The poetry of Allison Grayhurst

“Her poems read like the journal entries of a mystic – perhaps that what they are. They are abstract and vivid, like a dreamy manifestation of soul. This is the best way, in prose, one can describe the music which is … the poetry of Allison Grayhurst.” – Blaise Wigglesworth, “Oh! Magazine: Ryerson’s Arts and Culture Voice”.

“Grayhurst’s poetry is a translucent, ethereal dream in which words push through the fog, always searching, struggling, and reaching for the powerful soul at its heart. Her work is vibrant and shockingly original,” Beach Holme Publishers.

“Allison Grayhurst poetry has a tribal and timeless feeling, reminiscent of the Biblical commentary in Ecclesiastes,” Cristina Deptula, editor of Synchronized Chaos.

“Grayhurst is a great Canadian poet. All of Allison Grayhurst’s poetry is original, sometimes startling, and more often than not, powerful. Anyone who loves modern poetry that does not follow the common path will find Grayhurst complex, insightful, and as good a poet as anyone writing in the world today. Grayhurst’s poetry volumes are highly, highly recommended. For those adventurous enough to venture into a river wild, deep, calm, beautiful, shadowed, light, filled with moods and emotions of both an inner and the earth’s landscape, then this is a journey worth taking. It leads to experiences that have the texture and substance of life,” Tom Davis, poet, novelist and educator.

Allison Grayhurst’s poetry is insightful, enwrapping, illuminating and brutally truthful. It probes the nature of the human spirit, relationships, spirituality and God. It is sung as the clearest song is sung within a cathedral by choir. It is whispered as faintly as a heartbroken goodbye. It is alive with the life of a thousand birds in flight within the first glint of morning sun. It is as solemn as the sad-sung ballad of a noble death. Read at your peril. You will never look at this world in quite the same way again. Your eye will instinctively search the sky for eagles and scan the dark earth for the slightest movement of smallest ant, your heart will reach for tall mountains, bathe in the most intimate of passions and in the grain and grit of our earth. Such is Allison Grayhurst. Such is her poetry,” Eric M. Vogt, poet and author.

“Allison Grayhurst is a poet whose work is characterized by startling imagery and uncompromising emotion, whose pieces have appeared in prestigious magazines. Lights, darks, colors, and passions intertwine throughout the pages of her work,” Louise E. Allin, Literature and Language.

“The poems included in Allison Grayhurst’s poetry collection Running, lightwave riding reveal an impressive artistic perfection and creative energy. The poems are full of lyrical force and show freshness of style. No doubt, this is a significant work. The poems have great power of observation and originality of imagination,” Dr. Karunesh Kumar Agarwal publisher Cyberwit.net

“What a treasure Allison Grayhurst is. Her gift? To unfold for us life at this intensity of feeling and revelation. Who knew truth and beauty could be so intertwined and so passionate? Nothing is wishy-washy in the realm of Allison Grayhurst. Her work is sustaining, enriching, and deepening for the soul to read… a light of sanity in the world. As a poet, Allison Grayhurst is a lighthouse of intelligent indeed, intelligence rips through her work like white water,” Taylor Jane Green, BA, RIHR, CH, Registered Holistic Talk Therapist and author.

“Allison Grayhurst’s poetry appears visceral, not for the faint of heart, and moves forward with a dynamism, with a frenetic pulse. If you seek the truth, the physical blood and bones, then, by all means, open the world into which we were all born,” Anne Burke, poet, regional representative for Alberta on the League of Canadian Poets’ Council, and chair of the Feminist Caucus.

“Allison Grayhurst’s poetry has a richness of imagery and an intensity of emotion rare in contemporary poetry. Grayhurst’s voice is one to which we should continue to pay attention,” Maggie Helwig, author and poet.

“When I read Allison Grayhurst’s poetry, I am compelled by the intensity and strength of her spirituality. Her personal experience of God drives her poetry. With honesty and vulnerability, she fleshes out the profound mystery of knowing at once both the beauty and terror of God’s love, both freedom and obedience, deep joy and sorrow, both being deeply rooted in but also apart from the world, and lastly, both life and death. Her poems undulate through these paradoxes with much feeling and often leave me breathless, shaken. Allison Grayhurst’s poems are both beautiful and difficult to behold,” Anna Mark, poet and teacher.

“Allison Grayhurst’s poetry is a collection of vivid imagery and gripping enjambment that puts the reader in a spiralling world of despair. By using language to express the human conflicts of inner turmoil and the way in which our past burdens interact with the subconscious, the self and the world around us, Grayhurst sculpts poems that are revealing and confessional, as well as technically adept in their formatting and diction,” David Eatock, The Continuist.

“What can I say about Allison Grayhurst and her creativity that has not already been said…she is a prolific poet. Her poetry has touched my heart and soul,” Ann Johnson-Murphree, poet and author.

“I am very impressed with Allison Grayhurst’s poetry, it just oozes quality and in all ways gets my mind thinking. If you read poetry I highly recommend it, if you also write this is a great way to spend a couple of hours soaking in the quality and subject matters. The poems are spiritual and uplifting and I have never found any of her poems to be dull or depressing nor ever too hard to read. More life affirming each time I read one and I am always glad to have done so,” Bruce Ruston, poet, photographer, founding editor of The Poetry Jar.

“Biting into the clouds and bones of desire and devotion, love and grief, Allison Grayhurst basks the reader, with breathtaking eloquence, in an elixir of words. Like lace, the elegance is revealed by what isn’t said. This is stunning poetry,” Angela Hryniuk, poet.

“Rich images and complex, shifting metaphors drive Allison Grayhurst’s poems. She focuses on sexual love and interior landscapes, widening to include the heart, eternity and all.” Eric Folsom, editor of Next Exit.

“Grayhurst’s rapturous outpouring of imagery makes her poems easily enjoyable … Like a sear the poet seeks to fathom sensual and spiritual experience through the images of a dream,” Canadian Literature.

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Allison Grayhurst has been nominated six times for her poems for “Best of the Net” 2015/2017/2018/2024. She has more than 1400 poems published in over 540 international literary magazines, journals and anthologies in Canada, United States, England, Italy, India, Ireland, China, Scotland, Wales, Kosovo, Austria, Romania, Nepal, Korea, New Zealand, Turkey, Zambia, Bangladesh, Colombia and Australia.

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Recently, in 2025, her work was translated into Italian and published in “International Web Post.” Also, fifteen poems were translated into Portuguese and published on FaceBook. In 2024, her work was translated into Italian and published in “Italia News Media – Alessandria Today” in “Saturno Magzine” and in “Il Vischio e la Rosa” anthology, into Albanian in “Orfeu.AL” in “Gazeta Destinacioni” and in “Ciceroni”, and also into Korean in “Jeju The Pen Literature”.  In 2023, one of her poems was translated into Korean and published in “Jnuri Magazine”.  As well, in 2020, two of her poems were translated into Chinese and published in “Rendition of International Poetry Quarterly”, and “Poetry Hall”.

https://allisongrayhurst.com/translation-of-poems/

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In 2018, her book Sight at Zero, was listed #34 on CBC’s “Your Ultimate Canadian Poetry List”.   

https://www.cbc.ca/books/sight-at-zero-1.4618370

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She has been interviewed eleven times in print, as well as a TV interview, with translations of her interviews in Italian and Albanian, published in Italy, England and Kosovo. All interviews can be seen here:

https://allisongrayhurst.com/interviews/

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Her book Somewhere Falling was published by Beach Holme Publishers, a Porcepic Book, in Vancouver in 1995. Since then she has published twenty-one other books of poetry and twelve collections with Edge Unlimited Publishing.

Prior to the publication of Somewhere Falling she had a poetry book published, Common Dream (1991), and four chapbooks, (Before the Dawn, Joshua’s Shoulder, Perfect Love, and Jumana), published by The Plowman, all in 1989.

Her poetry chapbook The River is Blind was published by Ottawa publisher above/ground press 2012. In 2014, her chapbook Surrogate Dharma was published by Kind of a Hurricane Press, Barometric Pressures Author Series.

In 2015, her book No Raft – No Ocean was published by Scars Publications. Also, her book Make the Wind was published in 2016 by Scars Publications. As well, her book Trial and Witness – selected poems, was published in 2016 by Creative Talents Unleashed (CTU Publishing Group). Her book Tadpoles Find the Sun was published in 2020 by Cyberwit. More recently, her book Running, lightwave riding was published by Cyberwit 2023. She is working on her next book The Light Given, slated to be published 2023.

Some of places her work has appeared in include Parabola (Alone & Together print issue summer 2012); SUFI Journal (Featured Poet in Issue #95, Sacred Space); Elephant Journal; Literary Orphans; Blue Fifth Review; The American Aesthetic; Drunk Monkeys, Agave Magazine; JuxtaProse Literary Magazine, South Florida Arts Journal; Gris-Gris; New Binary Press Anthology; The Brooklyn Voice; Straylight Literary Magazine; The Milo Review; Foliate Oak Literary Magazine; The Antigonish Review; Ann Arbor Review; Dalhousie Review; Chicago Record Magazine; The New Quarterly; Wascana Review; Poetry Nottingham International; The Cape Rock; Ayris; Journal of Contemporary Anglo-Scandinavian Poetry (now called The Journal); Existere; The Toronto Quarterly; Fogged Clarity, Boston Poetry Magazine; Decanto; White Wall Review.  

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Over 1400 of Allison Grayhurst’s published poems are available to read on this website. All of these poems are accompanied by Allison Grayhurst’s audio reading of the poem. Links to each poem by title:  https://allisongrayhurst.com/links-to-poems-by-title/

Almost all of Allison Grayhurst’s books are available to buy a PDF copy here: https://allisongrayhurst.com/shop/

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Allison Grayhurst’s completed published work prior to 2021 is available to read in eight volumes. The Poetry of Allison Grayhurst – completed works from 1988 to 2017, all published in 2017 by Edge Unlimited Publishing in six volumes. The Poetry of Allison Grayhurst – completed works from 2018 to 2021 (volume 7), published in 2021 by Edge Unlimited Publishing. And The Poetry of Allison Grayhurst – completed works from 2022 to 2025 (volume 8), published in 2025 by Edge Unlimited Publishing.  Selected poems from 1988 to 2017 are published in Sight at Zero (selected poems 1988 to 2017), Edge Unlimited Publishing, 2017. 

   

“Allison Grayhurst’s poetry combines the depth and dark intensity of Sylvia Plath, the layered complex imagery of Dylan Thomas and the philosophical insights of Soren Kierkegaard, taking the reader on a fearless journey through the human condition, delving with honesty into death, grief, loss, faith, commitment, motherhood, and erotic love. 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 of Wigford Rememberies and The Abandoned; https://kypharness.net/  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyp_Harness https://kypharness.bandcamp.com/

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Allison Grayhurst also sculpts, working with clay and casting into concrete. Her sculpting body of work can be found in the published book The Sculptures of Allison Grayhurst, Edge Unlimited Publishing, 2017.

“Beautiful, soulful expressions of human and animal spirits – made by Allison Grayhurst’s hand – the heartfelt poetry of her soul showing up in the physical “flesh” of sculpture – the feeling and power of these beings translated through her finger tips,” Taylor Jane Green, BA, RIHR, CH, Registered Holistic Talk Therapist and author.

“Beautiful and interesting sculptures,” Antonio Occulto, painter and sculptor.

“I can see Allison Grayhurst’s passion for her work in these. Very expressive faces,” James Brandon O’Shea, photographer.

“This is an incredible collection of Art,” Bruce Ruston, poet, photographer, founding editor of The Poetry Jar.

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Collaborating with Allison Grayhurst on the lyrics, Vancouver-based singer/songwriter/musician Diane Barbarash transformed eight of Allison Grayhurst’s poems into songs, creating a full album entitled River – Songs from the poetry of Allison Grayhurst, released  in  2017.

Click to access river-songs-from-the-poetry-of-allison-grayhurst-booklet.pdf

https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/river-songs-from-the-poetry-of-allison-grayhurst/id1293420648

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US Amazon Author Pageamazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

UK Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B001KIWQUS

Canadian Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.ca/Allison-Grayhurst/e/B001KIWQUS/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1

Poets&Writers: http://www.pw.org/content/allison_grayhurst

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AllisonGrayhurst/videos

Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/allison-grayhurst-poet

Goodreads Author: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1937690.Allison_Grayhurst

E-mail: allisongrayhurst@rogers.com

Buy PDF of books: https://allisongrayhurst.com/shop/

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Published books by Allison Grayhurst

(click on each cover image below to go to its Book Page)

    
        
 
 
 
 

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Sparrow Wars

Sparrow Wars

 

I

Sludge water dripping
into an already clogged pipe.
Blood in my microscope, torn out
like a diary page, necessary to
analyze the ingredients.
Will the wound lift? be inverted
into a creative windstorm or
a nemesis spread,
spidery-vein spreading
until the curse is complete
and conquers?

I know love is alive,
and that hot and sudden
is the joy that stems from a miraculous shift.
I know building comes with the morning,
comes like brimming sorrow and goes
to a final destination like all things final,
temporary, broken and sliced down the centre –
undergoing a brutal mitosis.

 

 

II

Empty tables
clawed apart within
with spikes a-blazing on the edges,
and the light of the moon
high in the sky,
hardly visible.
Time is a dust heap I roll inside of,
never making a dent
or relieving my extremities from
the grim cover.
Beaten by the relentless overwhelm
and the digging dream that digs further down
more than ever before, pulled in by
gravity unspeakable and charged.
Living each day bent over, cane-walking,
repeating anguish, shooting pain and dough-bread
kneading, never baking, never
consuming.

 

 

III

When grief comes
it comes at the maximum degree
of chaos, doubt and all things
unsustainable.
Even there, in the squander and grave
disadvantage, I will surrender to trust,
protect the embryo of my new understanding
as precious as it is,
as the only intention worthy of holding,
clinging to despite the toxic smog encircling,
twirling over my extremities, nose-diving into
my internal organs, shutting me down.

It is there and its power is the past, old.
It is able to kill but I am not afraid.
I hold the jewel of this glowing budding faith
and that is all I will look at.

My heart is crushed, undone by the weight of grief
but my soul is tiny blooming. Let it be key.
Let everything be where everything needs to be.
Both are real. Only one will have authority
and receive my attention, elixir formed, a trickle,
ingested.

 

 

IV

Drum beat
no beat
I raise my arms
and scream hosana.
The drawers are empty
hunger parts my soul
into quarters. Stand up
and take account, no one
is listening.
Four months of stagnant emotion,
upheaval at the roots, planted again
somewhere less familiar and less fecund.
Faith and despair overlap, cross paths, join
together as a new entity.
Who understands? There is no understanding
to be had, only the ceramic bird on the shelf, winking,
and the air, heavy and humid one minute
and cold, oxygen-free, the next.
In my mind is an argument
existential, without possible resolution.
In my core there is shock at the terror
of disintegration, and for how long?
How much more? And still there is more.

In my being, I knew God
came with mercy, with Jesus and the peace
of infinity – washing clean, a soft joy
without degrees but only flowing, showering, eternal.
In between I wake up and I cannot see forward,
I listen, but I cannot be one with what I hear.

Holy Spirit, holy, do not escape me,
be clear, re-construct my devotion,
find me my union seed, to plant and tend to
simple devotion.

 

 

V

Jesus, you let me live.
I will sit with you
hand in hand.
I know you
in my personal crisis –
faith obliterated, reseeding
in a lucky garden.
I will trust you with all my problems,
with my anxiety like a dysfunctional
city, polluting the roadway, the airway
with its violence and indifference.
I will breathe easy, knowing you are here,
that you own it because I give it to you
and reckoning is rescue, in your hands,
miracles are coming – life changing,
a kinship with your divinity.
You are sovereign, my still-point, my doorway
into perpetual redemption.
I will collect the fruit and sit beside you,
eating together – no hunger, no hurry –
You and I, I with you, you
holding my hand.

 

 

VI

When I see the unseen
in a twisted longing
death-circle fantasy,
irresistible hope,
and drive to make that hope happen
even though
I am not a citizen of that land,
not meant to come forward
and shine with those deeds,
then I fail and live for an
illusionary future, creating a
hellish now, ripe with lack
and disappointment.

Bend on your knees, bow
to the one-name of God,
feel the slap of sobriety,
the consequences of depending
on your own wit and power
which is like a gnat trying to cross through
a tornado or a choir that sings without
glorifying.

I am learning that being conceived
and being re-conceived
is the cure for fear, the fire
that watches a greater fire,
burning enough,
releasing enough
to rejoice and just burn, a light, a warmth
transient, but elementally,
in this way, everlasting.

 

 

VII

It is hard to hold purpose
when purpose no longer holds you
when the single curtain seals the window
blocking the sun and sky,
making you blind so you only touch corners
and never a door.

All things lost their ownership, just wandered
aimless, squandering energy like tossed pebbles,
no pattern, sinking.
Governance failed, was only an imagined
corridor leading to a chaotic marketplace
that doled out meals, lacking nutrients and staying power.

Each shape to take and hold and shift from each day
was hard labour, exhausting to perform,
pretending hope existed when hope had abandoned.
I was not afraid because my fears
were pushed hard into my face,
swelling my eyes so they could only see behind.
Death won out over the light, won obedience –
the middle and opposite, smelling.
Death smells bad
smells like an inevitable succumbing
to rot, betrayal, rendering
endurance useless
and even the holiest of faiths debunked.

There is a string before me,
thin and golden and unbreakable.
There is something I see I never saw.
I have collided with the consuming tyranny death,
felt it swerve and twist through
every vein, enter, break my heart,
break the truths I had before.

The string dangles,
dripping down from
my inadequate cries
and a mangled prayer,
comes shining a faint intermittent glow.
It is small and so am I, minute,
hardly there, but there.

 

 

VIII

If I talk again,
I will keep my end-mind twisted
so it cannot speak or formulate
a plan.
I have no constitution for plans
or wherewithal for achieving
human-made provisions.

If I talk again,
silence me into prayer,
conversing only with the angelic order,
strengthened by devotion and the power
of obedience.

If I try to be a player,
remind me of my meek capacity,
sting me with regret and slap me
into a state of surrender.

If I try to enter a world not my own,
laugh at me, call me out
and put me in my designated low-chair place,
a dreamer, advancing
no further.

 

 

IX

Falling away like before
launching water at the moon
then releasing it, scattering it
onto a lifeless surface.

Songs and singing are murderous,
selling the false business of a buffet
inspiration, and poetry, like a sober
prayer or pleading, blossoms in a place
where no one comes or looks or even cares.

Things that once stretched
with divine determination towards health,
now fall backwards into addiction and defeat.
Chaos always hovering at the entrance door,
violence a few footsteps away.

Idealism once trapped in my mind has sieved through
incrementally and now in my mind, a faint flow
of tainted possibility, mostly consumed by despair, mostly
non-existence, more hesitant than youthful,
more resigned than risking.

The days drive on the same,
and how I wish I was in a state
of conspiratorial superiority
or in a social bliss of nonchalance.
How I wish I could be like I used to be,
believing despite the odds,
calling for help and receiving it.
What is this weakness,
this futureless waste of now,
pressing on all my joints,
an aching misery perpetual?

What are these days
when I can find no hope
to master this tortuous doom?
I am removed. A thin slice everywhere
between me and reality. Only sorrow brings
me near enough to touch, only happiness lives
inside my dreams or in my memories,
stripping the peel from the fruit,
dropping it to rot in the mud-marsh with the rest
of my wearied hold on merciful possibilities.

 

 

X

I don’t see
the far-reaching joy
to build a future on,
just disappointment, false-starts,
isolation and how-can-that-be?
I don’t see
but I know the builders take their time
to make sure what needs to be aligned
is aligned, that broken hearts can
become hardened hearts
and hope is dangerous for those who are desperate,
perishing at the foot of the mirage.

But there is a noble prophesy to follow,
to stand by and wait for.
There is true love, love that alters bitter grief
that wraps your love in its healing balm until
it blooms and your dry throat is
finally soothed, your wounds are rewarded,
transformed into strengths exposed,
safe on the marriage altar.

 

 

XI

Time does not help
to lessen the sharp scream
of amputation, or to help gain
a way to cope, maimed as I am,
lacking resilience.

Prayer does not answer
any questions or bury the emptiness
outside of my body, allowing
room that can be filled, even with only
a faint groaning microscopic creation.

Love that sits beside me,
day-after-day, holding my hand,
stays with me – miraculous devotion –
helps while it is there,
but does not stop the welling-up of sorrow,
that will not ease or be appeased
in solitude or by distraction.

Faith is a word that sparks
but cannot ignite. I sink down again
on my broken knees. I cannot rise.
I try and I try, but
I cannot overcome.

 

 

XII

God do you love me?
Everyday I fall short
of receiving your love,
blocked and stalled and wading
knee-deep in sewage mud.
I cannot take a step. I cannot
hear you anymore or
feel your mercy move the spoke
a mile, an inch, a fraction of
a way out of this criminal sleep,
arrested every day.

I try to take a breath,
try to step but I cannot
move. Please God, show yourself
to me again. I am aching all over,
joints on fire, mind – ablaze in jet-fuel burning
heat, tired all the time, cut off
from your glory.
Cut off no matter my prayers
and my pleas.

Please God, take my hand,
recognize me as one of your own.

I long for you.
I need your grace
to lift me, now,
trumpets calling,
advancing, only with you,
loved, permitted.

 

 

XIII

A hive blasted
by poison.
A blood-letting
in crave of a cure.
Two close-together cliffs
jumped across, looking
closer than they are.

In the whirlspin of a fall –
arms broken, extremities blasted,
crying out for someone from the angelic order
to swoop down and placate the pain.
But no angel-being arrives and what is broken
remains broken, deformed and starting to heal
that way, into a permanent liability.

Even then, when stuck thigh-deep in forsaken ground,
God is close, washing our cracked bodies,
cradling our defeat, saying

My Love doesn’t always answer with a clean slate
or a put-on spell so all hurt is forgotten,
not a trace left traceable. Sometimes
My Love just sits with you, beside the pain,
lets you know I am here,
here, in the empathetic love of others,
here, in your own resilience each morning to carry on,
here, in your determination to stay close to me

as you anguish and ache,
unable to walk or fully wake,
seeing that nothing turned out
the way you saw it
in your times of highest harmonic resonance
the way
you were sure it would.

 

 

XIV

Will you speak to me again
like before death cracked my windpipe
like when death still hovered thick in the air
but you were there surrounding everything
with the weight of your love?

Will you answer me again
cooling my shape, giving back force
to my petering-out flame
so I can grow again, still tied to your mercy
and the joy of having dreams?

Will I know you again
despite my mutations
and the iron that rotates sickeningly
in my core, using my energy
for lesser aspirations?

Will you love me again
and I will know that love
igniting its current through
my every predicament,
bonding me unbreakable
to your side, inside
your privileged embrace?

 

 

XV

First thing,
you are here.
I wake up and we are talking,
merged in a matter-of-fact
conversation. My need, my only way
to take a step in the morning.
More and more, without you, I can’t
exist or comprehend a thing.
Then why this endless desert, the
hard bloated boils erupting
every time I move?
How is it, you are here, but there
is so much pain still, so much struggle
just to keep alive?
How do I feel so close to you and need
you more than I ever have, have you
more than I ever have, with such
drought and trembling-burns burning everyday,
throughout the days, echoing – no medicine, no food,
just you and I in this high heat,
where I am barely capable,
but somehow capable.

 

 

XVI

Then the bitter defeat
was burning like a sin
committed, recognized
and unforgiveable.
Then on a hill, heavy with
weighted down legs and
an injury there, debilitating but
unexplained, the challenge came
to walk.

Walk slowly at first, walk like
I can walk even though the reins
are dropped and I have lost my mother,
lost life’s victory over death and the comfort
of an unbreakable love broken,
altered, intangible now as an angel’s skin
or a hope held for decades unrealized.

Walk with my mortal burden, stumbling without
a path, a cane or a flat plane. Twist in my ankle, twist
in my knee, swollen, bloated with a hot fever, walk.

Face a direction, walk, slowly,
commit and make it my own.

 

 

XVII

      Soak the born
in their own initial conception
to remember the pure-memory-pockets,
the truth of miracles.
      Underline everything that matters
and read it again until no small word
is skimmed over or taken for granted.
      Open the shelter doors and let all animals
in, wild ones, broken ones, aggressive and tame.
Free with a blessing
every dream that isn’t false,
and follow your deepest duty –
both desirous and undesirous divine commands.
      Under the blanket, conspiracies are made.
They grow limbs that look like light but exclude
humility and the thumb-print of surrender.
      The atmosphere is big,
the button-hole is small.
I am small when I toss
my self-determination out as wisdom
and fail at every turn.
Mercy comes with obedience,
obedience comes with trust, and then finally
freedom.
      The dying are trapped in their wounds.
The living, in their success at survival,
but the gift is always
open for everyone, and changing
even without core movement.
      I have a boat and that is all I own.
I see flowers on the shore, rooted in the sand.
I see yellow and sometimes, I see gold.

 

 Copyright © 2025 by Allison Grayhurst (poem and sculptures and photographs of sculptures)

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Copyright © by Allison Grayhurst 2025

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “Synchronized Chaos” December 2025

https://synchchaos.com/synchronized-chaos-first-december-issue-tba/

https://synchchaos.com/poetry-from-allison-grayhurst-16/

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You can listen to the poem below:

https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Sparrow-Wars-1.m4a?_=1 https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Sparrow-Wars-2.m4a?_=2 https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Sparrow-Wars-3.m4a?_=3 https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Sparrow-Wars-4.m4a?_=4 https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Sparrow-Wars-5.m4a?_=5 https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Sparrow-Wars-6.m4a?_=6 https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Sparrow-Wars-7.m4a?_=7 https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Sparrow-Wars-8.m4a?_=8 https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Sparrow-Wars-9.m4a?_=9 https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Sparrow-Wars-10.m4a?_=10 https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Sparrow-Wars-11.m4a?_=11 https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Sparrow-Wars-12.m4a?_=12 https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Sparrow-Wars-13.m4a?_=13 https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Sparrow-Wars-14.m4a?_=14 https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Sparrow-Wars-15.m4a?_=15 https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Sparrow-Wars-16.m4a?_=16 https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Sparrow-Wars-17.m4a?_=17

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Walkways – the poem – part 16 of 16

….

Principles of duty

overtaking sleep like a wave.

Heavy love rooted in isolation,

reflecting the depths of true giving.

A condition turns to disease, restrictions

bare down. What is ordinary becomes like

a cage. Children in the drifting storm, drifting

on condensed-traffic streets, how I love you.

How I would do everything I cannot do to ease

the grip of your elephant shackles. Mine was the angel’s

autonomy, where nothing was miscellaneous and my bed

was a rich blackness that absorbed all time. Mine was loud

without noise or distraction, just the buoyant sparkle flow

of paired-off stars and the countless debris of ongoing creation.

Mine is yours now, inside less-than-working-organs, kidneys

like puzzle pieces, seamed together by an amateur.

Where are you now, God-who-remembers, reminds me

of what I once was? My God and Jesus of the lilies,

why the children? Why this fluke,

this bizarre nightmare crawling, closer,

closer than when I had no body, no loves to look after?

And oh I am tired, worn as an old shoe that must keep

the broken glass at bay. Where are you my God, my Jesus?

I know you are here. I know something, but not enough

to deflate my bloating anxiety. It is grief all over again and I

hide myself in older hands, friendless, unsupported, remembering

the wholeness in every flaw, in the universe’s veined light

I once travelled on. Remembering that what is flawed sparkles

with a unique variation of beauty, rainbow fractions, infractions

that are blessings that seep and saturate sinews

and bones, galaxies

perpetual, renewable

where everything sings useful –

seemingly incongruent, yet in truth, masterfully

precise.

….

 Copyright © 2014 by Allison Grayhurst (poem and images)

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Copyright © by Allison Grayhurst 2014

 

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “The Muse – An International Journal of Poetry” Volume 4, Number 1, June Issue 2014

http://themuse.webs.com/June%202014/muse%20june%2014.pdf

http://themuse.webs.com/latestissues.htm

.

Published in “Art Villa” December 2015

 

Read the whole poem here:

Walkways – the poem

 

 

You can listen to the poem below:

https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/walkways16.m4a?_=18

 

Walkways – the poem – part 15 of 16

….

Gaze, focus, hold.

Unconscious stream

of raw fluidity streaming,

rising over barriers, drowning them

with the pressure of an open door.

Cracks of circumstantial disease,

creating pockmarks to expand destiny choices, 

fashioning gifts to give,

earned by bomb-droppings

and low flying plane-explosions.

Cobweb parties, graffiti

on the skin of your back,

made with a blade as small and smooth

as the tip of a hawk’s feather.

Weaning off the burnt oak,

preening patches of grime.

Wake and rhyme, garden-keeper,

ambush your fear – it cannot be real!

Lungs run the same vibration as a flame.

It is hard, but not impossible. Gulp the sea

of senseless over-warming, pool the salt-taste

in your mouth, feel it

around your lip-rim, the sides of your cheeks. And there,

be safe, joining with the translucent swimmers, floaters

of prehistoric heritage.

.

.

Copyright © by Allison Grayhurst 2014

 

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

.

.

First published in “The Muse – An International Journal of Poetry” Volume 4, Number 1, June Issue 2014

http://themuse.webs.com/June%202014/muse%20june%2014.pdf

http://themuse.webs.com/latestissues.htm

.

Published in “Art Villa” December 2015

 

Read the whole poem here:

Walkways – the poem

 

 

You can listen to the poem below:

https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/walkways15.m4a?_=19