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The means to obliterate

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what doldrums dictate

is in the pink sneakers of

winter blues and forcing hope into the mouth

even if it tastes like stale candy.

        You pull the waves from a clear sky,

you blur edges into running forms, staining

in effervescent aftershocks.

Help is always available but never ready

to take your hand when you need the courage

not to hang yourself in some avant-garde

symbolic statement on a summit on

a dull metal balcony, hang

like kleenex caught on a high twig.

        Comfort comes in packed suitcases and

various dreams of little consequence.

A toddler’s game of hide-and-seek

is worth smiling for. Round, rotunda reflected

in the image of a middle-age crew cut and torn jeans.

Inspiration is a wooden ladder, splinters sold

as bargaining chips for each step

to reach nearer to rooftops, treetops and

the sun.

        Your head is in a whisper – booby-traps

revealed in the ridges and dips of your thoughts.

You want to be put in a crockpot and left there,

stirred like soup, leeks and lentils, seeping out

an authentic aroma, arriving home.

.

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Copyright  © 2012 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “The Blue Fifth Review”, 2014

http://bluefifthreview.wordpress.com/2014/02/15/blue-five-notebook-february-2014-14-3/

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

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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,” Eric M. Vogt, poet and author.