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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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