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Childhood cracked

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The doll fell

and was never picked up.

It fell by the curb

in a lucid slumber

of inarticulate words

like a dew drop

on ice.

Nothing was coveted,

the chant grew like the moon

as the month moved on.

What was cold inside was a needle

of sharp divide and the impact

of unbuffered death.

Into this autumn

the doll fell

and the meridian of grace

was at last

on the table.

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Copyright © 2008 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “Bewildering Stories”

http://www.bewilderingstories.com/issue448/childhood_cracked.html

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Won  Bewildering Stories’ “The 2011 Mariner Award for Short Poetry”

http://www.bewilderingstories.com/anthologies/AR11.html

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

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“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.

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Review of ‘The Many Lights of Eden’:
“’The Many Lights of Eden’ is a journey: a journey of the heart through youth, anguish, struggle, spiritual awakening, grief, death, love, loss, guilt, struggle, despair, hope, surrender, God, sensuality, imperfection, motherhood, aging, the vanquishing of the devil, indeed, many devils, the inevitable fall from perfection and the casting off of old wineskins for a new one. Perhaps speaking of this book as a chronicle of spiritual maturing would be more accurate, the realization that there is spirituality within imperfection and that handmade temples cannot hope to compete with the spiritual temples within each of us. ‘The Many Lights of Eden’ is a diamond. It is a beautiful collection of insights. Allison Grayhurst’s thoughts and writings are a deep well. Drink from it, for the water is clear and crisp. This collection is a MUST-READ,” Eric M. Vogt, author of Letters to Lara and Paths and Pools to Ponder. 

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Review of poem:

“I really like Allison Grayhurst’s poem “Childhood Cracked.” There is something ethereal about it — the words and phrases attract me in a mysterious way. In particular, the second line “a lucid slumber of inarticulate words like a dew drop on ice.” Whew, the phrase pulls up images and feeling of being verbally locked, having something overwhelmingly important to express yet being frozen, unable to speak. And, “Into this autumn / the doll fell” brings thoughts of fractured memories from childhood. The poem gives me a raw chill but not in an uncomfortable way. The images stay with me a while. I enjoyed it greatly,” Bewildering Stories, 2011 – American poet Thomas F. Wylie.

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