The Muse
(An International Journal of Poetry)
ISSN 2249 –2178
Volume-3 June -2013 Number-1
Poem 1
Our Light Cannot Always Burn Whole
by Allison Grayhurst
Nests that stay through winter
are similar to us at times - left abandoned on high barren branches,
valueless until spring - if ever, even then, reclaimed.
We jog through bitter uneatable harvests, absorbing
disappointments as our only viable feast, not heeding our self-honouring needs,
too proud to address imagined or deliberate injuries.
Jackets buttoned to the neck, we move in these sewer shafts,
trying to shake the foaming stench off each other’s tailored attire.
On our bed, we are broken, letting our arms rest
like a Spanish squid’s tentacles would rest,
pulled from pulsing waters. Our mouths primed for confession,
our eyes scanning features - short hair, skin under the eyes, familiar necklines.
We tell each other these things are worth the horror of abominations
accepted as societal norms, atrocities justified as a soldier’s directed bullet.
Here in a shut-in space, we can lock, shed faculties of crusted reason,
create a colourful spread of sensuality, messaging
our blood vessels with deep oxygen, curing, learning
to make saliva and swallow.
We tell ourselves sometimes we wish we could be like those who live
never knowing an intimate tender beauty, like those who get shipwrecked,
daily hunted by a cancerous loneliness.
At times we wish this love didn’t exist, then we could give in
to what lies beyond the cliff, defend our exit, salt the Earth with
a dramatic departure.
Those times, we hear a desolate chorus rising and we vanish
completely into its volcanic siren wind.
Other times, we talk. We watch squirrels dance across our backyard trees,
make tea, passing domestic glances, gladly sharing
the last spoonful of bottled honey.
Poem 2
It starts
by Allison Grayhurst
like precipitation, infusing
iron seeds that rest atop the ozone-dome
and flourish. Somehow I am coming to terms with
churches I will never go back to, and last-year’s friends
who own creative nobility but fail to nourish.
It is starting, culminating like a blood clot,
anchoring me to my drive, wringing out my squishy insides
until they are parched, until the robin’s song registers
austere.
Escape happens in the morning, wading through yesterday’s debris,
fascinated by scars and euphoria that comes opening airways.
Can I conceive of a crime that will not haunt?
There are rules to follow, bones that fit into sockets, sacred formations
that must not be tampered with, and speeches spoken
brave enough to own on paper.
Biting is war; be it biting on silver,
gently marking areolas, or lacerating wet teabags.
I forfeited what I thought was a shield, sure it was
more than only emptiness swelling. It was
a birthmark, nihilism reclining over my pre-destined zenith.
There are things that start then overtake. They emerge pure as children,
touch ground and vaporize. August is hard. In that critical heat, everything
that wavers between worlds gets erased - splits up into two categories
of corpses and lifeforms that take celestial flight - ends up
where water sinks or where water concentrates, either way, falls
but does not flow.
Poem 3
As Mad As Mine
by Allison Grayhurst
Grief is cold as the world
without a wish, riding
the waking land.
I saw the hounds trace my footsteps.
I believed in an everafter,
and the shore was my mansion to fight for.
I drove from the river onward,
looking for a season to change me.
The miracle, the terror before the miracle,
is the salty flavour of my blood.
Sudden love stinging the throat. Sudden
happiness to renew the cage of day-to-day drudgery.
But I cry like a seal who has lost her pup to the killer whale,
and I know tomorrow is not a void
but a temple of what is held sacred today.
Everytime I answer, I lose.
But when I am holding my breath,
caressing the slit throat of all my hopes,
then and there my eyes and ears
have learned the voice of golden
heaven.
Poem 4
Open Valve
by Allison Grayhurst
I see a small tree
or a bush grown tall
where animals congregate on spindly branches, lift up
on their hind legs to nibble at buds.
I see the tip of a steeple pierce the skin of the sun,
liberating a liquid radiation, a voluminous spell
of brutish creation. More still, found in smells
and in houses with decorated front doors - a smorgasbord
of captivating elegance to consume.
I hear angelic chatter, a high pitched verbosity,
dimensional sound, enveloping, filling those places I walk by
that even ghosts have abandoned.
The forest floor I am captain of
is embroidered with fine strands of rooted hope,
carpets made to curl toes on, made regardless
of other fruitions pillaged, fountains frozen, or children
discovered emaciated - jaundice seeping into their mouths,
tainting tangles of youthful hair.
Looking up, looking down, coalescence clings to bark
like clay-mask granules. I am building on this forest floor, spreading out
like a legion of detached twigs fallen over corner curbs. Like them,
I am proclaiming artistry in the natural-norm, gratitude for subtle ingenuities.
I see a way to effectively engage, disengage my body
from sticking to aluminium walls. I see a way to remember
the vegetables I planted, the wilderness that rises not-yet to my knees.
I see what it is that shields my sanity from a dangerous rupture. It is air,
birdprints waxing the sky, delightful overflowing, so overflowing
that it drowns any recollection of downpours, defusing
currents and currents of catastrophic cold.
Poem 5
Myopic
by Allison Grayhurst
There is too much to say
and nothing to do after it’s been said.
Commotion kills my throat,
starts like a heat-wave, anticipated.
That is a discomfort I frequent.
Others form techniques that neatly construct
and dispose of information. They define symbols that filter light,
use three letter examples, harming no-one when they disappear.
They do not strain in the depths, but grip the depths, then let it go.
When I try to swallow what’s core, it lodges between my teeth,
swells my gums, overextends my jaw, until it malfunctions like the rest I covet, inadequately burning.
It would be good to combust, be direct as ambition, cut
an indispensable horizon from a deflated balloon. But I am free and I chose to fizzle,
I choose these backwards repetitions - pressure that is purely
exhale. I don’t know how to point without pushing,
how to relax vertically as a willow tree, or be like a park bench -
offering considerable comfort to those who have walked too long.
I finding myself fixated first on detail,
spending long sessions with my microscope, discovering
blooming atoms, food crumbs, enthusiastic correlations of the tiny
to the oversized. Then I find myself bleeding out their definitions,
running to theatres where I can be stimulated by abstract reflection.
I enter a clear understanding with half-closed eyes,
wilfully smudging lines, numbers, concise melodies.
Others are sufficient, contented to observe
elements moving, sometimes rotating,
immune like strict realism is
to crazed impressionistic form.
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