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Myth
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It is not the same as being limited
by loneliness, these feelings of broken fidelity,
abandonment. It is not enough to germinate
in this grief, pleading for a picture
of better times, appealing to
memory, sentiment, knowing
I could be wrong.
Those days, married
to your insatiable outpourings, ecstasy
just to listen, to share our minds – walking
on streetcar tracks at 4 a.m. and never sleeping.
I carried you like a book, wilting always in life, but never
when mingled with your stature. Between us,
nothing was spoiled, not soft either.
I was delivered by your high forehead and
by your crazed emotions. I was celebrating.
If it was only
paper flowers, a painted-on sunrise or
imagined completeness, in that time, I was
devoured by my own individuality, stripped
of my conditioning, a person to reckon with, lean on –
whole. I was so much better than I am here, as I am
salvaging a heartbeat from habit,
marked by a used-up destiny,
just me with these crippled hands, bare feet, no mentor
to merge with, nothing
to follow.
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Copyright © 2012 by Allison Grayhurst
amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst
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First published in “Napalm and Novocain”, May 2014
http://napalmandnovocain.blogspot.ca/2014/05/three-poems-by-allison-grayhurst.html
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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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Reblogged this on The ObamaCrat™.
OH MY GOD!
What a jewel to come upon this! SO well spoken. Well wrought words that go to the depths of the core of the experience:
“It is not the same as being limited
by loneliness, these feelings of broken fidelity,
abandonment. It is not enough to germinate
in this grief, pleading for a picture
of better times, appealing to
memory, sentiment”
What a way to put it!:
Wilting … “but never when mingled with your stature”.
Explains so much about why I fell into the mudpies I did – whether it was into a person, a body of work, a school of thought, an organization of dogma, a myth such as the modern one of the rewards of workaholism. No wonder, when we – like the aboriginal peoples – have been stripped of our natural connections (galactic historian, Andrew Bartzis) – as the aboriginals were when their personally strengthening rituals were stripped from them by being outlawed, and then they were given the addictive substance of alcohol/drugs as their ‘liquid mysticism’.
After periods of drought, no wonder we are led into experiences of elation and then sobering lesson. Yet, the experience of it can still feel higher than we go afterward… for a time.
And the riches of it we gain forever; ‘it is difficult to distinguish the person from the beautiful gifts they bring’ – especially when they first warn us of the dragon and then they become the dragon:
“ecstasy
just to listen, to share our minds – walking
on streetcar tracks at 4 a.m. and never sleeping.
I carried you like a book, wilting always in life, but never
when mingled with your stature.”
“I was delivered by your high forehead and
by your crazed emotions. I was celebrating.”
A stunning and extraordinary description of the journey and substance of the free person:
“in that time, I was
devoured by my own individuality, stripped
of my conditioning, a person to reckon with, lean on –
whole.”
What a way to put it!:
“salvaging a heartbeat from habit…”
I lived years like this, and now when I have it, I am marveling how I ever got through … those years!:
“just me with these crippled hands, bare feet, no mentor
to merge with, nothing
to follow.”