Category Archives: Excerpts from chapbook “Surrogate Dharma” – Kind of a Hurricane Press (2014)

Changing skins

Posted on by Allison Grayhurst

.

Changing skins

.

Months behind my eyes, splicing nerves, bonds,

virtues that have kept me solid.

As I look, my desires are dilating,

taking more in, red with surrender

and wanting to germinate but not here,

not beneath this sheet, but in the breeze,

to grow special, purer than a weed, expand,

not interacting with the elements but part of

them, geometrical, saving space, knowing passion like

a labour – confined to a pattern, somehow

boundless. Joy. I stand a virgin in your honeymoon.

I am made up of sunsets and dreamy afterglows. I am

putting this on, demanding as intoxication, kneeling in this

costume, assuming I am dependable, but

I am not. I should close these shutters, marry

a soft genuine smile. I should care more. So much

that is done is done, fatal, heavy as a hanging. If I could

dig behind my sockets and make a window, I would. I would

walk away, but lust is water, and more than lust

is worth every star.

.

.

Copyright © 2012 by Allison Grayhurst

3021

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

http://barometricpressures.blogspot.ca/2014/10/surrogate-dharma-allision-grayhurst.html?spref=fb

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-DuKJaq66ClMlFIWWU5cTY2RTQ/view

.

First published in “The Undertow Review”

http://theundertowreview.webs.com/poetry

.

You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/changing-skins2.m4a?_=1

.

“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.

.

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.

.

 

Circle

Posted on by Allison Grayhurst

.

Circle

.

       Breathing into a brown paper bag, responsibilities

weighing me down, spreading out, hiding

in my speech, making up lies to

lie across me bare-chest and crushing.

       I’ve slept in a pantry with roaches and a window

with a full view of an unkempt backyard,

but never did I suspect that my love would wane,

polarizing my impulses and my apathy.

There was only one choice, a card turned and midnight

streaming into my veins like celestial pull and light

into the astrologer.

       Fighting is a fiddler playing – tension to maximize

the resulted genesis, or a room where rhymes

are written across the door frame. In that room I clip

my fingernails, waiting for admittance to foreplay,

something to electrify my sinews and sing.

       Intimacy is a garden to plant or to let flourish

on its own accord, with eatable weeds

and dung beetles foraging.

Summer is slipping fast – with worry-wrought eyes,

under satisfied.

Summer beats its sloppy heat on my shoulders,

on eyelashes, volunteering

its blaze and affirming breath.

       I remember how it happened, listening

to lost friends voices on an answering machine. Some I wish

I never lost, most just conjure memory without emotion,

sure of why the break occurred, and glad

it did.

       Drip, drip dreams betrayed,

looking over old books in an old bookshop, where

I used to treasure the smell and the surprise.

       Ghosts enter me, collect and layer,

amplifying their mass, personal

tangibility.

       Age does not slow or still desires.

Age does not make both arms free. I am the same,

 

as when my phantom wings expanded,

extended,

past hydro wires and mating cardinals, touching

the misty tip of a cumulus cloud.

.

.

Copyright  © 2012 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

http://barometricpressures.blogspot.ca/2014/10/surrogate-dharma-allision-grayhurst.html?spref=fb

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-DuKJaq66ClMlFIWWU5cTY2RTQ/view

.

First published in “Straylight”

 

Straylight – Contributors

Straylight – Grayhurst

.

You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/circle.m4a?_=2

 

.

“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.
.
.

 

Complete, but

Posted on by Allison Grayhurst

.

Complete, but

  .

            to no avail. Sitting as a new house sits

on its lot, needing occupants.

Sewer sludge, soiled napkins, anthills

too late underfoot. Held up by restlessness in the many gardens

of Mount Sisyphus, heave-hoe to the point

of rudimentary madness. Windows I look through, birch trees

I stop at to collect nuances, rest like the sparrow in hopeful

camouflage, wearing myself down with unrealizable dreams.

            If I had claimed myself a calling

as a chaplain – ritualized pacing in university halls, my arm

around youth, accompanying my affection

with a spiritual smile, then I would have

the certainty of some kind of career, not be a carved body

on fire, totem of tripwires and earthquakes.

            If I was a young starling neck deep in uncut grass,

pecking at exposed roots, I would be

sky, downspout, bush, tip of a cross on a steeple,

cured of isolation, taking flight and landing when I choose and

I would choose a fenced-in backyard

where a boy’s imagination owns the splintered bench, weeds

and a dug-up secret hole. I would watch that boy plot his course

and leap, knowing no separation,

I would spread, sing

and fold.

.

.

Copyright  © 2012 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

http://barometricpressures.blogspot.ca/2014/10/surrogate-dharma-allision-grayhurst.html?spref=fb

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-DuKJaq66ClMlFIWWU5cTY2RTQ/view

.

First published in “Pyrokinection” February 2014 and “Storm Cycle 2014” August 2015

http://www.pyrokinection.com/2014/02/a-poem-by-allison-grayhurst.html

Storm Cycle 2014 Anthology — ebook file (2)

.

You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/complete-but.m4a?_=3

 

.

“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.
.
.
.