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Broken

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    Breaking bonds and bonds

that are breaking in spite

of efforts made and lifetimes of

glorious connection, in spite

of promises to never part and always be

like tall innumerable weeds, keeping alive

no matter the challenges to growth. Growth

once so great, celestial forms descended, joined

to contemplate and just listen.

    Catapulted into the future with no way back,

into another lightyear spinning, picking up pebbles,

putting down shoes. Hoods and earmuffs, locking

eyes with the cold, locking tight with the bluegrey anguish

that breeds explosives inside the flesh of my tongue,

but is buried too deep beneath the tastebuds to ever emerge.

    Pinecones retrieved from the spat-upon pavement,

to add to my obsessive collection. These pinecones

remind me that I too have dropped, naturally, from

my source – laying flat on an unforgiving surface, unable

to dig into softness and sprout.

    Breaking bonds and bonds broken,

adding a slight shock of unpredictability

to an otherwise stagnant formation,

adding a wider scope, or memories

to later inhabit – small fields

where there is no viable substance,

only leftovers and

open space.

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Copyright © 2012 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “Wax Poetry and Art Magazine, Volume 3, Number 5”

http://waxpoetryart.com/issues/0305/allisongrayhurst_broken.html

http://waxpoetryart.com/issues/0305/allisongrayhurst.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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