Poetry: Allison Grayhurst (Author of the Month)

Allison Grayhurst

Talk

If I talk again,

I will keep my end-mind twisted

so it cannot speak or formulate

a plan.

I have no constitution for plans

or wherewithal for achieving

human-made provisions.

 

If I talk again,

silence me into prayer,

conversing only with the angelic order,

strengthened by devotion and the power

of obedience.

 

If I try to be a player,

remind me of my meek capacity,

sting me with regret and slap me

into a state of surrender.

 

If I try to enter a world not my own,

laugh at me, call me out

and put me in my designated low-chair place,

a dreamer, advancing

no further.

***

Walk

Then the bitter defeat

was burning like a sin

committed, recognized

and unforgiveable.

Then on a hill, heavy with

weighted down legs and

an injury there, debilitating but

unexplained, the challenge came

to walk.

 

Walk slowly at first, walk like

I can walk even though the reins

are dropped and I have lost my mother,

lost life’s victory over death and the comfort

of an unbreakable love broken,

altered, intangible now as an angel’s skin

or a hope held for decades unrealized.

 

Walk with my mortal burden, stumbling without

a path, a cane or a flat plane. Twist in my ankle, twist

in my knee, swollen, bloated with a hot fever, walk.

 

Face a direction, walk, slowly,

commit and make it my own.

***

 

Small Moon

A small moon melted

fleshed out a sure-footed sacrifice

but changed directions, too quickly

into the direction of a red star.

Then her heart was burned, crispy

and crumbling, no more a perfect circle,

drooping on one side, gravity became queen

of her false crescendo song.

 

Hiding her deformity in the dark red burn,

hoping no one could see her misshapened side,

which she tended to only in hidden rooms,

chanting for a cure, bandaging her bloodied side

to try and form again that perfect circle.

 

A small moon strained to keep her crust,

could not resist flinging curses from her

cavity craters as she went out, could not accept

her time had come, that in the end she never had

a compact core or a solid truth she could rely on. 

***

Open

 

 Soak the born

in their own initial conception

to remember the pure-memory-pockets,

the truth of miracles.

Underline everything that matters

and read it again until no small word

is skimmed over or taken for granted.

Open the shelter doors and let all animals

in, wild ones, broken ones, aggressive and tame.

Free with a blessing

every dream that isn’t false,

and follow your deepest duty -

both desirous and undesirous divine commands.

Under the blanket, conspiracies are made.

They grow limbs that look like light but exclude

humility and the thumb-print of surrender.

The atmosphere is big,

the button-hole is small.

I am small when I toss

my self-determination out as wisdom

and fail at every turn.

Mercy comes with obedience,

obedience comes with trust, and then finally

freedom.

The dying are trapped in their wounds.

The living, in their success at survival,

but the gift is always

open for everyone, and changing

even without core movement.

I have a boat and that is all I own.

I see flowers on the shore, rooted in the sand.

I see yellow and sometimes, I see gold.

***

 

Touch

The first touch was bitter,

tantamount to an attack, deception

from a vantage point

of spiritual superiority.

 

The second touch

was touching a tomb, still full of stench

though the flesh had rotted long ago -

just dry bones, barely

a full form.

 

The third touch

angered, like when a snake

snatches a fledgling, angry

at the innate brutality all around.

 

The fourth touch

was perfect, a release

from the swing-seat of darkness,

a blessed gift that came

at the first touch -

consciously cruel, compliant

to the sway of a lesser self.

***

Bio: Allison Grayhurst has been nominated for “Best of the Net” six times. She has over 1,400 poems published in over 530 international journals, including translations of her work. She has 25 published books of poetry and 6 chapbooks. She is an ethical vegan and lives in Toronto with her family. She also sculpts, working with clay; www.allisongrayhurst.com

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Setu, December 2025