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Words
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I
The words came
and killed the hostages,
killed the ghosts stuck
in crevices of crow’s feet eyes
and in the long book of regrets and what ifs.
The words came and said:
the greatest indication
of spiritual immaturity
is the lack of gratitude.
The words were singular, pounded their plurality
into one soft mass, or like pieces of glass
heated, liquified, blending smoothly
the dangerous edges.
The words came as two hawks hovering
in surreal stillness and then came again
in the small measles-scar of someone I knew
as a child, seen again as an adult, flooding me
with a memory and an affirmation
that the spaces between
this time and that time
do not exist, not as a ladder, not as fossil bones
but those spaces somehow existing, contain
the intrinsic value of eternity.
II
The words came
and were excellent company – said:
hear the melody while joining with each note,
be absorbed into its specific portrait.
The words said: pause,
brought me into the sun rising over the field,
out of the dark forest that was covered with bramble
and dead rooted trees.
I found a way out, I held a hand, briefly,
but long enough to be healed.
I saw the old cat smiling on the mat,
the old dog as happy
as he was when he was young,
a house embroidered with the harmony
that comes after journeying
through the trapped corridors of hell.
III
I am on horseback with my chestnut-red friend,
galloping near the round edge, certain of our flight –
both of us embodying a perpetual exhilaration,
and where, where are we going? so fast?
so in tune? – no words now –
just a sweet-nectar symbiotic flow.
Call these words a dream. Call them bohemian.
Back away. Throw the stone. Seal them.
All bars and walls are purgatory-spent,
blown over
(lick your lips, let the spider live)
blow it over, behind.
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© 2018 by Allison Grayhurst
amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst
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First published in “The Conclusion Magazine, Issue 2” December 2018
https://theconclusionmagazine.blogspot.com/2018/12/words.html
https://theconclusionmagazine.blogspot.com/2018/12/issue-02-conclusion-magazine.html
https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/24a3b-TCM-issue-02.jpg
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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:
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