Category: People

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

Labyrinth light

The orbs glow brightly to all who will watch their bluish light 

Winking, flashing 

To find them in the distance will take me away far away 

From the labyrinth in which I wander 

I may look lost or aimless 

But something tells me that to leave this place where I can take many routes 

Will lay me on a straight narrow path to darkness 

Where here I am illuminated

The glow may be eerie but so many turns, choices here….

A straight measured road? 

To nothing 

I remain in favour of the labyrinth and my mind tells me 

That when I find the end 

It takes me to a new level the next colourful cavern lit by…..

Who knows what I shall find 
Ailsa

©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

River of expression

She’s careful in choosing her words and expression
For they can give too much
Away or not
Enough
And usually the latter she’s been told often
She tries hard to remain inscrutable a blank canvas
Only wanting to give away a little
Not knowing that if you watch her a while
You need ask no questions no words needed
To see her simmering eyes blazing hot embers
Anger in her measured strides
Though she’s busy trying to be a nice girl
Who doesn’t complain and says things are
Fine, no really …..
And sometimes she crumbles and cracks
The furious tears flowing like a river
That’s worn through the rocks finally to reveal
Just a glimpse of the force behind that one day
Will flood out and leave devastation in their lava like wake

Ailsa

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

Unfolding fear

I watch as things unfold slowly, deliberately  

Can feel the newness like putting on brand new bed linen 

The crispness, feeling like nothing there has been sullied  

Stroking things to see how they feel, if they bite 

Or just caress me back 

The familiarity rubbing softly against my cheek 

Like a soothing hand stroking  

The fear tried to sink in its teeth slowly 

As it did once before and it was jubilant over me 

This time I turned giving chase so it skulks in the shadows hoping 

But it knew another me  

One whose fear was of being enough of everything to everyone 

A more alive me knows now that I should push back 

Unless I do I cannot hope to get anywhere  

I beat the unfolding fear with songs of my own 

It’s are drowned by my out of tune happy noise.
Ailsa

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

Execution of fate

I turn away because I have to or I will not leave
My face a mask of pretence
I am abandoning my own self here
If I were to know that it was forever I would be raging
Like a tossed about ship I feel the force of myself
Emotions race clamouring for first place
All afraid not to be noticed
Yet not wanting to be the winner of this race
The unseen bolster I have put between us
Guarding as a centurion against the destruction you wreak
And swear you didn’t mean to cause
But you have
Time and again after lulling my mind to sleep
Not this time I know
Feeling the cold wave of certainty wash over me
Keeping me alert,  cold, removed but alive
Never again will you penetrate this cocoon
I have gladly placed myself in
Only until I am strong
Enough to say the words you know are coming
No exoneration
No reprieve
This hanged man built his own noose
Whether he tightens it or not
Is no concern of mine

Ailsa

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

Deep water still

She’s confused at her emptiness feeling..
Like the sea dredged of all life
Only the murk floating around her face
Clarity long gone
But it shouldn’t be this way and she’s fighting angry
Though you’ll never know as it’s hidden
Behind a rock and in the gloom
You choose not to notice
None but she can ever enlighten and pride tells her
In an urgent voice to say nothing
Bury it away for raw disappointment in you
Can take her nowhere but down
To the bed of the ocean where you dwell
Waiting to cause pain
So she smiles and dances to lift away from the author of doom
And forward to forge clean new waters

Ailsa

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

To walk away

And I try to wipe the cry from my face
Before I can be seen broken
Breathe deep my head says calmly interjecting
So I follow the command
How else can sense come from mayhem?
You didn’t say the words I heard
Even shake my head to convince myself
And lose the battle
Numb from words I have to believe are spoken in desolation
I remember long ago words of love or whatever it means
Had taken them as shielding walls
Oh how wrong
You can’t feel as a puppeteer only pull control strings
Watch as the tautness makes you feel warm
It’s all you feel
Deep down I know this but I have to pretend
I am in control until,  until I’m strong enough
To walk without a glance back

Ailsa

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

Mercurial Mairi

She arrived slipping out from the wall it seems
A liquid flowing form so mercurial
Yet I’m drawn to speak with her as if an urgent need has arisen
What exactly troubles you child, she asks soothing,
This place
Exactly what she emphasises with a smile
Encouragement or amused by me I cannot tell
It’s stealing me
How can it get into the very depths winding
Like Ivy it is surrounding me from all angles
Ahhh is her reply
Her grasp cool on my arm
Be still child,  it is not predator and prey we discuss
Don’t you feel it,  the difference here?
Nodding without a word
It’s the gods,  yours,  mine,  any, none
They have answered your call do you see?
They take something first to be sure you don’t feeeel it, hmmm
It’s a sense of something shifting,  slipping
When they’re sure they take other parts if they need to
What do they take (eyeing the room like it’s at fault!)??
You feel your heart shift first
Your mind following after if it needs to imagine
Some hearts are more logical resistant to impulse
Tell me child,  where does your heart bide?
Where can you find wildness,  desolation,  beauty and more
Do you feel peace and tranquillity and everything more
Do you see storms and run away or need to stay
See light play in morning and evening and magic dance in the air
Tell me child,  where else can you fare?
I nod you’re right is it really that simple
As a tap on my shoulder
Whose voice tells me we’re going are you ready?
I’m just….
Talking to that wall I know,  first sign of madness he laughs
Looking back she is gone mercurial mairi
Like she never was there…..

Ailsa

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016