Walkways

Dual forming on slopes of darker minds.

Succulent nodes of effervescent whispers,

whispering Oh! Blood clots bending

in unison to sharp solstices.

Dig and reap tomorrow’s regrets,

piled on like love you thought was comfortable.

Comfort is a guard you let loose,

let down and found judgments –

platters to be served and roasted upon.

Singing for sale. A number left to a key. Fickle

verdicts oscillating between indifference and approval.

Release and acceptance – what else is there?

I am only unhappy when I want what isn’t.

Platypus cans of tonic – drink down, flushing

through organs. I see orange. Orange buses,

orange lines of direction on the road, in homes

where anger is held at stillpoint. One point

on a curve. I have lost my feathers,

all means of flight. There is nothing left

but hunger for the skyspace, outerspace, space

where I once travelled through meteor fields,

ballooning over planets’ edges like a seamstress,

owning it all before I got grounded, committed

to personal love and the necessity of graves.

Why did I come here? To cry for my loved ones,

hold vigil for the slaughtered pigs?

Centuries that just were, lingering, licking

on waves of vastness, licking dark matter like a candy cane.

Not a soul, but the planets vibrating their orchestra – deep,

varying at intervals, then again, and never changing.

God, what am I doing in the sunlight – on the sidewalks,

making room for children on bicycles?

Putting pressure on my shoulders so I cannot sleep,

cannot appease this malcontent.

Why did I leave – to connect with misplaced animals?

Babies only born? Looking for union when before

I thought myself whole?

Material made from the moon. I understand

the beauty of caves, the great sea turtle’s solitary plight…

but more and more – I never wanted more than you

again inside of me – infinity in corporeal form.

God separates to know Itself. God is only what we give,

awakening as we do to warmth and kindness – choices

under the wrap of gravity and yet, somehow,

lifted into altruism.

Walkways cover 2 As My Blindness Burns cover 8

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

First published in “The Muse – An International Journal of Poetry” Volume 4, Number 1, June Issue 2014

http://themuse.webs.com/June%202014/muse%20june%2014.pdf

http://themuse.webs.com/latestissues.htm

You can listen to the poem below:

In response to the poem – Walkways:

“This is brilliant! Brilliant. Reminds me of when I first read Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass”. And I wanted to stand up on the city bus and exclaim aloud: “Listen to this!” A comprehensive capturing of human earthly experience in all its dimensions without missing a beat – beyond the conscious mind – dancing with the levels of our knowing and sensing – that we feel but do not always recognize, and rarely, oh so rarely articulate. Clearly, Grayhurst’s poetic journey has taken her to the mountain top,” Taylor Jane Green, registered holistic talk therapist and author.