Category Archives: Excerpts from Book 10 “Seamless – A Collection of Love Poems” Edge Unlimited Publishing (2012)

My colours would be grey

Posted on by Allison Grayhurst

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My colours would be grey

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if not for your heart so

tempered by preserved dreams

and accepted disappointments,

dancing in the unknown,

with a tongue

unafraid to astonish or offend

the public swallower . . .

 

if not for every morning, finding

your eyes closed, sleeping near my

smiling body, and your lips that unearth

each tear from my harbouring breast,

unearth the giant seed of deliverance . . .

 

if not for our partnership,

our home of unhooded tenderness,

the doorways within that lead

to evenings of geranium spring . . .

 

if not for holding you, or

your touch splitting the shell

of my skin, flooding my womb

with fires of indomitable

peace . . .

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Copyright © 1997 by Allison Grayhurst

3000

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “Medusa’s Kitchen” July2017

http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.ca/2017/07/peer-owlish.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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Reviews of  ‘Journey of the Awakening’:
“Journey of the Awakening is the first book of poetry that I have read of Allison Grayhurst. While reading it began to sound familiar, the comment to myself was “She is as good as Sylvia Plath”. When I finished the book I read comments from others who referred to her as “In the style of Sylvia Plath”; Ms Plath, one of my favorite poets had no match until Ms Grayhurst’s work. Congratulations to her on her achievements, I am already a ‘fan’, the love of her work will continue to grow,” Ann Johnson-Murphree, poet and author.
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“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. This, and other Grayhurst poetry volumes are highly, highly recommended,” Tom Davis, poet, novelist and educator.

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Found

Posted on by Allison Grayhurst

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Found

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While in a century surrendered to

a howling vision that bridged

the Earth to God,

while in the chaos of the self-assured

and beautiful, with obstacles of half-felt focus

and rough charm

dropping like heavy hail along my path,

I found you. I found a mind

that could not join the perpetual

and charred motions of loveless togetherness.

I found someone who held to truth like a child,

thick with depth and a rare sort of intensity.

Someone who hasn’t the wherewithal to deceive,

who is freed by his belief in lasting, evergrowing love,

who faced the terror and turned

to serve the implausible, only possible mercy.

 

I no longer cry from loneliness. The light is in

his body and all around is the labyrinth of his mystery.

My eleven-year lover who still haunts me

with his impassioned creative touch, who loves me like I am,

mostly bare and broken, though sometimes

high with gratitude, glittering,

at peace.

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Copyright © 2002 by Allison Grayhurst

3011

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “Treehouse Arts” July 2017

https://treehousearts.me/2017/07/26/poetry-found-by-allison-grayhurst/

https://treehousearts.me/2017/04/08/poetry-by-allison-grayhurst-no-raft-no-ocean-odie-and-under-the-rib-cage/

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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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Our Love

Posted on by Allison Grayhurst

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Our Love

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The salted lips,

the husky sea and the atonement

of death, I called you my tale

of the bull horn and familiar voice.

Crack through the corn cobs, through

the years that seem to spell-up without

answers or digestion. But you and I,

by heaven’s chapel and heaven’s cattle

left to graze, unkilled, we are sparrows

after a summer rain, blind still, but finding

shape in our children, and in and by the doorways

we have and have not conquered. We are

the mantle where crystals breathe their energy, and

we are the same as twenty years ago, having only

each other in this place of senseless oblivion, having

what others always long for, rich together

and forever as midnight.

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Copyright © 2010 by Allison Grayhurst

3017

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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Published “Setu” May 2017

http://www.setumag.com/2017/05/Literary-Journal.html

http://www.setumag.com/2017/05/allison-grayhurst-poetry.html

http://www.setumag.com/2016/10/authorallison-grayhurst.html

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

.

“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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