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Long ways and no ways
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Out of phase with the frame others are drawn to. At last,
illuminated, released from artificial expectations.
You will not correspond or accelerate into my atmosphere.
My magic is inward, and the gravel you picked
up and misplaced, rolling it over your lips
to find a perfect indentation, I have held it too –
for moments at a time, swinging in the wind,
fruitful. But I know that is not my natural practice or
a possible habitation for me.
I must stand behind boards with
the spiders, while you are sunning –
an artery of pearl-like significance,
attentive, lubricating glory, improving
your already abundant harvest.
I will not make you flash-cards to categorize my plight,
or give you the pulley cord of my broken development
to pull and make use of. I am not a substitute
for a makeshift wedding ring.
My only protection is to give up. So I give
you up. Your glorious atlas open, appealing to the otherwise
immobile crowd, but not to me.
I’ve left the track, left this road
I picked – for one year I have been walking and have met
so few believers. It has been inadequate. You
have been fraudulent and have unknowingly plagued
the thrusts of my yearning. Energy matters:
what doesn’t fit doesn’t graduate
into a tangible weight, will never be
sun or iceberg.
Long ways I have loved. For hours, I have kissed
the bridge of your nose,
conscious of my fixation. In my bed,
I offered you supremacy.
Now summer draws me away, tells me this work is done,
asks me to go forward, to map and mend
a child’s ragdoll that fell overboard
where the ocean stretches on and keeps
no hidden crevices for toys or wounds.
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Copyright © 2012 by Allison Grayhurst
amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst
http://barometricpressures.blogspot.ca/2014/10/surrogate-dharma-allision-grayhurst.html?spref=fb
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-DuKJaq66ClMlFIWWU5cTY2RTQ/view
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First published in “The Mind(less) Muse”, 2012
http://themindlessmuse.blogspot.ca/2013/04/three-poems-by-allison-grayhurst.html
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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:
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“Allison Grayhurst intertwines a potent spirituality throughout her work so that each poem is not simply a statement or observation, but a revelation that demands the reader’s personal involvement. Grayhurst’s poetic genius is profound and evident. Her voice is uniquely authentic, undeniable in its dignified vulnerability as it is in its significance,” Kyp Harness, singer/songwriter, author.
“Allison Grayhurst’s poems are like cathedrals witnessing and articulating in unflinching graphic detail the gritty angst and grief of life, while taking it to rare clarity, calm and comfort. Grayhurst’s work is haunting, majestic and cleansing, often leaving one breathless in the wake of its intelligence, hope, faith and love amidst the muck of life. Many of Allison Grayhurst’s poems are simply masterpieces. Grayhurst’s poetry is a lighthouse of intelligent honour… indeed, intelligence rips through her work like white water,” Taylor Jane Green, Registered Spiritual Psychotherapist and author.
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Book reviews of the River is Blind paperback:
“Throughout (The River is Blind), she (Allison Grayhurst) employs
reiterated tropes of swallowing and being consumed, spatial fullness
and emptiness, shut- in, caverns, chasms, cavities; angels, archangels,
blasphemy, psalms; satiation or starved. With a conceit of unrequited sex
as “my desire”, nocturnal emissions, awakening in the morning, the poet lives
at capacity, uninhibited, dancing,” Anne Burke, poet, regional representative
for Alberta on the League of Canadian Poets’ Council, and chair of
the Feminist Caucus.
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“Allison’s poetic prose is insightful, enwrapping, illuminating and brutally truthful. It probes the nature of the human spirit, relationships, spirituality and God. It is sung as the clearest song is sung within a cathedral by choir. It is whispered as faintly as a heartbroken goodbye. It is alive with the life of a thousand birds in flight within the first glint of morning sun. It is as solemn as the sad-sung ballad of a noble death. Read at your peril. You will never look at this world in quite the same way again. Your eye will instinctively search the sky for eagles and scan the dark earth for the slightest movement of smallest ant, your heart will reach for tall mountains, bathe in the most intimate of passions and in the grain and grit of our earth. Such is Allison Grayhurst. Such is her poetry. THE RIVER IS BLIND is a must-read,” Eric M. Vogt, poet and author.
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