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Wax Museum

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God is your hobby:

My mouth inhales,

flushes you in.

Going to the wax museum to visit your sleeping body;

tonight with effort, tomorrow, with regret.

It is the end of a miracle, nevertheless,

I won’t forget the sirens, your steel throat

rusted with alcoholic burns

or the hooves and the poison,

how you tempted me to the maximum degree.

There is a sunset I am cupping in my hands,

it is turning dark blue like the colour

we both love

and I am staring into it like a poet mesmerized by the sea.

Farewell my pirate friend –

Live good,

conquer the pitiful sky in your dreams.

Every barrier is a mountain

challenging your devotion,

torturing your nights with its magnificent summit.

I drink like a root from the underground: I am not upset

though shadows are cleaving, swarming my soul.

I am only running,

and it’s a long way to paradise

even when you hurry.

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Copyright © 1991 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “Poetry Halifax Dartmouth”  1991 under the pseudonym Jocelyn Kain (aka Allison Grayhurst) and in “Existere” under the pseudonym Jocelyn Kain (aka Allison Grayhurst)

Published in “Existere” 1991 under the pseudonym Jocelyn Kain (aka Allison Grayhurst)

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

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/168gRE4nmv/

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

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“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

 “Allison Grayhurst’s Common Dream is a massive book by a talented and enthusiastic young writer, with a feel for descriptive, meaningful verse. Philosophical and very deep,” Paul Rance, editor of Eastern Rainbow, U.K.,  spring 1993.

“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

“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.”  Next Exit

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I Will Run

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I will go now

into the constellations

like into a field of marigolds.

I will run now like a drunkard

at dawn. The waves

of morning’s early light

will be my medicine – the blue

& purple & orange thin arches,

all aglowing.

          I will funnel my way out

of this personal war. I will

carry wounds & swords

in my arms. I will throw

them to the sky until

they fall like rainstorm,

leaving no trace after a

a day of sun.

          You will not find me

walled behind my face,

or hunt me beneath

the garden cellar.

          The nothing-air

will steal my name

& tomorrow I will

slip between the rocks.

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Copyright © 1991 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

.

First published in “Existere” 1991 under the pseudonym Jocelyn Kain (aka Allison Grayhurst)

.

You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

.

“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

 “Allison Grayhurst’s Common Dream is a massive book by a talented and enthusiastic young writer, with a feel for descriptive, meaningful verse. Philosophical and very deep,” Paul Rance, editor of Eastern Rainbow, U.K.,  spring 1993.

“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

“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.”  Next Exit

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