Category Archives: Excerpts from Book 4 “Outliving the Inevitable” Edge Unlimited Publishing (2002)

Almost a Girl

Posted on by Allison Grayhurst

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Almost a Girl

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We play with sounds,

making a flower out of tissue paper.

She bounces a ball,

miming the harmony of its rise and fall.

She paints with strokes

that calls the orange seed to bloom,

and all the while she dances

to the starlight’s tune, loving

its brave expression.

We read tales told in rhymes

and sniff the picked herbs

in our garden.

Every morning we count spoons

and watch the boys play next door.

She knows her colours purple and blue,

plays Boo! behind the door.

Her body beats an ancient symphony of affection,

loving easily my inviting arms.

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Copyright © 2002 by Allison Grayhurst

3011

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “Medusa’s Kitchen” July 2017

http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.ca/2017/07/peer-owlish.html

 

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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Found

Posted on by Allison Grayhurst

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Found

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While in a century surrendered to

a howling vision that bridged

the Earth to God,

while in the chaos of the self-assured

and beautiful, with obstacles of half-felt focus

and rough charm

dropping like heavy hail along my path,

I found you. I found a mind

that could not join the perpetual

and charred motions of loveless togetherness.

I found someone who held to truth like a child,

thick with depth and a rare sort of intensity.

Someone who hasn’t the wherewithal to deceive,

who is freed by his belief in lasting, evergrowing love,

who faced the terror and turned

to serve the implausible, only possible mercy.

 

I no longer cry from loneliness. The light is in

his body and all around is the labyrinth of his mystery.

My eleven-year lover who still haunts me

with his impassioned creative touch, who loves me like I am,

mostly bare and broken, though sometimes

high with gratitude, glittering,

at peace.

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Copyright © 2002 by Allison Grayhurst

3011

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “Treehouse Arts” July 2017

https://treehousearts.me/2017/07/26/poetry-found-by-allison-grayhurst/

https://treehousearts.me/2017/04/08/poetry-by-allison-grayhurst-no-raft-no-ocean-odie-and-under-the-rib-cage/

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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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Funeral

Posted on by Allison Grayhurst

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Funeral

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The photograph of her face –

bold as one who knows herself completely –

as the bagpipes blew

and I could hear her voice

gently humming the tune.

There were strangers everywhere

in the crowded room of grievers and

in her daughter’s eyes. It was

only her

I loved and her I will miss.

She cradled the land ever so deeply

and dreamt elaborate and graceful worlds,

etched in the smoothest of stones.

She is shared by so many.

But for me, my love was personal,

and it is not so easy to hold

this severed vine of gold, not so easy to let go

of her rare and destined heart

that helped give shape to my own.

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Copyright © 2002 by Allison Grayhurst

3011

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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Published in “The Poetry Community” June 2017

 

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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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