Category: poetry

He preens in preparation

For the next adoring patient

That will bow and scrape

At his little polished feet

His moustache waxed in exact points

Pudgy flesh over stubby joints

He sees it a necessity

Definitely not a vanity

To have the latest silken cravat

Hiding from the public his newfangled

Words set to confuse the people of the day

As he sticks out his chin indignantly

And waits for you to pay

Ailsa

©️AilsaCawleyPoetry2020

Ekphrastic challenge with Paul brookes at wombwell rainbow

I came to the island a city lass

Something clicked and moved

Into a place

An empty space

I didn’t know was there

But I started learning

Some said the island hooked me

But it didn’t hurt

More like wrapped in nana’s arms

Being told I’d found my peace

With vast seas and

Seas that crash or whisper

I kept learning

Many scoffed at this silly dream

After all it’s life on an island

Things are slower here

Because everyone knows

That to hurry makes you deaf

To nature’s teachings

And you never stop learning

Never stop learning.

©️AilsaCawleyPoetry2020

She lived there alone, but not lonely in her home on the hill.

It was nothing fancy, no frills adorned the door. Only the old Rowan tree that curved over it.

Her years seemed to have gone on forever and she knew that one day soon, they would, as with every other creature end. People named her the wise woman and it was not her wish. For names held power, or danger, depending on whose hands held them and whose mouths spoke them.

Few words passed old Elspeth’s lips. Morning greetings, or asking after someone’s health, an offer of a prayer for the return to health or a painless end to their life. A blessing offered for a newborn. The same as any other person in the village did.

The difference was Elspeth lived outside the village. Elspeth lived alone. Elspeth was a woman.

Her garden bloomed with flowers and vegetables , herbs and berries. She grew as much as she could because she liked it that way. Her life was a life lived for many years alone.

She had lived as a young woman and lost both child and husband in quick succession. She had dug the graves herself, being without family or friends willing to help her. Elspeth had been alone many years and was content in her own company. Safe in her solitude, she’d thought.

Until now.

Only today a man in a tall hat had sat astride a horse, calling her outside in the howling wind to answer questions of a curse she’d supposedly uttered over a child.

She stood tall. Told him she’d uttered no curse over any child and had said she hoped the child was blessed.

He spat at her, saying that the child was gravely ill and he’d been called to investigate the possibility of her witchcraft. As he left he disdainfully called her Cailleach and spat in her face, hissing he’d be back for her. Sooner or later.

She went inside her home, closed the door and for the first time, bolted it. Her anger and fear made her shake.

As she went to bed she knew one thing, she had to be careful as the man wanted to come back. He was afraid of her. Fear made men act strangely.

©️AilsaCawley2020

Hiding always hiding the skills inbred

Because they don’t pay the rent

Words, paint and music not for us

Learn the practical stuff

And get a nod of acceptance

If you’re different we’re afraid of you

But we won’t say as that would encourage

What we term your airy fairy ways

And high falutin ideas of a better world

We learn to hide until the mask slips

Artistically artful and cunning

In our way of showing work until

We cannot hide any longer

Don’t care if anyone gets it or laughs

At our need to show ourselves in the open

So when you say you kept it quiet, think

Did you ever tell someone they had ideas

Above their station?

Did you help teach the artist to be artful?

Spillwords.com presents: The Son That Never Was, poetry by Ailsa Cawley who writes about the world around her and lives on the Isle of Skye with her family.

Source: The Son That Never Was

In lockdown land

In this new land our movements slow

Everything goes

At a pace akin to another time

When maybe worlds were less frantic

And the quick jive of life

Turned into the back two, forward one

That no-one knows anymore

Or we didn’t.

A few weeks in when we’re horror numb

And our new ways are beginning

We learn to keep our distance don’t touch

But we speak to people we’d not know

If it weren’t for this damn virus

That reaps the old without mercy

And culls them in it’s nasty grasp

Still I know it’s made so many say

That life is to be lived in a way souls can ease

The lungs of the dead are filled with water

They drowned so we can breathe

But if I hear it described much more as a war

The words get thee to hell you fools

May not be the only words I scream

I know that life has changed for us all

I’ve changed and so have you

So let’s look forward to brighter days

©️AilsaCawley2020