vibrance alight 

Alive 

As the sun dies through the trees once more 

Ailsa 

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2017

Wings of the storm 

You pushed, pulled trying to mould me into shape 

Clay on the turntable forgetting, ignoring? Not caring 

The flesh bruised, bone splintered, blood spilt 

Eyes that didn’t cry  

Not that you saw, not that you felt 

As sobs were swallowed deep and churned 

Tears silently rolling down into the vortex 

Moving faster, bubbling, burning 

Sometimes aching from wishing on stars, pebbles, anything 

That just might work 

Till the time when the storm brewed enough to explode 

Sending me forth to a new world on tides unseen 

Roads not travelled and water never crossed before 

Propelled away from your mean smile 

That once appeared shy and urged entanglement 

All you wanted was nothing real 

A picture fractured into mirror shards 

To break me with 

Scarred, damaged by things tainted 

Broken? 

You imagine too strongly your power 

Bloodied wings I thought clipped teaching me to fly 

All over again 

And I soar 
Ailsa 

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2017

The Attic 

There’s something here that you keep telling me to find 

Not with words but imagery 

Apparently I’ll know it when I see it 

The walls so old and dusty that I  barely see paper on the walls 

Smell of old books rising from boxes long neglected 

All here dumped, forgotten, dusty and old  

Scrub at the walls to reveal a rich ruby pattern on once cream 

Was this a haven for someone? 

It feels like it could become one if the boxes are moved 

Just stacked elsewhere here not taken away 

I see the space is huge,  beams above my head 

A threadbare carpet covering the floor and a shaft of light 

From where? Following the line find a tiny window painted in dark colour 

The rejected here was also protected I muse 

Beauty hidden in old boxes, a dirty wooden trunk 

Carved symbols and initials are waiting to be unveiled 

Will I ever leave this room? 

I have needed to return to a place I can’t recall seeing 

But it’s like a hazy memory 

I can only leave when it’s all tidily boxed away 

Rearranged like the protective armour that stops 

The past from invading the future 
Ailsa 

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2017

Woman of the tree 

Waiting until dusk has fallen she slips away 

Into the expectant forest 

It seems to heave a collective sigh  

No human foot treading this woodland floor 

She is careful to glide slowly around 

Slipping behind a fallen log or standing object 

If she ever feels them drawing near 

The humans who know her as children are told 

Forget the foolish nonsense when they grow 

And for the most part they do 

They believe she was illusion, imagined 

Call it what you will 

Except the otherly children who still see 

Going about their daily business 

Until the compulsion forces them back ….SNAP 

In time, in belief who knows? 

Into the forest to the hugest tree they come 

Head bowed to bark in rain and shine, 

Coming back to feel the earths heart beat 

Steadily taking strength and knowledge 

From the tree they feed from 

Some silent, or singing, talking or dancing 

Always a touch on the wind they feel 

They keep secret their visits as how do you explain ?

I went to the healing tree and all is well 

Many offerings are here a ribbon, a message scrawled, a carved figure 

So much, so many to quietly help 

Have you been to the forest yet? 

Ah you found it too and they told you to forget 

I see. 

Tuck away your knowing words and keep them for yourself 

Ssshhhh you have been chosen 
Ailsa 

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2017