Category: Uncategorized

Emperors disaster

Standing there like the emperor who’s convinced he wears a beautiful cloak,

Your cloth is of your own making, not pretty in any form

Revulsion and sickness rise together , while you grin insanely, inanely 

Finding the jokes in your head funny

Except they’re not, you’re not

Grown up children are irritating, at least the ones who think they amuse 

My feelings are deadened 

The practicality takes over again

No it’s not the first time, not the last time I sigh

For once my head and heart speak together 

As I wash away the foul, false cloth

I tell myself it’s a covering, to remove it 

Or I’d surely hate you now

Head and heart whisper again, then shout 

What to do I ask myself?

Anger builds like a tidal wave wiping away any pity, feelings 

If I do not escape I will drown with you

Ailsa 

©Ailsa Cawley Poetry 2015

Some of us…

Some of us she said as her lecture began to take shape

We asked for nothing and never asked for  (tsk tsk) escape,

Now do you see, your life is designed to mirror well, me 

Why can’t you allow and just let things lie, let them be? 

Ignore them said the horrified girl, but why would I do such a thing

It can only resentment grow and hopelessness bring 

If I give out my honesty and expect in return, 

That all things will pass no hatred to churn 

Then isn’t that safer, healthier for him and for me 

To know our feelings show truth make us free? 

Her perplexity grows as the older woman in her face laughed 

Stupid girl that’s like listening for songs on a draught! 

I tell you ignore all that’s wrong and it will just go, disappear 

As the light in your eyes goes you stop having tears 

If there’s none to shed your heart cannot cry

Give up on dreams now ,let them fade and die 

So don’t think of solitude, time or breathing space 

This world won’t tolerate you thinking at that pace 

Years carried on the girl spoke to her own children clearly

My daughter hold onto your dreams and hold onto them dearly 

For if you give up on yourself you give permission to another 

To take your thoughts tightly in their hands and let them smother 

Maybe not intentionally but don’t with yourself be mean 

If you do it is a yardstick for all to clearly see.
Ailsa

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2015

Beauty

Shining in your eyes a lively spark of humour dances

A flame you try to hide behind words that contain cultivated steel 

It was tended slowly, carefully learned lessons glow.

You try not to show beauty for that means vulnerability and you were taught 

Never show your weaknesses for they will be exploited  

And you will learn the hard way

So you say little or too much trying to build a perfect shield

Choosing your confidantes with extreme care 

Told to smile, be agreeable to just dance on strings prettily little puppet 

Your eyes show flinty grey with lightning sparks of anger 

Chewing them up with words they don’t understand 

With wisdom they dismiss because they think it’s not nice 

Do you care?

Not one jot 

And it’s all I can do to allow myself to be the brave woman you were

The beautiful, brave, dangerous woman who is only herself.
Ailsa

©AilsaCawleyPoetry 2015

In a box (escaping)

You want to do something different ? Well that’s understandable (stupid,!)

Why do you think you could do that when I keep you safely imprisoned

In the box disguised as somewhere you might flourish, when you learn…  

To leave yourself behind and become the dutiful copy I desire?

His expression straining against impatience

Like a wild animal fighting in his own soft features 

That hide so well the steel cage lying behind the twisted smile (grimace) 

Slowly explaining to her what she’s wanted for, expected to be. 

Don’t be ridiculous how can you expect to obtain happiness 

You don’t get it do you?

Life is not about happy just existing, coasting with occasional sunshine 

But happy , happy

And he laughs to ensure she feels small enough

To keep in the box like a forgotten toy , used sometimes

Cruelly and briefly to his satisfaction 

He hasn’t seen that look in her eyes as her mind numbs to his laughter  

She smiles to herself and he thinks it’s at him 

But her plans for escape have just begun to take shape 

How she doesn’t know but she will break out of the box 

In a box

What could you possibly wish for ? He queried 

Squaring his shoulders waiting to go into defensive mode

You live in a house that gives no more than a basic shelter 

A domestic slave with my chosen for you friends

Narrowed eyes await confirmation of his rightness in everything 

Bore into her as she tries to tear her gaze away

I erm well I just want to have something I choose you see

She nods emphatically knowing it was the wrong thing to say. 

A tirade ensues as he tells her he is wiser, knows more

Accept the unacceptable he says

Run yourself a bath you’re obviously overwrought 

Pats her shoulder with a smile and a warning glare 

She turns away wondering why she’s so damned ungrateful 

Once again angered and disappointed,  been hateful

To even mention any dissatisfaction that’s stirs or causes a ripple 

In the mercurial waters 

She’s wishing she’d just learn to say nothing at all 

Swoop and dive like the fluttering bird he wishes for 

But it’s there deep down the stirring resentment begun

Can she ignore it? Not for long.
Ailsa

©AilsaCawleyPoetry 2015

Dawn procession

Gloom lifting slowly showing a pale yellow light in the distance 

Almost hesitant a lonely voice calls announcing daybreak  

In darkness you waited 

In silence

Almost afraid 

To make that first sound to wake the sleeping world from slumber

You wonder if you really heard that solitary call

So you wait

Holding your breath so long your chest wants to burst

It seems

Closer, clearer, more confident another peep, another 

Till there is a procession that heralds the dawn 

That thanks the world for the day that’s arrived 

Blessing it greatly

For its light, a new hope

An extra chance to be as new in the world

Now you understand the dawning 

It has taken place and inside you feel your soul sing in recognition 

Of earth, nature , the dawn procession 
Ailsa

©AilsaCawleyPoetry 2015

They danced the dance

They danced the dance, one two three, three three, stop…

All change, flounce away partner change

Keep looking back for the sparks fly like fireflies,

To entice the partners to dance again as they will like addicts who need the next fix,

The sparks dance prettily in the sky

They were set off long ago and burned slowly like fireworks 

Chemical reaction, boom once ,twice, three times 

Till they fizzle and die burning themselves out into stardust 

And become the flickers of something that attracted them 

In the first place 

They are sparkle dust, part of someone else’s dance 

Watching them dance the dance of all change.
Ailsa

©Ailsa Cawley Poetry 2015

Desperation Express 

Roll up, roll up for the ride you can’t ignore

The suck it up and see if it’s all the same once more

As much as you like to dine on here till you’re bloated and gorged outside

From table to table you drift, graze and  unceasingly glide

While inside you’re dried up with twisted emotions being without a core

A ship with no anchor without so much as a shore

Nor a place to take refuge and rest

You are but a husk a dried up old shell of a deserted wasps nest

Where flesh and bone once dwelled, pounding with life 

With feelings, emotions clicking and switching complain of your strife

Now you live only to settle old scores and say how well you cope

With a dash of excitement here or there convincing you there is hope 

That you still can ride like a young child the desperation express 

Because you think getting off this train will bar your success. 

Ailsa

©Ailsa Cawley Poetry 2015

Mist mass

The mist swirls around the land almost threatening in it’s nothingness

Unsure if I can really see what seems to be there or a creature plays

In some forgotten realm ahead of me in the pea green haze 

A rational thought, always the sensible one this ration,

Tells me to get with it and what else could it be but someone coming towards me?

Of course the part, that is more of me than not sings another song,

It’s coming, one of those night creeper things, coming for you

And getting closer, closer, heart beating fit to burst at the shape coming right for me

That I still cannot make out what this lumbering mass is

Enter the last cloud of gloom , the mist mass

Heading for it, as it does for me

Hold my breath, counting, counting, closer, closer….

My head begins to whirl looking for it’s hiding place of which there’s none

But it has vanished into the misty vapour leaving me cold to my bones

With the feel of an icy hand on the back of my neck…….

Irregular

Stumbling over and around his words like a child’s building blocks

Trying to smile as he told her the fateful words ‘you are irregular ‘ not normal he kept back

Though his expression said it with one solitary glance.

Come through to the parlour he beckoned and try out your costume for the freak show

Attempting now to reassure her with phrases of ‘you should manage’ or ‘it’ll likely be fine‘

Without meeting her gaze.

She shrank in on herself, sure everyone could see at a glance her oddity, not difference, but flawed

Like the reject from the assembly line that got tossed in the seconds box, unfit for perfection

Unless someone was willing to ignore irregularity *shudder* 

He carried on his conversation with himself , no chance to interject for her 

And her head carried her away to where the clowns danced, falling over

To a place she wasn’t irregular , a second, or a freak.

She had entered the land of the other oddities and she thought she quite liked it.