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Without Light

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    In naked bitterness

all strangled dreams lie

like wings ripped from

an angel’s shoulder, icy,

slim as a sword.

    The floor is

hideous that binds us to

reality, to the leopard and

the scorpion, unto the

barren future.

    Each bedmate is

sick with isolation,

reaching across the insipid night

to coin his wounds and lie for

once, unalone.

    God is lost in the morass of hurt,

and each oracle is a trick

that consoles for a minute

then purges the heart of hope.

    Delight comes

with food, with the purchase of a passion

from the local convenience store.

    Our thirst is a dreadful ooze,

like lust, it kills though itself never dies.

    We cling to the scorching seed,

pray for grace through a tired eye.

    The Irish clover droops,

and from the quiet fields, soldiers carry

fragments of mutilated truth,

like they would a dying paramour.

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Copyright © 2000 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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.First published in “Dark Blooms Literary Zine” November 2015

http://darkbloomspoetry.blogspot.ca/2015/11/without-light-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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