….

Principles of duty

overtaking sleep like a wave.

Heavy love rooted in isolation,

reflecting the depths of true giving.

A condition turns to disease, restrictions

bare down. What is ordinary becomes like

a cage. Children in the drifting storm, drifting

on condensed-traffic streets, how I love you.

How I would do everything I cannot do to ease

the grip of your elephant shackles. Mine was the angel’s

autonomy, where nothing was miscellaneous and my bed

was a rich blackness that absorbed all time. Mine was loud

without noise or distraction, just the buoyant sparkle flow

of paired-off stars and the countless debris of ongoing creation.

Mine is yours now, inside less-than-working-organs, kidneys

like puzzle pieces, seamed together by an amateur.

Where are you now, God-who-remembers, reminds me

of what I once was? My God and Jesus of the lilies,

why the children? Why this fluke,

this bizarre nightmare crawling, closer,

closer than when I had no body, no loves to look after?

And oh I am tired, worn as an old shoe that must keep

the broken glass at bay. Where are you my God, my Jesus?

I know you are here. I know something, but not enough

to deflate my bloating anxiety. It is grief all over again and I

hide myself in older hands, friendless, unsupported, remembering

the wholeness in every flaw, in the universe’s veined light

I once travelled on. Remembering that what is flawed sparkles

with a unique variation of beauty, rainbow fractions, infractions

that are blessings that seep and saturate sinews

and bones, galaxies

perpetual, renewable

where everything sings useful –

seemingly incongruent, yet in truth, masterfully

precise.

….

 Copyright © 2014 by Allison Grayhurst (poem and images)

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Copyright © by Allison Grayhurst 2014

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “The Muse – An International Journal of Poetry” Volume 4, Number 1, June Issue 2014

http://themuse.webs.com/June%202014/muse%20june%2014.pdf

http://themuse.webs.com/latestissues.htm

.

You can listen to the poem below:

In response to the poem – Walkways:

“This is brilliant! Brilliant. Reminds me of when I first read Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass”. And I wanted to stand up on the city bus and exclaim aloud: “Listen to this!” A comprehensive capturing of human earthly experience in all its dimensions without missing a beat – beyond the conscious mind – dancing with the levels of our knowing and sensing – that we feel but do not always recognize, and rarely, oh so rarely articulate. Clearly, Grayhurst’s poetic journey has taken her to the mountain top,” Taylor Jane Green, registered holistic talk therapist and author..

.

.

….

Gaze, focus, hold.

Unconscious stream

of raw fluidity streaming,

rising over barriers, drowning them

with the pressure of an open door.

Cracks of circumstantial disease,

creating pockmarks to expand destiny choices, 

fashioning gifts to give,

earned by bomb-droppings

and low flying plane-explosions.

Cobweb parties, graffiti

on the skin of your back,

made with a blade as small and smooth

as the tip of a hawk’s feather.

Weaning off the burnt oak,

preening patches of grime.

Wake and rhyme, garden-keeper,

ambush your fear – it cannot be real!

Lungs run the same vibration as a flame.

It is hard, but not impossible. Gulp the sea

of senseless over-warming, pool the salt-taste

in your mouth, feel it

around your lip-rim, the sides of your cheeks. And there,

be safe, joining with the translucent swimmers, floaters

of prehistoric heritage.

Copyright © by Allison Grayhurst 2014

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

.

First published in “The Muse – An International Journal of Poetry” Volume 4, Number 1, June Issue 2014

http://themuse.webs.com/June%202014/muse%20june%2014.pdf

http://themuse.webs.com/latestissues.htm

.

You can listen to the poem below:

 

In response to the poem – Walkways:

“This is brilliant! Brilliant. Reminds me of when I first read Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass”. And I wanted to stand up on the city bus and exclaim aloud: “Listen to this!” A comprehensive capturing of human earthly experience in all its dimensions without missing a beat – beyond the conscious mind – dancing with the levels of our knowing and sensing – that we feel but do not always recognize, and rarely, oh so rarely articulate. Clearly, Grayhurst’s poetic journey has taken her to the mountain top,” Taylor Jane Green, registered holistic talk therapist and author.

….

Fresh, potted

bright as an angel. Death is a whip

I put down. Ill health slumber,

but God is my mercy-king. Queen

of loving miracles. I will sing to

keep the right intention and grieve

minimally for what I cannot do.

Little red tree, no higher than

a toddler-child. Disco ball,

ball blue and gold,

twirl for me, let the grey dissipate into your

twinkling glow and all my blood into your veins,

little tree

plump and flourishing, readying for greater heights,

string-stream through me, weave me into your branches,

still firmly on the ground.

Angels everywhere I need your temperance. I need

to know my children are protected by your grace,

wing-spread, and even

your cold white eyes.

Copyright © by Allison Grayhurst 2014

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

.

First published in “The Muse – An International Journal of Poetry” Volume 4, Number 1, June Issue 2014

http://themuse.webs.com/June%202014/muse%20june%2014.pdf

http://themuse.webs.com/latestissues.htm

.

You can listen to the poem below:

In response to the poem – Walkways:

“This is brilliant! Brilliant. Reminds me of when I first read Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass”. And I wanted to stand up on the city bus and exclaim aloud: “Listen to this!” A comprehensive capturing of human earthly experience in all its dimensions without missing a beat – beyond the conscious mind – dancing with the levels of our knowing and sensing – that we feel but do not always recognize, and rarely, oh so rarely articulate. Clearly, Grayhurst’s poetic journey has taken her to the mountain top,” Taylor Jane Green,  registered holistic talk therapist and author.

.

.

….

For a while –

deathcamps, blue balls

baskin’robbins. Play tomorrow

the lute-song of today and remember

the ground-swell

pounding paradise into my brain, collapsing

from overload, reloading fodder

and flighty friendships I’ve lost use for.

Nothing counts, count on nothing but playfighting

over the bank, over the brim – rim – keeper

of the fixer-upper, of the still fire, fire still

as yellowed corpses. Mid-fall.

Fake it! Love! kindness, tenderness – be

polite, because very little is

anything you want to take with you.

Care-giver, carer of the children,

the laundry, pets and bank account.

It is all you are – rainstorm.

You must take this stone and swallow,

make peace with your burden, make love

with the swarming emptiness, stuck

in a gravitational pull,

planets, solar systems spinning around you

but you are heavy, must be,

unfazed by the pressured wind – stains

on the ground. Inside of you, chopped-up bits of fate

and crimes conceived before you

were born. Fake it, wallpaper it. Go on, try, smile

Copyright © by Allison Grayhurst 2014

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

.

First published in “The Muse – An International Journal of Poetry” Volume 4, Number 1, June Issue 2014

http://themuse.webs.com/June%202014/muse%20june%2014.pdf

http://themuse.webs.com/latestissues.htm

.

You can listen to the poem below:

In response to the poem – Walkways:

“This is brilliant! Brilliant. Reminds me of when I first read Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass”. And I wanted to stand up on the city bus and exclaim aloud: “Listen to this!” A comprehensive capturing of human earthly experience in all its dimensions without missing a beat – beyond the conscious mind – dancing with the levels of our knowing and sensing – that we feel but do not always recognize, and rarely, oh so rarely articulate. Clearly, Grayhurst’s poetic journey has taken her to the mountain top,” Taylor Jane Green, registered holistic talk therapist and author.

.

.

….

Once, gentle. Now, riled and nowhere but where

the stench of sewage is piled on the curb.

The gears of bitter disappointment snatching

you into a feral hold. Exotic tall weeds,

broken at the base.

Friendships are spoiled at the root, even love is

overshadowed by the decay.

Less obligation, less affection, less loyalty.

I must pretend we are healed, but the only healing

that happened was a cauterization of our severed bond.

There is anger but less hurt,

just the motions of getting through

undetected, and me by myself,

always alone –

separate happenings, entities, isolated

aspects merging, but never

whole. White car on the road.

Red car on the road. Silver then

blue. The only place absolute is

the place I left where faith was unnecessary

and all cells were one cell, not like here –

different functions – each dominated by its own survival.

No wonder love is weakened, can only achieve

a temporary claim on completion.

I accidently crush the insect with my heel. It is consumed

by another of its kind, carried off

into the hive of practicality –

a gesture void of remorse or sentimentality.

In the end, there is nothing but wires and fences

and frames of flesh, cartilage and senses. Tomorrow

there will be talk and tea and eyes

locked in intense recognition.

Good for the moment

Good until there comes

the something we want

more of, less of, had enough of….

Copyright © by Allison Grayhurst 2014

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

.

First published in “The Muse – An International Journal of Poetry” Volume 4, Number 1, June Issue 2014

http://themuse.webs.com/June%202014/muse%20june%2014.pdf

http://themuse.webs.com/latestissues.htm

.

You can listen to the poem below:

In response to the poem – Walkways:

“This is brilliant! Brilliant. Reminds me of when I first read Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass”. And I wanted to stand up on the city bus and exclaim aloud: “Listen to this!” A comprehensive capturing of human earthly experience in all its dimensions without missing a beat – beyond the conscious mind – dancing with the levels of our knowing and sensing – that we feel but do not always recognize, and rarely, oh so rarely articulate. Clearly, Grayhurst’s poetic journey has taken her to the mountain top,” Taylor Jane Green,  registered holistic talk therapist and author.