Category: poetry

I can only watch helpless

I feel the air crackle thick with the same thing over and over

I watch this charade play itself out , locked in a box of one way glass

knowing the outcome so well before the game even starts

yet I can only watch helpless

I can almost taste the acrid smoke that twists and turns around you

bang on the walls till my fists bleed to make me give in

wonder if maybe this time I pretend it’s not happening again

Perhaps it will just wear itself out and go away like it did before

yet I can only watch helpless

I burn with indignation knowing what you’ve done

remembering the call, with tinkling laughter mocking me

That said you couldn’t make it to the phone

and you’d be sure to pass on my message if you thought on it

yet I can only watch helpless

The merry go round is turning revolving ever faster

till sometime soon it will fly from it’s axis

Flipping you to all you deserve to have happen, does

and I WILL WATCH as you are helpless

fishing dark waters

I see your memories are selected from what you want to be

Not the truth only the folklore you want to be seen as being

slowly your myths are unraveling and the knots in your nets used to catch believers in

come undone under your gaze

unnoticed as you are weaving the next chapter in your tale

self made man, self made myth, selfish

You reel in the gazing face, smiling as you cut to see them bleed

watching for any sign or suggestion they’re not willing to be sacrificed

at the altar you have fashioned in your head

A moments hesitation and you will toss them aside,

victim, unnecessary, obsolete, next please

The truth is known but not spoken for it would pain too much

not you, but your surviving victims

the words one day will be spoken to show you for what you are

a soul breaker to whom the booming sound of raining tears

is music to his darkened shell

there are a few observers who know your game and the truth

do not push too far the end of their patience is nigh

your fishing will end as you become tangled in your own weblike nets

The watchers

Silently observing from the shallow grounds in the darkness

the watchers make their way through the gate

into the night world where you try not to belong

but cannot help retreating there in your own little world of hatred

Do I feel pity for you?

Once maybe, almost twice but not anymore

my pity well has run dry down so low only dust remains

I know how you imagine the world should be

Running on the theory of every man for himself

and the only train on the track belongs to you all others obsolete

Oh I know that little line so well it is like a defunct mantra

I see your lips trotting out it’s wording learned by heart to pass the time

To tell yourself that what you do is good, unwatched and unnoticed

Your words carry on the breeze

into the darkness where the watchers take notes ,and nod silently shocked

At the lack of feeling, comprehension within your being

they watch the empty shell long since evacuated of humanity

one day they will claim what remains and grind it to dust beneath their feet

they advance slowly each day and are not observed by you

they have not enough importance in their aura

but that is deliberate

carefully planned to challenge the unaware and test you’re worth

the place they could transport you to in the light

your place is well secured

you don’t even know that standing in front of you is all the light you need

As your back is turned away killing it slowly

diminishing till it’s too late

Moving on day

So different to any other this moving on day
As I climbed up, packed up,  tried to feel something.
I was expecting tears, fear, sadness
They never showed up at all
I was just expectant of a different life
But no idea what it would hold
Flooded with light and hope for new times
The pretty balloons went off in my head.
Like all balloons one or two burst before time
Others hovered, floating higher as the wrong dreams burst
Only I didn’t catch their slowly moving ascents
Until the many useless balloons (dreams)
Banged with a pop
Flattening me a moment
One day I looked around the sea of balloon sky
To find left a mere handful left
Others all long gone
Leaving only the ones holding hope
Beautiful golden orbs of gold
If you look you might see them too.
So many hopes floating in a sky of blue
It’s a moving on day
If you want it to be look up!

Ailsa

Tauro

Her head nods, silent acquiescence, resigned
To the newness thrust upon her
She knows she cannot accept forever.
Till she can gather her pain and rage
So they will fall like burning raindrops of anger
She will store them safely inside.
The right moment will arrive and Tauro’s storm
Shall break forth from her depths.
The horns grow daily and they will gore the unsuspecting
One who thinks they are immune, invincible
And on a high ground above all others
Her daily forcing away is pushing forth, won’t stay down forever
When she stampedes you will be sorry
The truth will break, hurt and shock you to the core
As your imagined pedestal crumbles to the ground
And all that is left is yourself in the shallows
Where you built your castle of sand.

Ailsa

Do you see me?

As the stranger turned and asked her name
How she feels about the latest craze
She can only nod and smile, or shake her head
Her brain screaming “do you see me? ”
Really!!
I have been here invisible in freezing chains
Stood here unnoticed, time and again.
Nobody looking for fear of my mind
Afraid to talk about truths that I find.
Again I ask are you sure
“do you see me? ”
I know what to say and what to leave out
Taught when to smile and never to shout
I’m trying hard to blend like a colour palette
He told me don’t gamble, I’m not a good bet!
So I ask you again, of whom you see last time, give you chance to flee
Are you clearer than crystal all the way through
And you really don’t want a reflection of you?

Ailsa

That day

What happened that day I asked myself?
What was going through my inner thoughts
To just allow me to follow without question
A lead towards happiness, future.
ME?
It was always told to me it could happen
But I just didn’t fit the happy pattern
You know the one
Sweet little pretty wife, with dozens of friends
The always painted face and hidden tears
Perfect home and wonderful garden, darling
The life on a constant treadmill and rota,
Moving so fast I’m dizzy.
Oh I tried so hard and so long
Drifting in my head when I could to somewhere
I didn’t have to reach for beyond the stars
And I gave up, stopped looking.
Then I looked again and painted my own perfect
Not the expected delivery of it.
My perfect.
No rosy pink and flowers round the door
Exaggerated plans to please anyone
In my own colours,
Carved from the tree, painted purple and shining
Some light areas.
Perfect my perfect, not yours maybe
But now I know something
There are so many variations on perfect.

Ailsa

Awakening

Nudging me all night with questions
If this is sorted, 
Will it pass muster (do)
If I don’t walk in telling you I love someone else
But I say that it’s you I settled for
And my words are coated in honey wine
Will you notice as I dig in the blade?
And watch as you shrink and shrivel
Like a dried out prune, a burst balloon
All your confidence and respect gone once again
I will only play a game I want to play
Say I love you for now
It looks like the dice are loaded in my favour
But really they aren’t
It’s hard being me you know!!
So as your questions and queries thicken
And it’s like being in a dark forest with trees that are moving,
Twisting and turning up round my throat
Your final question
Designed to wound
Backfires as you never thought it would
Will we get through this and stay together?
No, and I think we never should!
Leave tomorrow I can take no more
I’ve been here before
And I tell you freely
I got through then battered and bleeding
But I haven’t yet died
May be torn, twisted and bruised
But it taught me I don’t need to be used

Ailsa

Bemused at your fingertips (part 1)

The man abuses his wife as the scene unfolds
His stinging words speaking of hands that will too….later
When the onlookers have dispersed.
He pulls on a fake grin, like an old holey jumper
His grinding teeth give his irritation away
She tried to look like she knew what was going on
So the iron fist clothed for now in velvet struck
Her face flames as she is reprimanded
Like an unsuspecting child who sees only the obvious
He’ll point it out painfully later as always
Bemused at your fingertips
As you tell her it’s for her own good
Convinced that she did it all wrong AGAIN
She berates herself with a few choice words
And explaining the bruises as another door
Or window, or floor
Nobody asks her,  nor gives a care
She’ll never say anything, just as before
Till the day she decides to jump ship for shore.
A long sail it’s been and soon it will end
Too late for his sorry tongue to amend.

Ailsa

And her colour was blue

Many shades of it surrounding her as she went on her way,
From icier tones that she felt deep in her bones
To the midnight beauty that pressed in her head
And told her that monsters lived not in her mind
But with and around her, surly,  unkind
The chill of the blue it was deep and lasting
From life she was hiding, fasting
She’d grown used to this state,  the stage of the cold
Where life looked in with no hand to hold
Until one day she decided she deserved to look up
To allow herself to drink from the golden cup
Full of sweet syrup and honey
Dew and raindrops, tasted so funny
But she liked it and thought why should I keep forgetting me,
Who I am?
What is so wrong with the shades that I am?
The colours in others may be in me.
And she stopped that thought for it was scary you see.
Till one day a glorious myriad of colour
Showered her world.
She decided that she could set herself free from the prison
Have colour, light (maybe), and choices other than blue
If she had the courage to walk away from you

Ailsa