Ceramic-tile stuck

I cannot say the rim

is soft enough or that there is any place

I can be strong, afford myself aggression, brick-throwing,

penetrate for the sake of alteration,

for the possibility of scattering pieces of my tongue

on the train-tracks of thoughts of giving

“just enough to get a person through.”

Sober after the feast, air-raids and pumpkin smashing,

navigating the basement where floods happen and things

must be cleaned or thrown out.

In the bed, in the well-wishers award book, carving, craving

to be told that everything I wished for is owned,

not on loan – assimilated into the higher oblivious machine.

It is impossible to be noble without newness,

to taste liberty, remembering

this cold world is the necessary formula

to make remarkable heroes.

I can go to work

collecting and stacking beach stones,

each atop of each, just such and such, let them sing

to someone’s eye. I can make water from the sun,

sipping the moon’s weeping.

I can run down the street with a white shirt on.

If I had a white shirt, I could wear it, rolled-up sleeves,

and run.

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

Surrogate Dharma chapbook 1

http://barometricpressures.blogspot.ca/2014/10/surrogate-dharma-allision-grayhurst.html?spref=fb

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-DuKJaq66ClMlFIWWU5cTY2RTQ/view

First published in “Miracle E-Zine” Issue 6

http://miracleezine.wix.com/miracle-e-zine

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18105819-miracle-e-zine-issue-6

You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

“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,” Eric M. Vogt, poet and author.

“Grayhurst is a great Canadian poet. All of Allison Grayhurst’s poetry is original, sometimes startling, and more often than not, powerful. Anyone who loves modern poetry that does not follow the common path will find Grayhurst complex, insightful, and as good a poet as anyone writing in the world today. Grayhurst’s poetry volumes are highly, highly recommended,” Tom Davis, poet, novelist and educator.