….

Many years torn – a leaf, a paper towel,

half around the other side, locked

on the beach of my nadir – discipline

and a cold cruel courage, jammed into a groove.

Just the sunlight on my wall,

warming the wall, penetrating the heavy plaster.

I was born from a stem.

I fit on a chalkboard.

Over the cool half-formed moon

I hear an echo, smell the crisp lunar craters –

stagnant rocks, deep troughs to fuel

a million or more Earth dreams.

Scents of dead matter colliding,

of rough stone and endless rotation,

repetitive atmosphere

churning.

Behind a broken bark I hide my vanity,

rushing into quicksand, there I sink.

.

.

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

.

Published in “Art Villa” December 2015

Read the whole poem here:

Walkways – the poem

.

You can listen to the poem below:

….

Come upon me like a feather-stick –

sectioning my abdomen like a fruit. Suddenly

toddlers are conversing and the grey cat

takes in the morning. Bundle of weeds,

bundle of flowers. An opening

under the burning canopy. Lifetimes spent

collecting synergy, male rhythms and fixed lines.

God is coming down to hide in your loose-change-pocket.

I dreamt of owning your praise. Swinging from the rafters

in a game of hide-and-seek, I sought your breath,

hand of destined chores.

I played along inside the circle, inside a sack

I could hardly breathe out of. Languishing. A round bruise

forming on my left arm. Place me here. Crown me

or stake me on a tall spike. I am sand thrown mid-air.

No place to collect and land, not even a wave, a bucket,

the forelock of a horse. Not even

thinking in a straight continuation, but there, there, a pebble

between paw pads, then, a minor note locked

in perpetual repetition.

.

.

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

Published in “Art Villa” December 2015

Read the whole poem here:

Walkways – the poem

.

You can listen to the poem below:

….

Light that drips down the turnpike, onto roads

and ways far away from any window.

Blocks to build shelters and shields. Flags on flimsy poles.

A neutral breeze busting cardoors and

personalized licence plates.

Paved over, I see a carcass dripping, a little yellow flower,

smaller than a thumbprint.

Rust-coloured shawl, poncho that holds

great sentimental significance holds

me to a memory, old now as a ten-year-old untended garden

or pavement cracks grown into fissures.

Forging, face-like an image. Worm in my sink.

Blood and cup of nutritional joy.

Hold out for the grace of good music

and drying on rocks, nude in the sun.

Quiet heat building up into renewal. Tattered ankle cuffs

and shrinking shadows, mid-stream. Up,

up we go, insistent on making an impression.

But walk lightly is all I’ll ever learn, spoon-feeding the children.

I bloom and I will die a woman, a butcher of frivolity

and the natural sequence of things.

The day is one day – enough, taken

into its rolling waters,

a dog’s dream to join in, frolic in

some other species’ symbolism.

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

Published in “Art Villa” December 2015

Read the whole poem here:

Walkways – the poem

.

You can listen to the poem below: