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Rapture When Walking

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Celestial pine and

words like this that stick

to the roof of my mouth –

tight, tense, forceful like flesh

compressed, elongated. These fattened senses, I sense

it is not normal to look at the bodies of

trees and see a mouth, a breast, hips in

permanent thrust, thrusting into to the grey mass

of clouds that are brought frequently

to their bloated threshold then drained in a steady relief.

I know all animals are naked and people

think themselves clothed, but vanity and the undercurrent

of striving are photographs etched on their exposed arms,

necklines. Sometime I might lift my lips,

press them completely into the vines,

step a day onto another’s shore, lose my gender

and be drenched.

Sometimes, I feel you like a prying lover, impatient with our

differences, anguished by the things that separate us.

You have no use for me, alone.

You claim victory, destroy my shell

and make us join, make me not so small but swallowing

everything that is you, like smoke inhaled or

perfume on the tongue. You again, and that

is good because you must know how much I need this chaos

exploding, lingering, desperate to find synchronicity,

then arriving – order and beauty, exact. You must know.

You gave me an eyelid. And I am arriving

    sweet, silk, surrounded

to this place. My God, I am

home.

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Copyright © 2012 by Allison Grayhurst

 

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “Misfits Miscellany”, 2012

http://misfitsmiscellany.wordpress.com/?s=allison+grayhurst

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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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