.
After Love . . .
.
The mind falters,
reckless. Excitable
it murders
our perfumed relationship.
I am chiming the cathedral
bells, dreaming
of the lost tenderness
and the soft pink flesh
of rodent’s feet.
You are content. Putting the pieces
together
well, with your friend
you use as a
remedy. No, the shadows
have not departed.
My eyes
are absent of the flaming tears,
and yet I cannot bear to shoulder
the belief in joy.
My knuckles are purple
with isolation and
the metropolitan streets
cage me in
with memory.
I am waiting
(that is all I can say)
to gain back color.
Like everybody else
who has been
branded by
the loss of love, I walk
towards
Heaven
dumb- struck,
knowing only the distance and
the danger
of this new, chilling
dimension.
Do not look.
It is company I need tonight
and I borrow you
for that.
You were the fool,
a dreamer
who knew the souls of each
and every star – then
far off, the wind
is webbing around me
and the bomb ticks
intimately by my bedside.
Is it the voice of Spirit?
I have no answer, no vision,
only bandages, inferno heat, the malice
of this realty.
I cannot erase you.
The rain will make us
both beautiful
somehow.
We will find our common
ground and paint
those stars
someday
with exceptional
wisdom.
The bullets, the miracles
hit
painfully brilliant
in their own right. But none of it,
my love
is fatal.
.
.
Copyright © 1991 by Allison Grayhurst
amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst
.
.
First published in “Beneath the Surface, McMaster Creative Writing” Winter 1990/1991, under the pseudonym “Jocelyn Kain” aka “Allison Grayhurst”
.
You can listen to the poem by clicking below:
.
.
“Grayhurst’s rapturous outpouring of imagery makes her poems easily enjoyable … Like a sear the poet seeks to fathom sensual and spiritual experience through the images of a dream.” Canadian Literature
“Allison Grayhurst’s Common Dream is a massive book by a talented and enthusiastic young writer, with a feel for descriptive, meaningful verse. Philosophical and very deep,” Paul Rance, editor of Eastern Rainbow, U.K., spring 1993.
“Her poems read like the journal entries of a mystic – perhaps that what they are. They are abstract and vivid, like a dreamy manifestation of soul. This is the best way, in prose, one can describe the music which is … the poetry of Allison Grayhurst,” Blaise Wigglesworth Oh! Magazine
“Rich images and complex, shifting metaphors drive Allison Grayhurst’s poems. She focuses on sexual love and interior landscapes, widening to include the heart, eternity and all.” Next Exit
.
.
Reblogged this on The Militant Negro™.