Three poems by Allison Grayhurst

Rite of Passage

The power of you
in the grueling dark places
that demand your mastery.
Summer has left, but the sky
is still beautiful
emerging, gaining soft feathers.
The will to blow mighty at
the insects of anxiety, insects
building nests of dread
inside the pocket holes of
your once most-trusted security.
Relax in the wave that takes away your footing,
teaching you the ways of
sharks and minnows,
pulling you out into a place where
oxygen must be drawn in differently,
slicing smooth skin into gills,
salting your eyes, tastebuds and
all of you that previously glowed.
 
Treehouse by the fence
fall over and know like it
you can, either fly or swing
or place yourself, steeping slow,
renew yourself, know yourself capable
of maneuvering any journey.
 
Deciding is hard, you must shed your shell
of childhood, majestic and marvelous
as it was, keep the good
that formed, transforming as you bless it,
incorporate it, and then,
let go.
 
 
 
 
 

I have been born

a thousand times over,
flaked into existence by
force, by will and by desire.
I have had my days
under the siege of physical limitations,
of bloodlines burned and bloodlines
mended. There is no more
time for this rotating scheme,
no space for waiting
or for continuing. I stop here. Unplugging the
flow, breathing only because
I want to, because
this skin that is mine is
the last skin I will ever claim
as the landscapes I drop, drop, then
drop me.







Make the wind

Make the wind like blood.
Blood is darker than the wind,
more brutal in its espionage.
Wild, brooding, master of the game-plan, game-spin, darting
in and out of extremes, be for me the last-call,
the ump-degree, send my inhibitions
to the highest octave plateau where untold desires are invented,
then rip through the ceiling by their unbearable brilliance.
Send me into the peace that comes with such intensity.
Send me salt, flavours of forbidden scents
where the wind is blood
and blood is savouring safe,
more risky than being on edge.
Bury the small of my back, my tippy-toes, realizing
all I have lost is the same as what
has made me whole.

 About the author: 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 825 poems published in more than 365 international journals and anthologies. Her book Somewhere Falling was published by Beach Holme Publishers in 1995. Since then she has published eleven other books of poetry and six 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 in December 2012. In 2014 her chapbook Surrogate Dharma was published by Kind of a Hurricane Press, Barometric Pressures Author Series in October 2014. More recently, her chapbook No Raft – No Ocean was published in October 2015 by Scars Publications. She also has a chapbook Currentspending publication this Fall/Winter with Pink.Girl.Ink. Press. She lives in Toronto with her family. She also sculpts, working with clay;www.allisongrayhurst.com A few of her publication credits include: Literary Orphans; Blue Fifth Review; The American Aesthetic; Agave Magazine;JuxtaProse Literary Magazine, The Brooklyn Voice,  The Toronto Quarterly; Fogged Clarity, Boston Poetry Magazine, Ayris, Decanto and White Wall Review.

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