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Enslaved

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It is in the language of the insects

I hear in the morning time

when I hear my daily calling

pass through me like the ticking of a clock.

It is these words that stand on stilts

and glove my future in the shell of impossibility.

It is ghosts I look to in my sleep

when my blood is sinking into the sheets

and there is no voice to teach me the way of God.

Floating face up in the fires of a tiring game

that lives and lives no matter the revelations

or the pain I learn to forgive.

It is a black eye in the summer,

a candy caught in the throat.

Where can I turn? What terror

breathes as large as the ocean

and will not find its tomb?

It is the flavour of unholy suffering

that has burnt the bandage of hope.

It is barren as a subway crowd,

like a broken kaleidoscope, or

a death remembered

and not the life.

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Copyright © 2002 by Allison Grayhurst

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First published in “The Corner Club Press Quarterly, Volume 4, Issue 18” Fall 2015

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The Corner Club Press October

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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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