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Difficult Neighbours

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It is hard enough to

relinquish privacy, to love

the tilted child running across

our lawn and shake hands with

the thinning curve of a shadow,

and yet by the standards demanded,

love must be most given when

the enemy appears, when the stone has hit the window

and the fence is knocked down.

Love must be that thing that rises

like a balloon above the forest fire,

and rises when every instinct bares its claws.

And we, the givers of the jewel have no excuse

to hate from inside closed doors,

nor to offer our smiles only when it suites us.

Now is the time spoken of, when the sandbox has

been robbed, when the treeline has been plucked,

and boundaries need to be set.

..

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Copyright © 2002 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “The Poet Community” May 2017

https://www.thepoetcommunity.com/9969/difficult-neighbours-a-poem-by-allison-grayhurst

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Published in “Lucidity Poetry Journal, Volume 31, Number 4 Winter 2017”, October 2017

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

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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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Fear

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It calls from the depths of tomorrow

like a drought that cracks

the once-dependable earth.

It lives out there, drives

the nine-to-fivers from their beds

to rush the highways and miss

the monarch.

It has found my hearth

and meets my faith head on.

In hunger, in the bandage of rising debt,

and in once again dipping my toes over this

treacherous edge, it will not let

me go. It drills its home into my belly

like a fatted worm, and year after year my prayers

cannot wound its faceless pulse.

It has become familiar though I promise

to feed it no more. It is my blindness,

though to all other eyes it is a blessing

that should drive me to conform.

I know it when I sleep and rise, but

I also know the tale of the lilies in the field, and

I believe in heaven.

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..

Copyright © 2002 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “Medusa’s Kitchen” May 2017

http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.ca/2017/05/from-depths-of-tomorrow.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.

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Message

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In fear I look at the sun

though comforted in my core

by the same bright substance.

In fear I know myself nothing,

unworthy of grace, blending

like the rest into infinite shades

of non-committal grey.

But then peace is found unlike the peace

told about in books, peace buried

deep beneath the piranhas and mirrors,

buried where all the horrors of self-inadequacy

must be walked through to reach its dispelling breath.

In fear my barriers are built like rooms to enter

to stop me from finding the open door that beckons me,

that says to me – lay down your guilt and defenses,

                let self-forgiveness wash you,

                and hold your enemies in open, strong arms.   

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Copyright © 2002 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

.

First published in “Medusa’s Kitchen” May 2017

http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.ca/2017/05/from-depths-of-tomorrow.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.

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