Balanced Repertoire
Petals and fizzling small craters, inches
from the side of the
road.
I dive
into the net and let
the struggle ensue.
I lived in corners
with the
dead-mature, in flaps
like wishy-washy
by-standers. But here, entering
the small soft mounds of pleasurable
taboos and smiling
up in the treetops, I am sitting
on the weakest
branch just to get the best overview.
My tongue
is painted many
colours.
I lost you in the
nuclear glow. It happened
gradually, like a
cliff descending,
finally,
meeting ground.
I used to float -
a silhouette of fine
cuts
and obvious edges.
But I lost you and
it is good to lose
extensions,
flavours of
redundant delight.
Enthralled by sensual geometry,
by mountain ridges
reflected in heartbeats,
wrinkles, rough
spots, perfect
intricacy
equilibrium
subconscious sway,
and you.
You never loved me, never knew
I was a neophyte,
taker of whatever
I could get, keeper
of
an ethereal garden.
I
will accept my joy
regardless of lack,
discover joy
in what droops to
provide me canopy, also
in what arches
upward, proclaiming its praise.
Allison Grayhurst
allisongrayhurst@rogers.com
Fidelity
Further in
into intimacy, surrendering
the rosary beads, the Buddha beads, the
Krishna beads - necklaces
of superstitious worth, a means to be
compensated
with miracles for work done - disciplined
activity
performed with the anticipation of divine
participation –
enduring boredom with karmic pride. But
nothing works
that way or does it let go into
voluminousness
just because of accumulation. Why can’t I
be
the things I see? Why do I resist collapse,
clasp
onto linear principles, desperate to be
justified.
Intimacy is everything ever sought – to
have God inside
filling, overtaking every other sensation.
Movement
like locked loins or other body parts in
synchronized ministrations, joining
another’s pulse,
extending the body’s confines. I will not
want for more
but this surrender - the stillness of
receptivity coalescing
with the arching activity of advancing
without expectations of results,
to be delivered into the rhythm of tangible
grace, giving into
a relentless rich flow that knows taste and
substance
but no set speed. I know
staying this way is not easy,
not when the bedsheets are moth bitten and
money
is stolen at the corner store. I know teeth
need fixing and foundations
are fragmenting, but how can that matter
when the whole
is at stake? When whatever is taken, explored and received
is there to guide further in. When God is
asking
for this union to be achieved, offering
peace but
no ego reprieve - no other lovers, no
compromise.
Allison Grayhurst
allisongrayhurst@rogers.com
Other Side
Killed in the cloud
that
ripples softly.
Believing we would
be triumphant
made it so, and being dead we
learned
a new way to rise and praise.
The music lies down in the seas,
so
I hear the dolphins hum
and see octopi
sway.
Madness
is part of our heritage
but
also our navigating star.
Whisper of the wonder we walk
through
each day, beside one another
and our little
girl.
Away from the dull chaos of the common bar
this
is a new plateau, a horse
in our backyard.
Up and dancing, the ground and air
join
together to say -
we
were never alone.
Allison Grayhurst allisongrayhurst@rogers.com
Saltwater Sprint
A returning dream ruffled in my
shell,
opening intermittent passages of
discovering.
Crossbreezes and singular
infinity,
by death and dying you buy me
whole.
The slug’s flesh merges
miraculously with
the curve of a leaf - white pink
on green, more potent
than a drop-cliff, than
rebellion.
Stroking the skin of a tree, I
end up here,
in the morning, with the nesting
squirrels
collecting torn newspapers,
swaying with the telephone wires.
Brilliance plays like chords on
the brink of chaos,
almost fracturing sanity.
Suspended firm like a branch
over traffic, I hear riffs like
cars arrive then leave.
Sleep, little lilac near the
fence, I have learned
determination can solve most
problems.
Tomorrow I will make the final
break, orbit
beyond the periphery of natural
selection.
God, scoop me up in your cone,
don’t
let me doubt your goodness. If
you are here,
I am living, I can let slip what
I am capable of,
create origami with infants and
animals.
I can climb the steps of any
probability
just to feel you press up against
my rigidity,
purify with kneading pressure
a hard illumination.
Allison Grayhurst allisongrayhurst@rogers.com
Heaven must
be active (not innate)
Life
is raw
as
a just-made wound. It is raw
so
it is open to acts of mercy
and
the beginning of true humility.
God
is not proud but always available,
is
always faultless in the body of love.
Life
is raw
with
no way to be protected from
cruel
chance, no way but to ride the raft
down
the falls and see what gets broken, then see
what
gets preserved.
Allison Grayhurst
allisongrayhurst@rogers.com
