Category: life

Shades of a person

The shutters down as he tells her it doesn’t hurt
To try that again
You do want us to be happy don’t you?
Know I won’t harm you really
She’s beyond any fearless answer wondering
If she ignores it this time
He’ll get to see the others he says hurt him
Have got no sway
Casually mentions that he doesn’t mean to harm
But if she just didn’t get so
Goddamned mouthy
She’d not need to hide the bruises if she didn’t fight back
Or say things he doesn’t want to hear
Her insides are dying she feels withered and shrunken
Her world is closing down
Like a store gone bust departments closing
Some parts dark
One place holds out to the grasping fear
Telling her survive or….
What
There is someone else to protect here and rage eats her
Explodes like the ticking time bomb it always was
Anger bigger than herself
She shakes inside as she spits boiling venom
Ordering him out in measured words
Burning and trying to keep a lid on the fear of intensity threatening
Fight,  fight,  no more flight
No tears to shed just bile to cool
Self hatred to lose
And she sends the curtain crashing down
On a stage he thought was assured
Exit stage left the cabaret now the audience is no longer fooled

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

Dancing with Jimmy & Vettrianos Butler

Dressing up in the floor length gown that skimmed curves
Without clinging tight
Applying her make up and feeling a million dollars
Rolling black satin gloves up her arms
In her head dancing over the carpet of sand
Where Vettriano’s butler would dash
To shield her from anything
Except it was you telling me I looked ridiculous, a fool
Thinking of a quick change too late as a vehicle honks
My eye straying to the necklace a snake curled
You shake your head and tell me they’ll laugh
Climbing in a familiar voice
Well hello there and why do you look so low? 
It’s Jimmy telling me I look like an Egyptian Queen
Or a movie star
My breath catches waiting for the punchline
Stop and Jimmy’s hand is on my arm with a smile
Allow me my lady he says
Helping me down with gentle grace
He whispers in a stage aside you’re beautiful he’s scared
I only wish I’d seen Jimmy after that day
My own Vettriano’s butler I thank you.

Ailsa

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

Holding tightly

If you hold her tightly she will stay by your side
Unaware of another world
Every thought of trying something new vetoed before
Reasons why it couldn’t work
Then she found things to try and not mention
Your fears too exhausting
Her wings were clipped so carefully far back
To stop flight
Desperately climbing the highest peak she sought
Pushing forward to the top
Breathless with fear, anticipation,  determined to know
How flight would feel yet….
Wings so sparsely feathered she’d surely crash
As had been foretold
Running to the edge she jumped and began descent
Gliding on the wind
Only a gentle bump to land and realised she didn’t need them
No wings held her up
Just belief that maybe she could if she tried
From now she would.
No thought for your fears

Ailsa

©AilsaCawley Poetry 2016

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

Past Futures

Weave them well lass she said they’re only but scraps
Make your binding so tight not to break
Take only the best pieces you can see
And no faith in life allow to shake
The road you are carving has been trod before
But not with your footsteps,no
Be sure that you follow the path you know to be true
Not that easy course that’s well worn
The girl as she’s known is nodding but fears
What if my waiting is all wrong
You never waited, you said all on your mind
It never hurt you to leave past behind
So I’m not as strong as you think I might be
I am sure my waiting will let us both down
Lass the older one said who said I never did hurt? 
I had no way to stand back and think
Learning only to react and then wonder
It was my own heart and others I’d break
You have learned well so as not to know
And this was always my goal

Walk from the hills and leave them your fears
They have perfected losing it there
Hear the wind howling she asks
And of course she nodsthat she does
That cave at the top you get there by dreams
Of vanquished villains and brave dragons who
Will be just out of sight
So climb high in your head as you lie in bed
And I will stay by you as you fight again
Call only my name should you need me lass
Not more than a heartbeat away
Not all shine you see is of solid gold
And I am but through the doorway
Whose handle you are not permitted to hold
Don’t fear the future it’s lying in wait
It’s there awaiting you now
Only you can can see it go ahead now
Let it hold and enfold your desires
Now walk ahead feel the earth at your feet
Tread the ground of your home and hearth
The girl turns to thank for the calming advice
Only the whooping of wind remains

Ailsa
©AilsaCawleyPoetry 2016

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

Thoughts of safety

She’s floated behind the wall built of solid thought
Strength beyond concrete
None can break through and she’s unsure how
Or if it’s too late
Was it left so long that solidity flowed away
In unnoticed rivulets
She’s wishing she hadn’t made a castle to guard her
An unwanted prison
Of a way to escape her own blocked exits
And repair some things
But she’s unsure if she got left behind in her fortress
And it’s too late
Looking for a chink in homemade armour
Her prayer is that there’s time
Before the sand timer runs out.

Ailsa
©AilsaCawleyPoetry 2016

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

Different truths

Your eyes, your lips speak different truths of their own

The lips if they want to issue trite statements cherry picked from magazines

And the eyes glaze in boredom that the subject isn’t you.

When you talk the story has to say you are a martyr of your own life

Blame for things lie elsewhere, and your doorstep is scrubbed clean

You don’t notice the stains you have made lying there

Shielded from the beginning and never learning to grow or give 

Though you congratulate yourself on your generosity  

You are as transparent as a window pane 

With a memory as murky as a puddle where it suits 

So carry on and drink 

Salute yourself as no one else does 

And you cry into your coffee cup at the lack of understanding  

You aren’t appreciated for the things you might have done 

The world is always the same speaking a different truth 

To  your own sacred song
Ailsa

©AilsaCawleypoetry 2016

Gorgon to dust

Through the crowd they appeared to her
the tormentor
Every nightmare a walking flesh wound dealt, felt
It was then she decided to face it
Head on
Though her heart beat so fast she feared it’s escape
Facing this gorgon of her waking hours
Who held every dream and tried to crush it
To dust
Smile painted on she greets the night fear
The terror of every living hour 
Deciding a fake grin and a proof of life after
Are necessary
Even if the arm pulling her away wants to avoid
She has to face down the power to destroy
It once had
Watching it as it squirms under a level gaze
No longer
The frightened child willing to believe in half truths
Blatant lies or dusty fables fed to kill her
The girl has demolished the demons power
No more running
Her mind given new life, finally.

Ailsa
©AilsaCawleyPoetry 2016

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

You didn’t , you……

You didn’t you say, that was someone else 

Who felt for you 

They put your words into a real neat line, you didn’t because 

I don’t see it 

The boredom of writing your soul in blood on paper, you? 

You’re not a person who tells me 

Everything 

And if I didn’t see then it can’t be truly you 

Why share your heart in its smallest pieces, or when it’s 

Bursting? 

You don’t, you didn’t ,you couldn’t ,you can’t 

Because I wouldn’t and I want a newer copy of me in you 

That’s all you should be a replica 

No way you believe I could, I would, I did 

I am.

You may have closed the door to realms of possibility 

I mourn it’s loss for you 

I hammered my doors and windows out from their frames 

To be anything I want.

I did. See it or not, I do.

Ailsa

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

Work with me

You asked her work with me any time she’d dissent
Eating her inside the guilt for poor you
Excuses for your actions
Reasons why you didn’t and should
Till she’s sitting on a virtual powder keg pent up, spent
You still say work with me and miss the bitter smile
As she closes the door quietly
So she can rage within her head
Looking through and into the heart of the storm inside you
No longer wondering how to help you quell it
But seeing you keep creating it for yourself
So you can keep her in chains
Made from cobwebs of an old life
Figuring how to break free of you now
No longer excuses that are able to wash
The stains on her memory clean
They are wrapped up in neat boxes weighted by bricks
One day her words will free her mind
And she’ll pity you no more

Ailsa

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

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