Category: People

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

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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

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

High

The persona that you projected

I am up here on high and bear your presence

I will grit my teeth to see gratitude

Spewing out of you and I remain high

Lofty, above you, and someone to aspire to

Accepting all adulation with a wave

Expect you to fall at my feet and you will.

Your world depends upon who sees you as special

Who will do anything to please you

Fawn over you and into line

Like little tin soldiers you watch from on high.

Apparently I dissented in the ranks

Fell out before I was told to go

Oh I can see all the cracks, chinks in armour

I’d rather be here on the outside

Than there on your fake high

Wondering how far it’s going to be

On the way down to the bottom.

Ailsa

©️AilsaCawleyPoetry2020

The world he’s locked in

His stories are those of a person persuaded

That life has passed him by

People crushing his spirit and grinding

Their heels into his head

Because he isn’t what was expected.

So he chooses the path of least resistance

Pressing a button that destroys his world

Because he’s afraid of losing happiness

Fighting it from happening is easier

Than the disappointment as it walks away.

He’s tired of hiding behind the shell of pretence

That he’s so carefully constructed

To show the world the clown who loses

But it’s there flickering , the light

That’s now refusing to be extinguished

Now he knows some people believe in him.

Ailsa

©️AilsaCawleyPoetry2020

If you can’t say something nice

I have the words ringing in my head

Words I’ve tried to live by

If you can’t say something nice then

Don’t say anything at all.

Yet ricocheting round inside is the glee

That dripped from your voice

As you remind me that this time

You’re in with the cool kids

That you were always desperate to join

A game of who has one upmanship

You say that you’re doing a charitable act

Of friendship for someone else

All you want is to pass the gossip on

And to say I was there because I am more

Than you like I always was.

I’m not surprised at the snub it’s not important

It’s your pleasure that cut more deeply

Yet you’ve not got a clue

Or maybe you have.

Ailsa

©️AilsaCawleyPoetry 2020

Death is a mercy, sometimes.

I wrote this after watching a programme which was about a family but PTSD features heavily and this is what came out!

He was a speaker with animals

before the destruction

Feeding them, knowing their ways

Before the fodder was him.

Sent underground to set traps

For an unwitting enemy

A generals mind in foot soldiers body

The damning combination.

A world destroyed a mind fragmented

By bangs, shells, sounds, screams

Some are his own

When he wakes from the sleep

That he tries never to have

Nightmares worse than any day can conjure

He doesn’t speak of what happened

The words are not yet invented

Distractions, diversions, plans

All to keep his mind from being idle

So the torture stays away

He is there but not there

A spectre in his own life

This living breathing moving ghost

Who everyone knows

Yet nobody understands he’s locked in

Always in the terror of then

The time he cannot speak of

He is voiceless and it’s all there

Waiting to explode

At the back of his mind is a thought

Humming louder daily

Death is a mercy, sometimes.

Ailsa
©️AilsaCawleyPoetry2019

Eruption

It’s bubbles are hot and the lava like acid burns

My throat tight from tasting anger

Twisting and turning as turbine

You spout nothing but searing air

To then forget goldfish-ly as the wind changes.

Your world has no room for anything of logic

It contains your grand vision

You the star of your own show

Roses falling at your feet in the hurrah

That you decided you deserved

And still you wait for it…

Ailsa

©️AilsaCawleyPoetry 2019

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

Broken man

A broken man skeletal but proud

Walks in daring anyone

To mention his weight loss

Haunted face deathly gaunt

Knowing each day brings him closer

To the end.

He knows what is happening

Will tell you after a drink

Wants no sympathy, fact dealing

So there’s not speculation

As he hears them discuss him

Talk about the ‘condition ‘

Coming to take the life he knew

Your words are not accurate

This thing filled him with stoicism

While eating away who he was

Wanting to tell them while asbestos eats

He can still hear every single beat.

Written about the close friend of my dad who was a fighter and battled asbestosis, a very brave man even as he was being broken down.

Ailsa

©️AilsaCawleyPoetry 2019

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