Allison Grayhurst- Three Poems

Courage Where I Lie

 

It’s been my right hand on fire,

my eyes undertow

and my lips sliced by ant bites

that brought me to this landscape

of difficult beauty

where there is no allowance for sun,

but still, there is joy

within the darkness. There are shapes

and there is

possibility.

This land of undefined lines

and little colour, where the warmest beat

has died, and even that, somehow, is

surmountable. A land where miracles

will not be defeated by death

or by a torn perfection.

 

 

I Try To Breathe

 

God said

I didn’t do it out of malice,

I did it out of mercy.

And so I try to understand

through the emotion of purified faith.

I try to recognize the truth petrified within

like a soul cracked and brittle

but still shining its unique glow.

The cold egg sits in my pocket.

I keep it there for when I get hungry,

if I get hungry,

which doesn’t seem to happen much

anymore.

So it sits, cold, rubbery and whole,

sits, an egg too squished to roll,

sits for potential nourishment, as security without salt.

I try not to use it. I try to hold onto what God said

and breathe that in

as my only necessary

sustenance.

 

 

The Many Lights of Eden

 

The one with many lights

standing by the new water

traveled by carrying a throne on his shoulders.

 

Bartholomew came and

Bartholomew wandered

like a visitor where ever he was.

The one brought by fear’s inception

(fear of being rejected and a

desperation to be loved)

also brought a strange deception.

 

But the one with many lights

speaks softly on the inside

and leaves all bodies easily breathing.

Bio:Allison Grayhurst is a member of the League of Canadian Poets. Twice nominated for Sundress Publications “Best of the Net” 2015, she has over 700 poems published in over 330 international journals. She has eleven published books of poetry, seven collections, seven chapbooks, and a chapbook pending publication. She lives in Toronto with her family. She also sculpts, working with clay; www.allisongrayhurst.com

 

            Some of the places my work has appeared in include Parabola (Alone & Together print issue summer 2012); Elephant Journal; Literary Orphans; Blue Fifth Review; The American Aesthetic; Agave Magazine; JuxtaProse Literary Magazine, South Florida Arts Journal; Gris-Gris; The Muse – An International Journal of Poetry, Storm Cellar, morphrog (sister publication of Frogmore Papers); New Binary Press Anthology; The Brooklyn Voice; Straylight Literary Magazine (print); The Milo Review; Foliate Oak Literary Magazine; The Antigonish Review; Dalhousie Review; The New Quarterly; Wascana Review; Poetry Nottingham International; The Cape Rock; Ayris; Journal of Contemporary Anglo-Scandinavian Poetry; The Toronto Quarterly; Fogged Clarity, Boston Poetry Magazine; Decanto; White Wall Review.