If it is empty then it is empty

Posted on by Allison Grayhurst

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If it is empty then it is empty

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        Perishing like wasps in wet tar,

we can’t claim an answer

but only wear our raincoats,

acting out past wounds, meditating

by watergardens where amphibians breed,

owners of the pond.

        Perishing enough to create parables

to be sold to our advantage,

holding hands in the summer or after a bath.

We look through windows, keeping

vigil with homebound strangers, unlocking cupboards,

storing gifts on laundryroom shelves.

We welcome the red squirrel, make love

most afternoons, tie-dye our t-shirts.

burning colours hotter at the edges.

        We meet old mentors perishing,

drunk and mutated, mentors who taught us

to read the lines in our palms, how to find music underwater,

poetry under siege, sometimes showing us

the pitter-patter pace of caterpillars on a damp park lawn.

        Depths pushing out like a well-nourished womb,

depths we perish in, drained of desire,

listless in the light. Don’t bother complaining,

we were made to perish, grow a revolutionary peace

in the crisp leaves of burnt sage, discover mercy

in a backwards fall.

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Copyright © 2013 by Allison Grayhurst

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No Raft - No Ocean

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First published in “Kritya”, 2013

Kritya 1 Kritya 2 Kritya 3

http://www.kritya.in/0808/En/poetry_at_our_time 4.html

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if it is empty

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Silence

Posted on by Allison Grayhurst

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Silence

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I lift the bullfrog from the waters.

Bread, parables and staying close to a legend –

these are things of joy. I am thinking of the grave

near the willow tree, whose roots have grown

around the coffin, and of a sailing ship

that has no home port, but drifts like

a hollow log on living waters.

Freely I made my room and closed the door.

I knelt for our starved country, and grief

wrapped around my sleep, landing safely in my arms.

My father, I dream of your flame. I miss the woods

and your kind goodbyes. Tomorrow is a keyhole

that shapes my hopes with tiny possibilities.

If I could rise like grass from dirt, then

my nerves would be brave and the smell of the sun

would heal me with prayers.

If my eyes were an ocean where the whale

and the seahorse gathered, then I could see mercy

in the shark’s primitive teeth, I would

lie on the surface of a wave,

catching the colours of dusk with

my out-stretched tongue.

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Copyright © 2000 by Allison Grayhurst

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First published in “Boston Poetry Magazine” titled “In The Silence”, 2013

Boston poetry in the silence 4Boston poetry in the silence 2Boston poetry in the silence 3

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

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I  Am This Creature (drenched in mute history)

Posted on by Allison Grayhurst

 

I  Am This Creature

(drenched in mute history)

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I am this creature

let loose from the grave,

but still without a Sunday

or a bed of more than weeds and worms.

I am this liar, trapped in fantasy,

a carcass hanging upside down, all cheers and woes

set at high volume.

I was with hunger, a rage of flies on soiled food,

desperate to know fulfillment.

I was a girl, knowing nothing of drugs, but helpless

just the same, a slave to all my girlish visions

of the coming days of promised rapture.

I was a young woman, wearing drab and loose clothes,

never looking in a mirror, talking in tongues,

clenching confusion as a crutch and giving glory

to any glory-seeking teacher.

I am this woman, strong shouldered, a bit threadbare

but wanting

never to rekindle that drowned flame –

a creature in a world of foreign wilderness.

I’m circling, circling a solitary stone.

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Copyright © 2008 by Allison Grayhurst

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First published in “South Florida Arts Journal”, 2013

South Florida Arts JournalSouth Florida Arts Journal 2South Florida Arts Journal 7South Florida Arts Journal 6 South Florida Arts Journal 5

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

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