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River

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I will run my breath across your eyelids,

go to you, trace the edges of your hands,

finding infinity inside your torment. I will

drift into you like wind and you will not mind

my lips like a concentrated shadow on your skin,

darkening but leaving no weight. You will let me

be inside your picture, a background to your lyrics,

softly at first, I will heal the red in the whites of your eyes.

I will release my wardrobe for you and you will be the mania

that I climb through to reach tranquility. I will

cup your flesh and stretch you through this intimacy because

I own you as you own me and it is not a bad thing, not

blasphemy or anything

to fear. It is your hands, mine – these

poignant burial grounds that have been excavated,

these days of standing close, depending upon the ease

of our mutual exposure. I will speak in your ear and you

will step into my voice

like stepping into a river.

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Copyright © 2011 by Allison Grayhurst

 

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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Published in “The Poet By Day” November 2017

A Little Bit of Magic: That’s what happens when a singer/songwriter and a poet team up

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First published in “InnerChildPress”, 2012

http://books.google.ca/books?id=exGoU5ZvI_QC&pg=PA75&lpg=PA75&dq=hot+summer+nights++allison+grayhurst&source=bl&ots=G1KE-wIWnQ&sig=8GfhoKryyp9YXA874Al8QMYLabI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=HxzcUdKoMcKRrgGts4GoDQ&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=hot%20summer%20nights%20%20allison%20grayhurst&f=false

http://www.amazon.com/Hot-Summer-Nights-Collection-Erotic/dp/0615670938/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383229397&sr=8-1&keywords=hot+summer+night+poetry+anthology

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

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River – Songs from the poetry of Allison Grayhurst

https://dianebarbarash.bandcamp.com/

https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/dianebarbarash3

https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/river-songs-from-the-poetry-of-allison-grayhurst/id1293420648

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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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