Preparing

Posted on July 12, 2025 by Allison Grayhurst

Preparing

I go to the crosswalk

and leave my bread crumbs on the other side.

I am waiting for motivation, for a clarity of purpose

that I once owned like a beautiful stone

I sunk under the St. Lawrence rapids. When I was a child,

I watched those rapids without fear,

stood close to the edge and never wondered

about the slippery underfoot,

never worried about the shadflies arriving like a plague of river insects

or about my loneliness that turned into a ghost companion

comforting me in those grey Quebec afternoons.

But here, in this riverless realm,

I cannot place my hands down. I cannot stretch wide enough

to feel whole. I go to the corner store and hear answers that only I

and the birds

can hear.

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

First published in “Gloom Cupboard”, 2013

http://gloomcupboard.com/2011/11/17/poetry-139/

You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

Days Without Water

Posted on April 10, 2025 by Allison Grayhurst

Days Without Water

My arms grow weary

under the wheel

Skulls in my pockets

and a mountain up ahead

with flesh and jaw bone

extended

I search for his airborne heart

in the crevices of clouds

I search for his pure

brave gaze in the way

birds with wing graze

the edge of each rainbow, anew

I walk into autumn’s

darkening rays, lonely

as the architecture of church walls,

lonely as the light

in the half-closed eyes

of children

I think again of his thin fingers

exhaling tenderness in every blind curve touch

He is milk & wind

He is nowhere

to be found

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

Translated into Portuguese by Eric Ponty and posted on FaceBook, April 2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1A98ZfgnP9/

First published in the “White Wall Review”, 1992

You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

Twilight

Posted on September 16, 2017 by Allison Grayhurst

Twilight

There is a beat in the darkening air

that whispers of love and laughter

There is song in the rippling wind

so moving

so unmeasured

that even dreams

cannot meet its glory

There is colour

There is more than power

in one stroke

in one fallen ray

that gives rhythm

to a discordant day

They say

Night comes

like death comes

eventually

But there,

Oh there! The first star . . .

Before the Dawn was published in 1989 by The Plowman, written by Allison Grayhurst under the pseudonym of Jocelyn Kain.

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

Published in “The Peregrine Muse” July 2017

https://sites.google.com/site/theperegrinemuseii/home/grayhurst

First published in “The Plowman: A Journal of International Poetry” 1989

You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

Reviews below of Allison Grayhurst’s chapbook “Before the Dawn” were published in the “The Plowman – A Journal of International Poetry” 1989:

“Throughout these 54 poems there is a ring of truth, an honesty few poets inject into their writing. I hope there is a follow-up to the book, because it leaves one with the desire to hear more, to know what will happen next, to discover the net result of the woven pattern of emotion and intensity that will come from the pen of this stirring author,” poet C.F. Kennedy

“Jocelyn Kain’s chapbook Before The Dawn, is thick with mixed images of rain, smoking cigarettes, the sea – images that appear in other poems, but in Kain’s poetry, the images come alive in a melancholic dance of the soul. This book is fresh, emotional, quality poetry. If Kain’s talents continue to improve, she will someday prove to be a noteworthy literary figure,” poet Davy Wood.