Muse,

.

Muse,

.

        like a seahorse floating forward

you are brittle and small. When you move

you barely touch the sandy ground.

        My eye to your reflection,

forging for fundamental truths.

Your skin to my aura, skimming the anointed flame.

        I wear you as a wig to fight off

prejudice. You lay over me like a shroud

made of woven sunlight and shade, made

to supply me with defining features

and leave an impression.

        You are like the freeway I fell onto

when I was barely grown, rolling over

to the side, watching the car I rode in

shrink into oblivion.

        I am a reptile in a drying-up waterhole,

cocooned in sludge, where you sniff me out,

expose my underbelly and devour.

        Pocket knives and crushed branches,

I owe my secrets to only you.

        Lap me into your watery mouth,

tongue-swirl me across your taste buds

unless I die, evolve, unrecognizable, and you

fairy-tale pretty, ride away on a mild tide, saying

it is over.

.

.

Copyright  © 2012 by Allison Grayhurst

BookCoverPreview (3)

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

Surrogate Dharma chapbook 1

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 “Blast Furnace”

Blast Furnace 3Blast Furnace 1Blast Furnace 2

http://www.blastfurnacepress.com/2013/10/blast-furnace-volume-3-issue-3.html

.

You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

.

“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.
.
.
.

What A Dream Can Tell

 .

What A Dream Can Tell

 .

 .

Last night I held a muse

under the sheets.

 

For an hour I waited

like a hunter after a prized prey.

 

He was beside me, tucked inside

his male shell.

 

He would not touch my breast

or back. I waited between

 

war & sleep for his shadow

to ignite. In my mind there were

 

archways made of silver & thorns,

& horses with pumped-up shoulders

 

racing aimlessly to & fro.

I looked for him among the pastures wild

 

& in the oceans of living octopi. I looked

behind a sniveling child, into the eyes

 

of a great afternoon. I held my muse but

for a blind hour. I could not keep him.

 

I could not love with all my heart.

.

.

Copyright © 1995 by Allison Grayhurst

3018img182

For Every Rain Cover 5

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

.

First published in “Dalhousie Review, Volume 71, Issue 4”, 1991/1992

img083img084

img085

Dalhousie 1

Dalhousie 2

Dalhousie

https://ojs.library.dal.ca/dalhousiereview/issue/view/179

https://ojs.library.dal.ca/dalhousiereview/article/view/dr714grayhurst/2259

.

You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

.

Somewhere Falling has a richness of imagery and an intensity of emotion rare in contemporary poetry. Drawn in sharp outlines of light and darkness, and rich shades of colour, with a deep sense of loss and longing and the possibility of salvation, this is an unusual book by a gifted young poet. Grayhurst’s voice is one to which we should continue to pay attention.” — Maggie Helwig, author of Apocalypse Jazz and Eating Glass.

“Responsibility and passion don’t often go together, especially in the work of a young poet. Allison Grayhurst combines them in audacious ways. Somewhere Falling is a grave, yet sensuous book.” – Mark Abley, author of Glasburyon and Blue Sand, Blue Moon.

“Biting into the clouds and bones of desire and devotion, love and grief, Allison Grayhurst basks the reader, with breathtaking eloquence, in an elixir of words. Like lace, the elegance is revealed by what isn’t said. This is stunning poetry.” – Angela Hryniuk, author of no visual scars.

.

.

Matrimony

.

Matrimony

 .

I have been taken on as your lover. I will not deny it

any longer, taken into a divine, subterranean refuge

where my lungs separate with a sharp divide,

squeezed apart like playdough, and that is not all

that has been conquered or dismembered.

I trust this burning bond, but I am hardly keeping pace,

letting all other responsibilities go, paying no mind

to the traffic or to the baby squirrel at my doorstep.

I have been tagged your concubine, marked now

with an irrefutable identification.

I am not in this body anymore,

not like I used to be. I am flowing in and out of atmospheres,

contained by dark matter into the surge of these succulent

prayers that claim the wavelength of my individuality.

It has always been – you on top of me, me over your back,

finally both of us abandoned to the pressure,

moving in sync, blasting out a ferocious harmony.

And the crows, on treetops, never letting me

out of their sight. You and them and dark wingspans

cloaking the shell of my brain, causing an explosive beat,

a ricocheting rhapsody – always just you and me – together,

retreating from time, gesticulating our revelations,

gyrating on beds, on cushions – scarves loose around

our necks, force-feeding each other, promising this and that,

and the sun. In my eyes, your sun, your legs beside mine

have become mine. It has never been any different –

I’ve been a fool to think it has – this tugging on my lead.

Love, so much love, our love, is sweet, murderous.

I am trying to understand but I don’t know how.

Tell me, I am listening. Expand everything

then crush it in tight, blindingly bright,

pinpoint.

.

.

Copyright © 2012 by Allison Grayhurst

3021

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

.

First published in “Whisper”, 2012

img163img171img172Whisper 1Whisper 2Whisper - Matrimony 1Whisper - Matrimony 2

http://www.ur-online-shopping.com/poetry/archive/Archive10.htm

http://www.ur-online-shopping.com/poetry/archive/Matrimony.shtml

.

You can listen to the poem 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.

.

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.

 .

 .