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Requiem

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Music, waking under my shell.

With warmer faces than I can image

neighbours are gleaming with the peace gained

from daily routine. But I hear music, old,

anointing the dismal sky and the

unused loins of dull-sexed strangers.

I have nothing to dream about – not gold

engraved bands, not hope, not a hoop

for my pedigree to leap through and overcome.

I listen to music that hurts the listener with

its degutting intensity – that hurts, and that is its

reward. Listening to its crime, its deep-throat kissing

death and its making tangible each layer

of unharnessed shadow. Here,

music without pride or long-range plan, just old

as the core of a mountain and new as something

animated and beating, undulating in waves like screams

and these dreams I cannot begin to imagine. Music, glaring,

familiar, wrapping around me as though I am a virgin to

its sound. As though I have become, and I have become,

its committed mistress.

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Copyright © 2015 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “The Miscreant, Issue 6” July 2015

 

http://miscreantmagazine.com/2015/07/07/issue-6/

http://miscreantmagazine.com/2015/07/07/four-poems-3/

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Click to access Make_the_Wind20160404Allison_Grayhurst.pdf

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http://scars.tv/cgi-bin/framesmain.pl?writers

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

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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,”  Eric M. Vogt, poet and author.

“Grayhurst is a great Canadian poet. All of Allison Grayhurst’s poetry is original, sometimes startling, and more often than not, powerful. Anyone who loves modern poetry that does not follow the common path will find Grayhurst complex, insightful, and as good a poet as anyone writing in the world today. Grayhurst’s poetry volumes are highly, highly recommended,” Tom Davis, poet, novelist and educator.