In The Thighs

Posted on March 21, 2014 by Allison Grayhurst

In The Thighs

Blood in the thighs like

a bowling ball moving,

rotating, heavy, at high speed

up between the

hip bones, into the heart chamber.

Nothing can stop its weight and damage,

nothing can stop its motion.

The trees say “A different face of God is etched upon

my each and every leaf.” But the beetle and ladybug

who eat the leaves do not care. And the person snipping

at branches does not care.

Through the thighs, moving

rotating, heavy, at high speed.

Call out to me

Call the number engraved into the armchair

He came like light washing over the many,

entering and cleansing only the few.

He came. He is

what everyone needs,

but the pavement is thick

and the ground beneath is rich,

saturated with worms,

moving,

thick

with worm motion

moving at worm speed.

Review of poetry chapbook "The River is Blind"

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

First published in “Iron Gall Press”

http://irongallpress.com/2014/03/19/in-the-thighs-allison-grayhurst/

You can listen to the poems 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.

The River is Blind chapbook review:

“An existential curiosity courses through Allison Grayhurst’s latest collection. It’s Grayhurst’s physical constraints that comfort us: a box sitting at the top of the stairs, housecats in states of wakefulness and sleep, the “snails and moss” that preoccupy her. Indeed, The River Is Blind situates itself firmly in the familial but imbues those relationships and domestic touchstones with a disembodied calm. Ambition and disenchantment linger along the fences of Grayhurst’s property but she remains candidly in the present.

“In lesser hands, muses such as these might’ve resulted in verses of weak-kneed contentedness. But Grayhurst’s voice remains one of detachment, webbing daily pleasures into greater meditations on love and God. Through spiritual lens, poems like “Everything Happens” and “Flies” counteract steadfast faith with insights on the material world, a separate world; a place where people grind flowers for honey,” Ryan Pratt, Ottawa Poetry Newsletter, January 30, 2013

Train

Posted on March 5, 2014 by Allison Grayhurst

Train

Kneeling on the train tracks: Resigned to this

dangerous meditation – a risk of steel wheels

on flesh and flattened limbs. Kneeling because

I cannot move or adhere to the voices in my head

singing of an intimate shower, a transmutation

of my solidarity and how I see my special self – love from

everywhere singing, dwelling in my sleep which

is never sleep but wide-awake dreams and turning from

side to back. Kneeling, I hear nothing coming, but it

will come – heavy, unstoppable, driven with pure intent.

Kneeling until I can claim this destiny without shame, stare

at the treasure of hands and lips and touch back,

until I weep my centre raw, until I carry nothing

but the moment, love again – sadness, shadows,

unwashed hair, desperate desire – until I can sleep and stop

kneeling – head neither turned up nor down. Kneeling,

hearing a distant moan, a vibration –

inevitable as this kneeling

I must but I cannot not yet not yet

let go of.

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

First published in “The Brooklyn Voice” February 2014

The Brooklyn Voice Train 1 The Brooklyn Voice Train 2 The Brooklyn Voice Train 3 The Brooklyn Voice Train 4

http://www.brooklynvoice.com/

http://www.brooklynvoice.com/2014/03/03/february-poetry-selection-poets-poetsdoug-holder-jason-dean-arnold-allison-grayhurst-jason-constantine-ford/

You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

Book reviews of the River is Blind paperback:

“Throughout (The River is Blind), she (Allison Grayhurst) employs
reiterated tropes of swallowing and being consumed, spatial fullness
and emptiness, shut- in, caverns, chasms, cavities; angels, archangels,
blasphemy, psalms; satiation or starved. With a conceit of unrequited sex as “my desire”, nocturnal emissions, awakening in the morning, the poet lives at capacity, uninhibited, dancing,” Anne Burke, poet, regional representative for Alberta on the League of Canadian Poets’ Council, and chair of the Feminist Caucus.

“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. THE RIVER IS BLIND is a must-read,” Eric M. Vogt, poet and author.