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Every Strand of Hair

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The night is missing its lark,

the secret inside the shellfish

has crept out of the waters onto the bank.

Horses tread the fields with broken tails,

into the mirror the anguished have been seduced.

Where the porous Earth is clawed by disillusioned

brides, children bury their favourite toys to

stay for always, underground.

Hungry, but losing the hunger, losing the need

to open the shutters and mince the living ache into

a long-begone mystery. Grappling, but no

longer with the important things like greed and guilt,

but with the stones on the curb,

the overgrown evergreens.

It is the inability to walk, the heaviness

that closes in and houses no air.

It is this cloud and that cloud rewriting

your name – the dry, impossible throat, the false

coin being forever yours.

 

The graveyards are smelling of spring.

They covered the green hills with straw.

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Copyright © 2002 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “Medusa’s Kitchen” March 2015

http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.ca/2015/03/terror-is-frail.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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