The Stars Inside was published in 2012 as a Waterloo Press ‘slim’: ISBN 978-1-906742-45-4
£7.00

‘Behind the beautifully articulated verse is the voice of a committed and passionate woman: cool, sexy, entertaining, acutely observant—an astonishingly literate, page-turning poet.‘
Ted Booth

 ‘…a fine sense of lineation and line break,
as well as an almost tidal, breathing rhythm…
[a] cultivated sense of closure, which avoids the cheap punch line… What remains after reading this collection is the delicate physicality of the poetry, the organic coalescing of art forms, landscape, and the human experience.’
Ian Watson in Poetry Salzburg Review No.23

‘Ayala Kingsley’s debut collection is a delight…
One of the greatest attributes of this work is its
interpretation of the relationship between the
outer appearances and inner emotions with the
colours and presence of nature… Kingsley exhibits
control over all of these panoramas with the
selectivity and dexterity of a landscape painter.’
Jade Skinner in Dura (Dundee University Review of the Arts)

The stars inside

One at a time, the stars go out;
I might catch their falling arpeggio
but all I see these days
are the stellar celebrities.
On clear nights I can still
swing on the O of Boötes
ride Pegasus at a clip
beard the Great Bear in his den,
but objects less than second magnitude
are so much chaff now.

We sat in the planetarium,
cupped in a gloved palm of blackness
sensing the other’s dark matter
and gravity like a wind.
We waited for the day to end
and the city to stop spinning
and for singularity
to tip us into its well.
Later, as you peeled me from my skin
starlight flowed through my pores.

The universe draws away
its curve the truest of infinities
and everything farther and fainter.
I see things less well and more clearly
as time stretches between us
and the number of photons
reaching me diminish.
Behind my eyelids are nebulae, galaxies;
in this collapsing region
stars are being born.