Category Archives: Excerpts from Book 26 “The Poetry of Allison Grayhurst – completed works from 1988 to 2017 (Volume 5 of 5)” Edge Unlimited Publishing (2017)

I have been born

Posted on by Allison Grayhurst

 

I have been born

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a thousand times over,

flaked into existence by

force, by will and by desire.

I have had my days

under the siege of physical limitations,

of bloodlines burned and bloodlines

mended. There is no more

time for this rotating scheme,

no space for waiting

or for continuing. I stop here. Unplugging the

flow, breathing only because

I want to, because

this skin that is mine is

the last skin I will ever claim

as the landscapes I drop, drop, then

drop me.

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Copyright © 2015 by Allison Grayhurst

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Make the Wind cover

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Published in “Anti-Heroin Chic Magazine” February 2016

 

Before you

Posted on by Allison Grayhurst

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Before you

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wide with surrender

with no backdrop or formula,

with the accomplishment of releasing

plans by the wayside into the swamp

that used to be an instrument playing,

a cliff of clay forming a tireless gale

of heavy sensual dreams.

      I belong to you and to the strength of your empty hands,

the endings you leave me with, harvesting

ephemeral food – a soul full

of coastal curves that break the waters and is broken

by them, pressing and caressing the chain of tidal

obliteration as an umbilical cord connecting

to the vast sweet space that is you.

      Never meant to anchor roots or climb a sturdy cliff,

you stop my struggle to illuminate a typical liberation,

gaining the wherewithal to stay pale,

upright and destined in my cage.

For it not a hellish home, but submerged

in the damp abandon of your shaking,

it is subject to your prying appendages poking,

tearing away speech and understanding.

      I am yours, withdrawn from words into a connection

washed with elements of prayer but unlike prayer

more like lemonade to the day labourer or grass

to the grazing mare – away from bit, halter and reigns –

your sun sinking its evening heat into my back and shoulders,

erasing division, drawing an intimacy

that frees my blood’s natural flow, squeezes out

the clotted clump of summoning-up

of years scarred by grief and hidden,

rebellious longing.

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.Copyright  © 2012 by Allison Grayhurst

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No Raft - No Ocean

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First published in “Change Seven Magazine, Issue 1.2 Summer 2015” June 2015

 

 

Paired

Posted on by Allison Grayhurst

Paired

 .

Hole in the sky we go

through. Other way

around, we exit on the peak.

Oblong mercy is the natural order

of things. We see an innate

camera reciting images

made up of everyone’s fluid flames,

discovering everyone’s life is short.

 

I remember sleeping in a dark summer,

remember the innards of the cave I strode into,

making a home out of its

damp walls and dirt.

I never meant to leave that home, never thought

I could find one to hold awareness with such intensity, savoring

the brink-edge depths, even

expanding the boundaries. Never thought to be coupled,

completed in an evolving perfection, never thought

I could find one to give me permission to embody my desires,

discover my desires before I do, then honor the reciprocation

of mutual satisfied longing.

 

Our bodies become spiritual.

Ourselves, undivided

from the fixed-point and from the no-point

chaos blues. Our gift

is a box of fresh fruit, full

whenever opened – mixed

succulent, surprising pleasures.

Ours is a wholeness that

can be experienced without complications

because we know that death makes God

necessary, and because

we are braver, only capable

when we are where we stood

before our births, each pore

mingled, sensitized, our organs submerged

in the consciousness of this re-joining,

speaking in tongues, with tongues and touch.

The time of only light awakened, then

the time before light

entered, restored.

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Copyright © 2014 by Allison Grayhurst

Walkways cover 2

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First published in “Down in the Dirt, Volume 132”, October 2015 and online “Scars Publication” April 2015 and “Sunlight in the Sanctuary” anthology, November 2015, and “the Intersection” anthology, November 2015, and “hello goodbye   goodbye hello” anthology

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