ALLISON GRAYHURST

ALLISON GRAYHURST

IT IS NOT NEW

                                                                             

                                                                              to hold out a hand

and find something dead

cupped inside.

It is not love that loves

through essential compromise.

It is God we speak to

everytime we verbalize,

and God will mend even the ones

who think they're saved.

It is the cracked jaw,

the splintered bone and expressions

of boredom and greed that

disease a child's innocence.

It is how we deal with the senselessness of being

that makes us either deny or realize

a gift of spiritual wonder.

allisongrayhurst@rogers.com

www.allisongrayhurst.com

HIT THE MARK

This sunrise, rushing

from your pores, smooth and

bright as perfection

has trailed out from a loving home,

out from the endurance of a decade tattooed

to your skin.

You, under the spotlight

bearing no fractures

are as close as the bone is to the shell.

And everyone was transported, gliding

through your soliloquy like birds in

a cool spring air.

A coming together, a rejoicing of all

your struggles, the last completing thread,

magic and kindled by your spiritual voice.

Animated like silver dust on still water, you arrived.

You made the world, at last

understand and listen.

allisongrayhurst@rogers.com

www.allisongrayhurst.com

SOMEONE NEW

Change is crouching

on my back deck,

behind the pillars

and rotted wood.

Change is tossing in my womb

and giving me a bell to ring.

Like someone new to sing to,

it nicks my forehead with its

broken rhythm. Like starlight

weaving under my skin, growing,

wanting my speed,

change is alive, but small as a rice grain

forming its heavenly head.

Welcome little hamlet of wonder,

welcome from the blue breath of God.

Come see us all and turn this home

of three kindred souls into four.

allisongrayhurst@rogers.com

www.allisongrayhurst.com

MY DREAMS COME

I move and lose my frame

of ultimate freedom. Into

immobile dreams, and growing

fast are the fantastic blossoms of my mind.

As the hard core challenge

gets tucked in my socks

like a saved coin for tougher days,

I get weak with the demands on my shelf,

lazy in my intent though still I am

loved. Loved, but lost again and not at the

potential I am asked to uphold.

The sound rises in my ear. I put more

pillows under my head. I see the TV light

blind the brighter one beneath my bed.

I won’t touch the crown or the things of great seed

until my excuses and ways to crawl under

are called to task and asked by me

to permanently, irrevocably

leave.

allisongrayhurst@rogers.com

www.allisongrayhurst.com

DARK NIGHT

Can’t

stand the long drawn spike wedging

year upon year into my belly - can’t

breathe under this burden of debt

and the cold didactic sentiments of the crowd - can’t

live without some relief, some saving grace

to upload this struggle and haul it to the nearest dump - can’t

understand the ruthless actions that forsake

the existence of God and paint a false justice on each toenail

to count and display at convenient random - can’t

get my head around the hate that jettisons

into my arms because of the path

that has been laid before me - can’t

help but try to hold on to the fine threads

of my sanity, to look at love and believe that is all

that matters - can’t

keep this cast-iron anchor cuffed to my bones or take

another step in this downfall direction - can’t

think in terms of linear hopes and

just-making-it calculations

Can’t

do anything but say that I can’t

then send this confession

into the wind

allisongrayhurst@rogers.com

www.allisongrayhurst.com

ALLISON GRAYHURST

ALLISON GRAYHURST is a member of the League of Canadian Poets. Three of her poems have been nominated for Sundress Publications “Best of the Net” 2015, and she has over 1000 poems published in more than 410 international journals and anthologies. Her book Somewhere Falling was published by Beach Holme Publishers, a Porcepic Book, in Vancouver in 1995. Since then she has published twelve other books of poetry and seven collections with Edge Unlimited Publishing. Prior to the publication of Somewhere Falling she had a poetry book published, Common Dream, and four chapbooks published by The Plowman. Her poetry chapbook The River is Blind was published by Ottawa publisher above/ground press December 2012. In 2014 her chapbook Surrogate Dharma was published by Kind of a Hurricane Press, Barometric Pressures Author Series. In 2015, her book No Raft – No Ocean was published by Scars Publications. More recently, her book Make the Wind was published in 2016 by Scars Publications. As well, her book Trial and Witness – selected poems, was published in 2016 by Creative Talents Unleashed (CTU Publishing Group). She is a vegan. She lives in Toronto with her family. She also sculpts, working with clay; www.allisongrayhurst.com