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Broken Limb

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How many scenes do I touch?

Do I love the lone moon

among the ancient stars?

 

The wind was lashing the trees,

bullets were striking the alarm

and a million flowers

trembled in the distance . . .

 

The man with the beard

raved in vain

about love and necessity.

I looked over the valley for a friend,

found nothing except some exotic trees

bending beautifully to seduce the sky.

 

The dead could not keep

from dying again

and the innocent hearts

had failed to ‘never compromise’

 

How many paintings burned

that night in the forest?

After the ashes, the chanting and the painful release,

there was no returning.

 

I filled my glass with song.

I wrote letters to my morbid mind

and mistook to all for God.

 

Nobody spoke, nobody carried

the muse in their smiles.

 

When we see the end, will we know it for sure

like we do a broken limb, or even,

the first smells of spring?

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Copyright © 1991 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “Poetry WLU – A University Arts Journal”, 1990 under the pseudonym of Jocelyn Kain (aka Allison Grayhurst)

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

 

“Grayhurst’s rapturous outpouring of imagery makes her poems easily enjoyable … Like a sear the poet seeks to fathom sensual and spiritual experience through the images of a dream.” Canadian Literature

 “Allison Grayhurst’s Common Dream is a massive book by a talented and enthusiastic young writer, with a feel for descriptive, meaningful verse. Philosophical and very deep,” Paul Rance, editor of Eastern Rainbow, U.K.,  spring 1993.

“Her poems read like the journal entries of a mystic – perhaps that what they are. They are abstract and vivid, like a dreamy manifestation of soul. This is the best way, in prose, one can describe the music which is … the poetry of Allison Grayhurst,” Blaise Wigglesworth Oh! Magazine

“Rich images and complex, shifting metaphors drive Allison Grayhurst’s poems. She focuses on sexual love and interior landscapes, widening to include the heart, eternity and all.”  Next Exit

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