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Quagmire

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    Coming down, knowing now

that everything known is blindness,

deciphered speculation – constellations out there

that spin, conjoin, burst and create

are mesmerizing but lifeless – into the future,

out from the past – the power is menacing, somewhat, and

somewhat stale, stagnant, just ‘happening’ like storms happen

and the rising of the moon.

    Rain on a leaf or an orange tabby chasing a shadow is

accessible, pleasantly startling, metaphysically invasive.

    Many serious intellects are left crawling from the lack of sleep,

from acquiring too many codes and smug victories.

    We are small, inside this body of God – a city, drooling with

arrogance and inquisitiveness. That is us in motion, devouring

the zenith and charting out mysteries.

    But things get caught on other things. Dead butterflies

can still glow – behind clean glass, inside Berber-carpeted

buildings, all fluorescent lights and classifications.

    We can point and name and even think

that energy starts and ends, forget that everything is circulation

and that life here is simple:

It would rather copulate, raise offspring, than count stars.

    Inside this body of God, we are cupped in fluid boundaries,

by instinct, by undeniable emotion, stronger, yet part of,

cerebral musings.

We feed from the Earth and we get hungry.

    We have these telescopes, our catacombs of understanding,

but we also have pilgrimage, crust, heartbeat, dying,

soccer fields and song.

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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 Weary Blues”

 

http://thewearyblues.org/?p=34

http://thewearyblues.org/issue-3/

http://thewearyblues.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/The_Weary_Blues_Issue_3_light.pdf

The_Weary_Blues_Issue_3_light

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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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