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Words

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I

 

The words came

and killed the hostages,

killed the ghosts stuck

in crevices of crow’s feet eyes

and in the long book of regrets and what ifs.

 

The words came and said:

the greatest indication

of spiritual immaturity

is the lack of gratitude.

 

The words were singular, pounded their plurality

into one soft mass, or like pieces of glass

heated, liquified, blending smoothly

the dangerous edges.

 

The words came as two hawks hovering

in surreal stillness and then came again

in the small measles-scar of someone I knew

as a child, seen again as an adult, flooding me

with a memory and an affirmation

 

that the spaces between

this time and that time

do not exist, not as a ladder, not as fossil bones

but those spaces somehow existing, contain

the intrinsic value of eternity.

 

 

II

 

The words came

and were excellent company – said:

 

hear the melody while joining with each note,

be absorbed into its specific portrait.

 

The words said: pause,

brought me into the sun rising over the field,

out of the dark forest that was covered with bramble

and dead rooted trees.

 

I found a way out, I held a hand, briefly,

but long enough to be healed.

I saw the old cat smiling on the mat,

the old dog as happy

as he was when he was young,

a house embroidered with the harmony

that comes after journeying

through the trapped corridors of hell.

 

 

III

 

I am on horseback with my chestnut-red friend,

galloping near the round edge, certain of our flight –

both of us embodying a perpetual exhilaration,

 

          and where, where are we going? so fast?

          so in tune? – no words now –

          just a sweet-nectar symbiotic flow.

 

Call these words a dream. Call them bohemian.

Back away. Throw the stone. Seal them.

 

All bars and walls are purgatory-spent,

blown over

(lick your lips, let the spider live)

 

blow it over, behind.

 

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© 2018 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “The Conclusion Magazine, Issue 2” December 2018

https://theconclusionmagazine.blogspot.com/2018/12/words.html

https://theconclusionmagazine.blogspot.com/2018/12/issue-02-conclusion-magazine.html

https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/24a3b-TCM-issue-02.jpg

 

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

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A Glimpse

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There was a glimpse

of a sunrise, a dazzling ending

and wild grass, lush and life-filled

to walk towards, into, barefoot and perfect

as God’s grace is perfect, reducing the darkness

unnameable and innocence, reclaimed.

 

There was a moment

when I could see like a prophet sees

or a sorcerer, flexing joy in dimensional

vividness, dilated, stripped of

my armour, tension and dread.

 

Army on a hill, hungering for the water flowing

downstream. Woman on a ship, surrounded

by the sea with a kicking babe in her expanded belly.

Is there land? Is it heaven or just a dream?

 

If I risk, I risk it all

with nothing to risk it for in sight.

If I stay, I am a drowned clover,

no different than the meat-eaters,

the non-shapeshifters and the drones.

 

 

***

 

 

What do I say to the arrested vision,

the backward plucking?

I had a glimpse, a gift

of jewels overflowing.

Am I mad, believing? I think I am,

trapped in this curse – hours upon years

chipping at the granite with my teeth, pushing

my way through with no end in sight, damaging

the sack around my heart,

relentlessly fulfilling my duty.

 

There was a glimpse,

something of God in a ghost-filled place.

 

Someone tells me to believe that this darkness

is ending, that the gamble is launched

and victory is already

in my hands.

 

 

***

 

 

If I could astral-project, I would go

to that place I glimpsed, just to be sure it was there.

If I could be more than I am, I could find peace

in the corner of this prison cell.

 

The birds say one thing, and my body another.

 

The glimpse was here and it was hope.

I will not deny its existence.

I will not fight its wound or its expectation,

but surrendering to my limitations,

into the wet earth,

I will give way, pacified.

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© 2018 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “Outlaw Poetry” November 2018

A Glimpse by Allison Grayhurst

 

 

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

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Slipping off the Side

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Never holding, always holding

up, down, back

past the white-light knockout strike,

the broken dishes, the failed vision.

Always guilt as agency – sweet sun

out of reach, when reached, just a hot huge

stone that must be released. Watching the reptilian

garden diggers, the small-soul claim joy in evil,

sit on the hay stack, seeding its throne

and start a royal lineage.

 

Entire bloodlines behind bars – Children hated.

I see the same name on all my friends’ faces.

My insides have become strewed. 

I have only a guiding breath breeze in

a state of blindness, dialectics, repetitions

saying “Do not be attached”. Out of the box

then back in again.

 

I would make a casserole if I knew how.

I would connect everyone

with a wink if the power was mine, if the cracking

double-take shame would release me-

moult and moult until it was small, easy enough to crush

and smear on the pavement.

I have shed these chains twice, maybe more,

maybe their returning power is just an illusion,

a phantom captivity.

 

When I was in the blue room with an entrance to the attic,

entities ripped into my skull when I slept,

channelling their destructive vocations.

I prayed on the forest floor and burned pages and pages

of long-hand. That was when

I stopped swimming and learned how to ride horses, before

I almost joined a neighbourhood,

whizzed past neighbours on a bike, leaving a mark.

I wish I was caught in the loop of simple competition,

knew my place at the starting line,

claiming trophies at the finish line,

climbing tall chunky trees in the summer or

racing up and down fire escapes for the fun of it.

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© 2018 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “Outlaw Poetry” November 2018

https://outlawpoetry.com/2018/slipping-off-the-side-by-allison-grayhurst

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

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