Category: life

Where do you go to?

You locked the door so long ago that you misplaced the key

So where do you go to all locked away in your head, is it lonely?

I think you brought down the shutter with such a clanging thump

That your disappointment in an imperfect world left your heart a icy lump

Full of brazen bluff and blunt rebuff, and generic words of prudence

Platitudes with no substance giving yourself the false assurance.

You cant let anyone inside even were they to pick the locks now

Inside the shutter is a gate, and a wall, so nobody’s going to be let into the show

That you put forth as real

No one will see that the husk can still feel

So afraid of losing and being left behind all alone

You cast all the shadows and yourself in stone.

©Ailsa Cawley poetry 2015

By the Lord Larry

Walking home from school one day I found a tiny bird lying on the ground

What could I do and how to help this helpless baby that I’d found ?

When in he steps, Lord Larry, with his red hair all a mess

In painty clothes and smelling of turpentine, dirty boots at best

But to me, here you were because you could solve it all

If my dad was elsewhere, it was you that I would call

So minus shining armour, and steed of gleaming white

You smiled and said “I will help you, and look after him tonight ”

You told me I could dry my tears , you would take him with you

Nurse him if you had to , and he would make it through

I believed for many a year that you had set him free

imagined that you nursed a fledgling on your knees

In a way I guess you did, when you eased his suffering.

And you eased his end so pain could not bring.

I never got to thank you for being that shining knight

For that was the last time I saw you as you died after being my light

You had no wife, family, children of your own

but a gentle gentleman you were and that had always shown.

So to you my Lord Larry, I raise a goblet filled with cheer

For giving others help and erasing any fears.

To some this was just a normal man, but it means an awful lot

When you take the pain of others and give all you have got.

You always stayed a hero, I guess you always will

Lord Larry was a good man, Lord Larry you are still.

Poison

To some it’s like a drug they crave
The more they hand out, others they’ll save
Their acid barbs and twisted tongues words
Are given for the good of health they’d heard
If they break you down with loaded spears
Just get over it, it was best you know never fear
They will smile in fake apology and get on their way
Feeling good that they took the time to say
What others are saying because it’s of crystal clarity
And you didn’t say a word so there’s no disparity
Between what they said and what you’re thinking
That chalice of poison given for drinking
Remember one thing if you challenge or don’t
Theirs is jealous insecurity covered and honed.

Ailsa

Heat of light.

#nationalpoetryday 2015

I thought it would be pure emptiness
When you went to the otherworld
But I went into your room
Just a momentary pause in the day
And I felt it,  filling me from feet up
Warm, glowing white light
The purest light a love can offer
And I am forever blessed
In dark days I can dig deep
For the candle you placed there
I shall be forever grateful for it.
Thankyou for the white pure love light

Ailsa

Fluid

Flowing in my veins like a river,  my blood
Flowing from my eyes in rivulets,  my tears
Flowing through my head sometimes without a destination
Flowing through my heart the painful and happy days
To those who think we are rooted
Forever to be held in one spot I say
How can that be?
I am fluid
Allow yourself to be fluid and flow freely
Be fluid

Ailsa

And I will look for you

I will walk the beaches very soon, wild and windy as they are

Watch the waves as they crash the pier into quiet submission

Remember the stories of when you were a boy free as a bird

Look at the sun as it drops below the horizon as always

And I will look for you

I will wander the lands I feel your presence beating like a heartbeat

Where the thrumming of the earth burbles like your laughter

And the wind whips around me holding me steadily

Hear stories of adventure you told all from your own mind

I will look for you

Listening and learning your words by heart and tears flowing down

In peaceful solitude I can only think of you

Your voice spoken in dreams or by angels and others

I get used to you not being here, now

I know someday you’ll come to collect me and I have to be patient

Until then, I can do nothing other

Than keep on looking for you

Pulling the wool

How far do you think the yarn will stretch before it frays and unravels?

Like your fragile balance of the truth you want to believe and cold hard facts

The wonderful phrase of let’s be friends, in time you’ll see

And blame what’s that, because it has not been me!!

Except it has

Whose eyes are you trying to shield from the absolute worst of the truth

I see through you like an old tattered bridal veil, story full of holes

You can only look at yourself as if an uneducated youth

Who couldn’t possibly conceive of  their actions turning a person to stone

Except it has almost

Don’t imagine for one second you have the power of a goddess

The images racing through your head I don’t want to imagine at all

They are demented, self worshipping and foretell future distress

I shall have no pleasure in hearing you had an almighty, painful  fall

Except  one thing is without doubt

The yarns will fray, strings do break

And you will

How to mistake your feelings

It’s not a difficult thing to get wrong the feelings game
I could have said I had no connection to you
So very easily
This time last year
Now my heart and head have agreed on something
That doesn’t happen so very often
Suddenly I realised I’d been building a castle of a man
Someone I wanted to see from being a child
Who you are really
Who my head tried to make you
And they are different
Not remotely similar to any notion I had
You were so remote I invented you
Like an imaginary friend
Who I couldn’t measure up to
I have realised I don’t have any measuring up to do
And I can’t and won’t try
Because we both did it you see
Built sand castles and stuck the other atop
Now?
The sea has parted the sand and we are so….
Different,  opposite
I accept the terms of the future
That each of us may know the other
Like an acquaintance
Too late for more, family,  friendship even
I care,  you care
And it has to be left there
I now feel peace towards you.

Ailsa

Damsels and dragons

As each new damsel with flailing arms appears

Worry not fair/dark/whatever you may be maiden

For your own Arthur is waiting , soon to be here

He will give you his own sad sorry songs to show he’s more than equally laden

This knight as you see him is dressed in stolen armour

The dragons breath still hot upon it, is turning it to dust

Just before the scales fall you will see him start to clamber

Those sinking castle walls he built on fake sand, not  trust

He will tell you he doesn’t understand why you changed to him

Why your face it fits the shell of rusty frame no more

And your old light and love have grown so very dim

Like the burnt out flame of desire you felt before

You will realise one day he’s trying to build a goddess to worship from afar

So stay distant, true, do not utter your dissent!!

It’s high to reach Arthur’s stay perfect bar

And now you can see the armour all ruined and rent

The woman he worships never was human and frail

She doesn’t have problems and she will never ail

He bows at the altar built as a boy in his head

He kneels down before the gods of the dead

So take flight damsel he cannot save you from your own dragons and fire

You were the solid face of a person of which he tires.

Picking up the pieces

How many times before the puzzles are complete?
Until you understand the language, rhythm, beat
What lies behind the nods
Beyond pretty words and cosmetic made gods
Who lie in wait for your soul to trap itself
Your own vanity tells you how much you can get
If you only tell the gullible sheep
The story they want to hear
And I watch unobserved, quiet and behind a wall made of steel
I know the dangers of helping you
I see the fountain spew forth from you
The lies mount up daily
So I shall watch next time you tumble down
I won’t help to be wounded by your words
Or give you a hand to hold
This time you will need to find another to help
I will not allow your world to encroach upon mine
This time if you destroy yourself
So be it

Ailsa