Category Archives: Excerpts from Book 21 “Sight at Zero- selected poems (1988 to 2017)” Edge Unlimited Publishing (2017)

I Find Clarity

Posted on by Allison Grayhurst

 

I Find Clarity

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I find clarity

beside the open coffin

beside the one made of glass

with the see-through dogma

and beside the one of simple majesty.

I find myself free of the cumbersome hunger

for revival. I find myself just wanting

to be in the shadow, away from direct

light and the attitude of sentimentality and guilt.

I find my hands are strong and my legs

are capable of walking long distances.

I find that that is enough

to complete me.

I find food in someone else’s grocery cart

and my thirst is something I have learned to live with.

I find I am not so impressed with what used to

impress me. I am not striving for passion

at every turn, but I find passion at the lower levels

where rodents crawl and babies

muse at the ceiling.

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Copyright © 2008 by Allison Grayhurst

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amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “Jumping Blue Gods”

 

The Book

Posted on by Allison Grayhurst

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The Book

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Inside, spending all my coins, rejoicing

on ephemeral longing, on a lustful inhale

for physical redemption.

 

Hidden in the pages, I am hidden

at four in the morning, bathing in perfection,

lifting into heights that obscure drudgery.

 

Thoughts are shapes that float as shadows,

hardly solid like butter left out of the fridge.

Cages unraveling and houses cleaned of cobwebs.

Between soft book covers freedom kisses explicitly,

candy-ices without embarrassment.

 

Hanging on hinges, on barely glanced-at walls,

I gather my vision in the grass, paint on the

bones of another’s life – beautiful bones and hallways

of many feet walking and swishing bathrobes.

In the book I can face forward and never fear rejection,

I can shower sensuously in warm rhythms,

tied to the stirring light of early summer.

Love between these diary covers is not just canvass

or thick hues that merge and make a middle, it is where I will

at last know another’s body as I know my own, be protected

from the torrential pawing pierce of middle-age loneliness.

 

Inside the book, you are under me like a bed of lavender bushes,

there are waves where once sunken skeletons rise like coral,

polished pure of their violent history.

 

Drowning in the book, imagining ants collecting,

synchronized on an apple core.

 

Bells in my head, footsteps rising, closer now,

you know me well. Inside the book, you know me better.

We are two trees – branches and roots, an interwoven crocheted

impressionistic portrait, staying through heavy storms.

 

Inside the book, we are creatures of greater sympathy.

You are like yarn, tied to my brush and hold, never in

the liquid valley of a distant boat, or obvious as a prickly,

rigid rope. I am mature, a woman with a ceiling to touch,

fifty feet of surrounding stillness, unfettered

from the expectations of my time and gender,

radiant, more, whole.

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Copyright © 2013 by Allison Grayhurst

 

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First published in “Wilderness House Literary Review”

 

 

Transfigured

Posted on by Allison Grayhurst

 

Transfigured

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Each day I wear my grief

like metal mesh. I see you

as a spirit burdened to speak.

You try to comfort this field

of wounds. You tend the amputees

and bound the screaming with soft song.

But it is hard for you to stay,

to not let go completely into the light.

I let you go. I make this year my bridge.

Though my heart has ruptured and cannot heal,

and I am forever overcome with this sadness

of our love silenced by brutal, unnamable death,

I will build a new house, dive with both hands

into my yard until the evergreens grow.

I will contain you as more than memory –

in my harvest will bloom many sunflowers

of your great generosity. And your fiery blood

will sprout the roots and flesh of passion fruit.

The maple tree will grow large like you, protecting all

within its strong and tender shadow. And children

will be drawn to this yard, to play there amongst

the tall dramatic grass, and then sit still to watch

with wonder the many shades of sky, reflecting

the warmth of your paternal sun-setting colours.

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Copyright © 2000 by Allison Grayhurst

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First published in “Turk’s Head Review”, July 2014

http://turksheadreview.tumblr.com/post/92421950406/transfigured

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/transfigured.m4a?_=1

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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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