On this Dock

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I hear the white steed

and the fish together

in dark obscurity.

I look at the body of water,

the children weeping to gain control.

I listen for the perishing wind

and declare to it a vigil

of telltale strength.

The journey here faces

the drive of instinct – to buckle

in and walk the safest hallway

or to carry the weight of failure

and still harbour a cry to the fox and a belief

in the many shapes of heaven.

The journey knows its evening

has come and all the beautiful clouds will drop

one by one from the sky.

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Copyright © 2004 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “Crisis Chronicles”

http://library.crisischronicles.com/2014/03/27/on-this-dock-by-allison-grayhurst.aspx

http://cclitmag.wordpress.com/category/grayhurst-allison/

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

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Vacant Underground

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No sales clerk

or hand to count coins.

A wish is like a wave that breathes,

hunting with the tide.

The sand is grasped but never held –

its form lost again in the unforgiving sea.

I had a wish, jealous and absolute.

It took my days like a nunnery and

discarded all urban vice.

It was my only footwear, my mornings

of praise and exalted sighs.

It caused my bones to snap like a dry crust of bread

and left my innards excavated, desperate for anything else.

This wish has never died, though for a decade it has been

beaten down. It walks beside me, deformed and chained.

I own it and it owns me, as we walk, born as one.

.

.

Copyright © 2004 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

.

First published in “October Hill Magazine Spring 2017 “, June 2017

http://www.octoberhillmagazine.com/spring-2017

October Hill Spring 2017

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“Published in “The Bees Are Dead” August 2017

http://www.thebeesaredead.com/poetry/vacant-underground-allison-grayhurst/

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

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