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Deep Breath In
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Just what is it – a savage distance that swells
between myself and freedom. Shackles and blocked
horizons. The smell of urine and rats like oracles eyeing
my feet, nibble away at the miracle I have found.
I will wait until evening when everything is quiet, wait,
then claim my desire, plugged and unwholesome, fermenting
like the sweet blood of a star, expanding in the blackness,
slaughtering the quiet space, the nothing space of just being
still. Still, I know nothing of, as these thoughts uninhibitedly
dance and drape across my spiritual, blessed awakening.
Bless the golden morning, an arm uncovered dangling
over the edge and fingers, strong and brave as magic.
I’ve lost my taste for distractions.
Just what is it – to live at full capacity, on the verge
beating, violent, powerful and patient
as unrequited sex.
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Copyright © 2012 by Allison Grayhurst
amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst
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First published in “Your One Phone Call” July 2015
Deep Breath In by Allison Grayhurst
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Published in “Think Pink Issue 2” Pink.Ink.Girl. Press, 2015
http://pinkgirlink.blogspot.ca/2015/05/allison-grayhurst-poetry.html
http://www.lulu.com/shop/various-author-compilation/think-pink-issue-2/ebook/product-22154515.html
think_pink___issue__2 download
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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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