Category Archives: Excerpts from Book “No Raft – No Ocean” Scars Publications (2015)

Crystal dark

Posted on by Allison Grayhurst

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Crystal dark

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sound, woodpecker

foraging, near, nearing

spice

on my fingertips –

relaxed appropriation.

Backpacks and scarcity,

only the Zen flavour

of moving, taking necessities,

giving up newly bought coats

to strangers on buses.

Bus routes going to unexplained territories

vocalizing droning dreams

of the misused, disenfranchised

ruthlessly bored,

cardboard box lifespans

arrows pointing back from the way

you came,

mounds of

silver sorrows, pee-stains

on stones, what is left but dead planets done with

geological formations, never

knowing scattering amoebas, only

knowing failed attempts at rhythm, equilibrium,

rubble,

aftermaths of harsh creation,

pointless rock-globes

spinning

with moons   no signs of summer.

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Copyright © 2015 by Allison Grayhurst

Fire and more cover - Copy

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “Indiana Voice Journal, Issue 10” May 2015

http://www.indianavoicejournal.com/p/blog-page_1367.html

http://www.indianavoicejournal.com/2015/05/indiana-voice-journal-may-2015-issue-10.html

http://www.indianavoicejournal.com/2015/05/allison-grayhurst-three-poems-crystal.html

 

This poem “Crystal Dark” has been nominated for Sundress Publications “Best of the Net” 2015

http://www.indianavoicejournal.com/p/blog-page_74.html

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Click to access 20151023No_Raft_No_Ocean_by_Allison_Grayhurst.pdf

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http://scars.tv/cgi-bin/framesmain.pl?writers

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/crystal-dark.m4a?_=1

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“Allison’s poetic prose is insightful, enwrapping, illuminating and brutally truthful. It probes the nature of the human spirit, relationships, spirituality and God. It is sung as the clearest song is sung within a cathedral by choir. It is whispered as faintly as a heartbroken goodbye. It is alive with the life of a thousand birds in flight within the first glint of morning sun. It is as solemn as the sad-sung ballad of a noble death. Read at your peril. You will never look at this world in quite the same way again. Your eye will instinctively search the sky for eagles and scan the dark earth for the slightest movement of smallest ant, your heart will reach for tall mountains, bathe in the most intimate of passions and in the grain and grit of our earth. Such is Allison Grayhurst. Such is her poetry,”  Eric M. Vogt, poet and author.

“Grayhurst is a great Canadian poet. All of Allison Grayhurst’s poetry is original, sometimes startling, and more often than not, powerful. Anyone who loves modern poetry that does not follow the common path will find Grayhurst complex, insightful, and as good a poet as anyone writing in the world today. Grayhurst’s poetry volumes are highly, highly recommended,” Tom Davis, poet, novelist and educator.
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Ripples

Posted on by Allison Grayhurst

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Ripples

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Dirty dish, I lift

and know I am holy.

Does is matter or mean

my feet are mine,

though they cramp,

and my skin is a littered shore?

After moving in, it makes no sense to dream about

round planets or miracles hunted down

between spaces, in the flesh of dark stars.

Blessings come like other conditions, feeding,

filling, then the fish is hooked and the river goes on.

How many cupcakes can I keep? Not many. Not one.

At night I wake up absolute,

solid as a never-touched stone.

I stare at the clock and have conquered time.

For that time I am the best thing of all things to be.

For an instance, I am more than metaphor, I am witnessing.

In the day I hold out for a fickle hand’s generosity,

sweeping floors and making beds.

What a hot rhythm to keep, like kisses and eclipses

of sexual elation.

Two thousand eons, and the cosmos continues

as a body just born.

Spotlights and warm lights, my love is my fulcrum,

he carries me entirely in the dips above his clavicles.

He mixes me incandescent colours, enters me

like wings tightly folded, plunging into sea,

coaxes me to thicken, be a builder, take what I can

and build.

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.Copyright  © 2012 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “VerseWrights”

http://www.versewrights.com/grayhurst-allison.html

http://www.versewrights.com/grayhurst-profile.html

Click to access 20151023No_Raft_No_Ocean_by_Allison_Grayhurst.pdf

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http://scars.tv/cgi-bin/framesmain.pl?writers

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Translated into Portuguese by Eric Ponty and posted on FaceBook, April 2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19LKRjhz3p/

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/ripples.m4a?_=2

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“Allison’s poetic prose is insightful, enwrapping, illuminating and brutally truthful. It probes the nature of the human spirit, relationships, spirituality and God. It is sung as the clearest song is sung within a cathedral by choir. It is whispered as faintly as a heartbroken goodbye. It is alive with the life of a thousand birds in flight within the first glint of morning sun. It is as solemn as the sad-sung ballad of a noble death. Read at your peril. You will never look at this world in quite the same way again. Your eye will instinctively search the sky for eagles and scan the dark earth for the slightest movement of smallest ant, your heart will reach for tall mountains, bathe in the most intimate of passions and in the grain and grit of our earth. Such is Allison Grayhurst. Such is her poetry,”  Eric M. Vogt, poet and author.

“Grayhurst is a great Canadian poet. All of Allison Grayhurst’s poetry is original, sometimes startling, and more often than not, powerful. Anyone who loves modern poetry that does not follow the common path will find Grayhurst complex, insightful, and as good a poet as anyone writing in the world today. Grayhurst’s poetry volumes are highly, highly recommended,” Tom Davis, poet, novelist and educator.
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I moved like a moon

Posted on by Allison Grayhurst

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I moved like a moon

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in predictable orbit, smashed

by meteors, space pebbles

meeting my surface with deep impact, when

there were dark oceans under my skin, unseen

single forms, coupled forms, and beds of

colourless weeds, but I steadied myself

on the cold shell of repetitive expectations –

dead valleys here, dead heights there.

 

Going through the hard crust, under, into

a thicker atmosphere, currents of heaviness,

breaking barriers better off broken.

Haunted by shapes that come close and rarely touch,

in this weighted environment, by-passing predator

tentacles and jaws by instinct alone, no journey-map,

stars or horizon to act as goal or inspiration, but

 

rolling

through cross-waves with creatures captured

by a dark density like

myself, shaded, loose at the extremities, compact

at the core, thriving on plateaus of deep pressure,

salty flavours all around – so far gone from walking

that legs leave, replaced by fins, and language is not

sound, but a full-body resonance – no delay

between appetite and attainment.

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Copyright © 2014 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “The Bitchin’ Kitsch”

 

http://www.talbot-heindl.com/aug2014

http://www.talbot-heindl.com/moon

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Click to access 20151023No_Raft_No_Ocean_by_Allison_Grayhurst.pdf

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http://scars.tv/cgi-bin/framesmain.pl?writers

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.You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/i-moved-like-a-moon1.m4a?_=3

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“Her (Allison Grayhurst’s) poetry appears visceral, not for the faint of heart, and moves forward with a dynamism, with a frenetic pulse. If you seek the truth, the physical blood and bones, then, by all means, open the world into which we were all born,” Anne Burke, poet, regional representative for Alberta on the League of Canadian Poets’ Council, and chair of the Feminist Caucus.

“What a treasure Allison Grayhurst is. Her gift? To unfold for us life at this intensity of feeling and revelation. Who knew truth and beauty could be so intertwined and so passionate?,” Taylor Jane Green BA, RIHR, CH, Registered Holistic Talk Therapist, and author of Swan Wheeler: A North American Mythology, Swan – A Planetary Mythology, and The Rise of Eros, 2014.

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