Category: poetry

Fooling all and none

He says he’s misunderstood and made

Into a devil of someone else’s choosing

As he fists hands and his woman bade

Face in sneering but charm oozing

Like an oily glut from his mouth.

He orders her to do something small

And it’d be easier to do himself

But he’s proving it just takes the call

For him to take precedence over herself

And she even considered dissent.

His words more chilling “she’ll learn eventually ”

To me “you all do, after you’re shown..”

Cold smile and words mock me

But eyes say loudly she you own.

I see her eyes and wonder if she’s quiet always

Or if she’s learned that silence is safe

Silence is the way to survive a day

And I’m asked later at another place

How I could stay in the house of a monster

Who thought he fooled all

But just because you choose not to see

Means only that you’ve chosen blinkers

You might not see the blood he spills

He still spills it saying it’s her, always her

She made him by whatever she didn’t do/say/think/like

He is fooling only himself

Your knowledge in silence is fooling all and none.

And he carries on knowing he has accomplices

She dreams at night of peace

No escape she will maybe see she needs to

She may leave it too late, could be you or me

Does it matter if she’s fooling all and none?

It may be all that keeps her alive.

Ailsa

©️AilsaCawleyPoetry 2018

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Cutting deep

Hailing down upon me the words cut

Deeper than any knife and I’d rather

The blows you threatened happen

Bruises I can heal and then they’re gone

Words are far sharper weapons

Cutting deep

You don the superior spitting face

Hurling untruths that matter not if I defend

Myself or agree, your mind made up.

As I trip backwards on the stairs

Land a few feet down with your face

Cutting deep

And you speak in hushed tones of my

Misdeeds that I half wish I’d done

To say I lead a life off the leash

An invisible chain that makes me start

If a single wrong word is uttered you’ll

Cut deep

So long you did that to me

Telling everyone that could hear

What a terrible person I was to you

How badly you were done to

And I see you now and think I escaped

I escaped

No more cutting deep

That wound is there running deep

Almost healed to surface scar tissue

No more cutting deep a helpless person

A woman who loved you once

Even the monster who wounded

You cannot love have to control every little

Bit of someone else but I know you’re not

Going to cut me ever again

Never again would you be trusted not to

Try and cut me deep

After sweet words and tearful apologies

Your method is always cutting deep.

Ailsa

©️AilsaCawleyPoetry 2018

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

The crone fire

They laugh assuming her past understanding

Her youth spent

So the spirit will be damped down

Sweet old lady all lavender and powder puff

And she smiles warming her words.

She doesn’t bother saying she was young too

They neither know nor care

So beyond seeing their world and ways

Think her unable to get their snarky lines

Comments deriding while they smile

Pitying what they don’t grasp

Nor even want to.

They sit by the fire filling bellies and she eats little

The crone they think is fading and old

Living triumphs that mean nothing to them

Who was she a doting housewife?

What could they learn from her? Ha.

When she speaks their faces pale

Oh they have misunderstood the wizened one

Who breathes fire and gives life to things

They never credited her as able to do.

Ailsa

©️AilsaCawleyPoetry 2018

Blood

It’s what we share I hear you say

We have the same blood

So….we have some DNA

Is that meant to make it good?

They smile no clue what I mean

But it ties us loosely together (you said)

Now surprised you’re not seeing

Or want connections lasting forever

Know all about it they strut

It ties our lives like string

Don’t you feel it in your gut?

This deep down caveman tribal thing

I nod …like a string you say

That holds down a balloon?

Yes you have it, that’s the way

Sharp snip cuts the cords

And that’s none too soon!

Ailsa

©️AilsaCawleyPoetry 2018

Eliza’s escape

Her years of living downtrodden

Were over she’d decided

Careful where she’d once been carefree

Words measured to be sure

The desired reaction will occur.

So Eliza spoke slowly eyes darting

To the faces in the room

Gauging the changes that said

Enough now give it a rest!

Then she’d laugh at herself before them

And when they said she’d no idea

Her head nodded in agreement.

Inside she’d fade a little more

Fake fixed smile no sad face here

When she’s the clown after all.

So used to hearing “you’re crackers ”

It was a stock phrase used

If she dared offer an opinion

And avoided the darkness that lurked

Behind their smiles, their eyes

In their savage minds.

She knew what happened in the evening

If she over stepped her bounds

So much when it was someone else

Whose cries she would hear

She’d order the sound turned down.

Eliza was so used to this world

Where she had to tag along

She decided after a few more years

That she could disappear after all.

Managing a believable illness

Only see through to a few

She held the gossamer curtain in place

Until she left the world by fading away

Slowly over the years and when they stopped

Taking notice, and her every breath

Into account . Her last revenge

was to bring the curtain down.

Ailsa

©️AilsaCawleyPoetry 2018

Hitching a lift

It’s heavy work when you’re a kid

Carrying all this bread on trays

So I hitched a lift

On a passing trolley bus

And slipped

In one end out the other

I saw my mother striding out

Face went white to red

You stupid lad she said

As she’s slapping me on the head

Then she kisses me and wipes it

Like she’s never done it

It was like skating on the road

And I don’t see the problem

After all I never dropped any bread

Ailsa

©️AilsaCawleyPoetry2018