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Hostage

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Death is here,

blocking the vents,

betrothed to this January month.

It is here and it won’t leave.

It is here like a crack in a doll’s head

where all the bad weather pours in

and builds until the frame is broken

and the child remains without.

Death is not soothing

but grates like granite against glass

and takes with it all sense of sanity.

It severs the fingertips and holds

the mind hostage in its slow decline.

It clings like hot molasses, here

it clings and makes a pit in every

bright spot.

Here, death is, ugly death, no-way-around-it death.

Death riding the back of one I love.

Death, owning all,

making no concessions, offering

no apologies.

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Copyright © 2006 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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Published in “Mount Parable Poetry Forum” November 2015

http://mountparable.blogspot.ca/2015/11/hostage-poem-by-allison-grayhurst.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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