.

The leach that reaches

.

              into my fleshy eye,

  cramps and blinds my bed

                          of grand delight.

The straw I crouched in when a kid

              is all that remains

of childhood’s play,

                          is with me wherever I go,

  scratching my skin beneath my clothes.

              Hard is the squeeze of the agonized wind

arriving where the sun cannot follow.

  I am that wind, a maiden puff of breeze

                          that wanders without knowing

away from the sky.

  A woman’s time, five days that crack

                          the palm and rid the attic

of all sane hope.

  Because the voice is madness.

Because there are funerals in my fridge

  and mouths opening and closing on the wall.

              Tonight, this is home and nothing to do.

  Tonight, my mind is forsaken

by my body’s blood and mood.

.

.

Copyright © 1998 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

.

.Published in “Grease Monkey Literary Forum” November 2015

http://greasemonkeylit.blogspot.ca/2015/11/the-leach-that-reaches-poem-by-allison.html

.

.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.

.

Review of The Longing To Be: 

“The contents of Allison Grayhurst’s book The Longing To Be are both personal and universal and are described in such thematic and golden terms that one can see that a lot of thought has gone into each line. The poems are written mostly in free verse throughout, with both rhythm and soul weaved into them. For some poems, the layout seems experimental, and there is definitely a playfulness in the way that the words and verses fall onto the page. Others do conform to a “norm”, whatever that is. All are dramatic and thoughtful. These are layered poems with new horizons presented to the reader in every re-read. The effect is to keep things fresh with poems that constantly surprise in spite, and because of, the number of times being read. I thoroughly recommend The Longing To Be as a poetry book to study carefully and cherish far into the future,” poet Brian Shirra.

.

.

.

Unrelenting Groove

.

Waiting to be pushed

from this groove. Groove of tilted hell where

a dull blade hammers like bad memories on the

seedlings of my thumb stroke.

Waiting like this, lamed by the unturning earth.

And music does not come, nor does the comfort

of a higher command. Trail of living,

of a brown boulder rolling forever down

Sisyphus’ hill, of the hunter’s proud cry

and the prey’s ignored pleading. Trail of living

clockwise, of spinning around from week to week, waiting.

I am here. I am of anger and feathers both,

like the hawk that watches the constellations

to find its way home, I am so alone out here, feeling

not the pressing of lips my lover gives nor the kind

embraces of friends. Feeling again and again

the marrow sinking from my bones – and frail,

frail like an arrow without its tip, like a worm

on the pavement, drying up.

I am of the dead red cardinals’ corpse. I am

of the plucked flower and the cancerous throat.

I am not

who I thought I would be.

.

.

Copyright © 1998 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

.

.Published in “Vine Figure Poetry Page” November 2015

http://vinefigure.blogspot.ca/2015/11/unrelenting-groove-poem-by-allison.html

.

.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.

.

Review of The Longing To Be: 

“The contents of Allison Grayhurst’s book The Longing To Be are both personal and universal and are described in such thematic and golden terms that one can see that a lot of thought has gone into each line. The poems are written mostly in free verse throughout, with both rhythm and soul weaved into them. For some poems, the layout seems experimental, and there is definitely a playfulness in the way that the words and verses fall onto the page. Others do conform to a “norm”, whatever that is. All are dramatic and thoughtful. These are layered poems with new horizons presented to the reader in every re-read. The effect is to keep things fresh with poems that constantly surprise in spite, and because of, the number of times being read. I thoroughly recommend The Longing To Be as a poetry book to study carefully and cherish far into the future,” poet Brian Shirra.

.

.