Tag: imagination

Seeking

And you keep seeking that elusive thing 
The one you’ll know before you find it
One difference in the air
Will make it bend to your will adoration flowing forth
Like you are a god with an offering at the altar
You wait growing ever older never wiser
Desperately seeking something but what? 
You shrug because you will know
And I shake my head
As I see you once more search for a thing
That’s nonexistent
An empty shell you can build into what you think
You might want
For now
Twisting to the beat of a wind you imagine blowing
A perfectly coiffed exterior
Never ceasing turmoil for the agenda has changed again
Your list longer
Denial and suspicion your own enemies
Built by you into monsters
Laying in the dark every day and night
And you are still desperately trying to see the prettiest baubles
To hang in the window
Hoping the seeking is ended but it is Neverending
You only want perfect

Ailsa
©AilsaCawleyPoetry 2016

Destination unknown

Fireflies dance along the pathway like fluttering beacons
The path illuminated with gentle light
Healing each step as if sending a dart to my heart
This one hope,  that one balm
Flickering amongst themselves a conversation in flight
My destination uncertain,  unknown
I find I don’t care trusting my fate to an ethereal presence
Whose hand guides my shoulder
As I take on the falling rocks and howling winds
Led by no solid man
On a pathway trodden before me though the steps long gone
Worn almost smooth the rocks I now walk barefoot
My feet and soul as one
Rest awhile and gather scattered thoughts
Fireflies around me protectively dancing
I nod to carry on destination still unknown
But certainty that all will be well dwelling deep inside
The path must be trodden not from a duty
But for my own peace
My heart bleeding in harmony with the splintered paint on the door
Which lies ahead with walls unseen
Mouth dry I feel drunk on expectation as I stagger
To my journeys end
Or have I travelled to a new beginning?

Ailsa

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

Skimming the surface

Reaching in she pulls the paddle over and under trying hard 

To remove the scum gently  

If only she can be gentle enough with more time or patience her inner voice says 

It will be just as it should 

Again she works to remove another cruddy layer in determined silence 

The other voice tells another story 

Walk away abandon it, save yourself it beats a stronger rhythm than before 

A clang awakes her from her reverie 

Nothing clings to the paddle at her side so she checks the waste bucket at her side 

Perplexed at its emptiness of anything solid  

Realising that all along the shift was something she thought she was doing 

But she skimmed the surface of an empty barrel 

What she tried to perfect , put right is nothingness and just how she wonders 

Could that ever be done? 
©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016 

The beautiful lies

In the bubble of pretence your smile shifts
Like a ever moving desert sand
Picture change to suit the current story of the day
Pick through the rubble that is your mind
Mask slipping
Rubber stamp on the opposite page
So you can slide back into the rhythm you never had
A dream which didn’t happen
Though if you wait long enough then it might
Drop through the door you watch
You say do nothing and it’ll all work out
Don’t push for your dreams
They’re meant to fade with the light of day
Be like everyone else who asks the question of how
They can change things then accept
Learn to live with the same as the hordes before them
Swallow the beautiful lies like nectar from the gods
It’s a slow dawning till you realise
That bitter taste,  yes that one!
Is the taste of your own dead dreams sucked into eternity
So far out of reach because you deceived yourself
Into thinking you had to follow where you were told
The lie is wrapped in colourful splendour
Don’t breathe it
It can turn you sour slowly curdling like cream left in the heat
Walk,  run, escape the cat calls
Telling you that nothing different can happen
Run towards your hearts whispered wishes
Far from beautifully crafted lies

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

Understand no dreams

It’s a childish thing your expressions say
No words just a twist of the lip
Curled in distaste and what you assume is knowing
Your vision doesn’t want to go beyond the garden gate
So you make the outer prison walls pretty
But liveable
Any new experience of mine has you
wondering what if I have gone
Too far this time and I’m falling on my face
Making a grotesque clown of myself
With childish dreams that should be in a box hidden
From sight,  thought and deed
Hide you whisper,  close down your mind
Dreams are not for living
Only thinking
You will me to give it up before I begin
I never could stay in the boxes designated for me
And you tut tut silently shaking your head
As I start to build not a castle for long dead lives
But a home,  simple and without barriers
No fence to imprison me
Or pretty garden to disguise it’s true meaning
Just a place I am at peace and home.
There is no grander a wish for me
Than understanding a dream can be real.

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

Ice in the blood

She’s lying there feigning sleep to escape
Another discussion
One sided as always but he terms it a fair exchange
Same old start strokes her back
And whispers words in her ear in tones of love
Chilling her bones to the marrow
I always wanted to kill someone just once see how it feels
Racing heart she tries to calm
Know you’re listening you went rigid (chuckles)
She feels sick as he tries to nuzzle her neck
Moving slowly out of grasp
Almost
Ice moving through her blood so cold at the thought
Of what is beneath the surface beside her
Is he made of ice,  stone or just a monster
Masquerading as man
She dreams fractured dreams of smashing ice to tiny shards
Not cutting herself
But he won’t harm his words won’t wound
Seeking only a reaction from a sleep fogged mind
Yet yesterday she heard him telling a man
She’s a force to be reckoned with
Supposing that nodding and doing all the right things for him are
Then she must be
Except that deeper person hidden away tells her
Be the person in his smudged brain
Or pretend and let the spirit of the strong one inhabit you
Until the real you can step forward
Go on it urges for survival
The decision is made to obtain freedom
Ice crystals cool her blood

Ailsa

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

Dancing with Jimmy & Vettrianos Butler

Dressing up in the floor length gown that skimmed curves
Without clinging tight
Applying her make up and feeling a million dollars
Rolling black satin gloves up her arms
In her head dancing over the carpet of sand
Where Vettriano’s butler would dash
To shield her from anything
Except it was you telling me I looked ridiculous, a fool
Thinking of a quick change too late as a vehicle honks
My eye straying to the necklace a snake curled
You shake your head and tell me they’ll laugh
Climbing in a familiar voice
Well hello there and why do you look so low? 
It’s Jimmy telling me I look like an Egyptian Queen
Or a movie star
My breath catches waiting for the punchline
Stop and Jimmy’s hand is on my arm with a smile
Allow me my lady he says
Helping me down with gentle grace
He whispers in a stage aside you’re beautiful he’s scared
I only wish I’d seen Jimmy after that day
My own Vettriano’s butler I thank you.

Ailsa

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

Holding tightly

If you hold her tightly she will stay by your side
Unaware of another world
Every thought of trying something new vetoed before
Reasons why it couldn’t work
Then she found things to try and not mention
Your fears too exhausting
Her wings were clipped so carefully far back
To stop flight
Desperately climbing the highest peak she sought
Pushing forward to the top
Breathless with fear, anticipation,  determined to know
How flight would feel yet….
Wings so sparsely feathered she’d surely crash
As had been foretold
Running to the edge she jumped and began descent
Gliding on the wind
Only a gentle bump to land and realised she didn’t need them
No wings held her up
Just belief that maybe she could if she tried
From now she would.
No thought for your fears

Ailsa

©AilsaCawley Poetry 2016

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

The moths silence

Wings beating fast, faster still against the words
Oh fearful things
Fused together over time in a few sentences
Believed and uttered
So I don’t grow too much of anything
A sense of hope,  longing, growth
Because I might become that person dreaming
Too high
Flight too close to the flames makes dust of me
Foolish motes on the wind
Better to be unnoticed in the corner and safe
From ridicule I thought
Ah but now I see this is not possible
For I will become dust from doing nothing
Having no destiny
Or destination but obscurity
In knowledge I fly to the brightest part of the flame
I may disintegrate to nothingness
Knowing I tried to do something to show my own self
I will keep silent as I’m devoured
The moths silence

Ailsa
©AilsaCawleyPoetry 2016

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

Lioness

Watching and drinking in the whole scene to weigh it up 

Carefully prowling 

Until she knows what to use precious energy on 

Circling in a slow decreasing arc towards the thing in eyeline 

It is not aware of her presence yet 

So used is she to moving deliberately and nonchalantly that nothing 

Even notices 

Unless she wants to be seen 

Or they have crossed her path on the wrong side 

Mainly she does not roar she is unassuming, quiet even  

But a chord of fear is struck when they hear her angry battle cry 

Notice for the first time her teeth. 

So much drank in slowly, like milkshake through a straw 

Chilling her insides little by little a steady stream of ice 

Till her hot anger overflowing but slowly edge her towards her target 

Watch her smile as she slithers in shadow 

Kill her prey ? No not her.

Breath like crystals of ice as she breathes over the fallen prey 

Who smiles unsure of why she looks different to them 

And as her mouth covers theirs she lets it all come forth 

Freezing their heart in their chest  with the cold built up over forever 

Now she is free.
Ailsa

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016