Breastplate

With this breastplate

forged in the fires of tangible Hell,

I will go forward, doling out

gifts that God entrusted me with,

feeding sparrows, starlings and squirrels.

I will command my days with a mature discipline,

more so tied to the wind in a place of freedom,

boundaries set by my soul.

Everyday I will eat and be grateful.

I will leave my licence plate in the gutter,

travel light like I did when I was younger,

one knapsack for years – live in this home

but claim no possessions. I will listen,

pitch my tent in any wood

as long as the birds guide me there,

and I will keep myself breathing,

full of breath –

active, on watch.

I will love, love like I do

with a personal intensity

the ones that feed me with their love,

keep me in grace and breakdown the shadows.

With this breastplate I will go,

for I know how evil consumes

in small amounts with small yeses,

small indulgences that grow into

a vast hole.

I will wear sandals in the summer,

a jacket in the winter and this breastplate,

now grafted to my skin,

willfully dreaming this journey forward,

surfacing uninhabited shores.

Copyright © 2020 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “BlogNostics” October 2020

https://blognostics.net/blognostics-an-innovative-experience-in-literature-poetry-and-art/2020/10/27/breastplate-by-allison-grayhurst/

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

You Open Your Mouth

You open your mouth and

I am gone again like

before I could walk, like

before I had anything but you

and this connection, gripped

in a violent spin, intimacy purging gravity

by free will alone, blood for food and food

tossed on a gravestone, seeding a graveyard,

lording triumphant over reality, more potent than

waiting for the streetcar in a cold sub-zero winter,

waiting with wet boots and uncombed-through hair,

like fruit that never spoils

or gets polluted with scented-hand touch.

You say destruction

and I am beating the light,

slashing the torpedo into

smaller precise devises of doom.

You say reconciliation

and I am beside you, planting

my vengeance like dead peeled skin,

like waking and walking

to the bathroom, leaving the dream behind.

You open your mouth and

you open a door to a feast

outstripped of butchery and good cheer,

outshining all but the lover’s volatile love pitching,

emerging, continuing, clear,

.

Copyright © 2020 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “Dissonance Magazine” October 2020

https://www.dissonancemagazine.co.uk/zine/2020/10/5/you-open-your-mouth

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Published in “BlogNostics” October 2020

https://blognostics.net/blognostics-an-innovative-experience-in-literature-poetry-and-art/2020/10/27/you-open-your-mouth-by-allison-grayhurst/

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

Dissolved

A weighted shadow was on my back,

triumphant, feeding off of me

in day-to-day thoughts,

dealings at the grocery store,

getting dressed

and walking.

It flourished its victory everywhere I went,

in the judgement of strangers and the shame I bore,

wearied by reality.

It was thirsty, thirsty for the substance of my faith,

feasting on the debauchery of my despair and in that feast,

it grew four times its original size,

cementing my wings in permanent collapse.

Now this weighted shadow is dissolving, swiftly

in glorious movements of clear! clear! clear!

It has not gone completely yet, but I am stretching,

able to raise my neck and strengthen my shoulders.

My fears are painless, grace has entered

and brought the promise forward.

Under my eyelids shapes are forming,

ones I have never known –

tribes of mighty animals and

communities of celestials.

We say hello.

We walk on the fresh born grass,

and the grass morphs into a mountain,

with a valley,

with a river.

Copyright © 2020 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

.

.

First published in “BlogNostics” October 2020

https://blognostics.net/blognostics-an-innovative-experience-in-literature-poetry-and-art/2020/10/04/dissolved-by-allison-grayhurst/

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below: