Tag Archives: philosophical

Our Days

Posted on by Allison Grayhurst

Our Days

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I place my arms up here

reaching for you in the morning

at half-past six and later

when you are just waking, disheveled

and wishing to return to dreams.

In the afternoon when we

finally talk, the brightness of the day

absorbs into your face and what is left

is the movement of our connection

between coffee mugs and our children’s play.

At dinner, you tell me stories.

I see the years behind us, and for a moment the

curtains of heaven draw back before my eyes.

At night when we hold and the children sleep,

we talk of the unspeakable things – ourselves for a time,

fully happy – two together

in the arena of society’s plight,

two together, beholden

to only this love.

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Copyright © 2006 by Allison Grayhurst

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amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “Message in a Bottle Poetry Magazine”, 2013

http://www.messageinabottlepoetrymagazine.com/issue-12.php

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/our-days.m4a?_=1

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Beyond Instinct or Dreams

Posted on by Allison Grayhurst

 

Beyond Instinct or Dreams

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Renewal is in the night,

comes like lovemaking

to heal the bruise of harsh words

and lonely needs.

 

Because a cigarette is sometimes

all that is wanted, or good news in the mail,

and because the ways of the heart are erratic,

inconsistently falling as flakes of snow,

that is why we sometimes sleep with death

as we do with God, not holding but letting It hold

us in a warm invincible sack, offering promise, a journey

to somewhere unfathomable.

 

That is why some fear is good, is intimate as love.

And the sky is breathing and the oceans, the seas,

the rivers are breathing. And the beetle and the rooftops too.

 

Trees sway with the clouds.

The butterfly and guppy are great as mountains.

All chimes of tenderness or tragedy,

seeking its necessary role.

We bear the weight.

We take balloons to birthday parties.

And happy is the motion. And graced

are each of our failings.

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Copyright © 1998 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “CRASH a litzine”, Issue #7

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/beyond-instinct-or-dreams.m4a?_=2

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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

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

 

First published in “Kritya”, 2013

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

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Click to access 20151023No_Raft_No_Ocean_by_Allison_Grayhurst.pdf

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http://scars.tv/cgi-bin/framesmain.pl?writers

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

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