Allison Grayhurst and Douglas Polk

 

 

 

Alison Grayhurst

 

 

 

 

Denial

I will not be drawn

into you – mute with treacherous emotions,

shadowy at best in this morose of need and trophies.

Love is not a possible banner to bear. Love is not

this city, painted with greed and the ‘doing anything’ for survival.

It is okay to die, but not okay for my mind to be inebriated

with euphemisms, misty without edge or sharp magic.

I will not be drawn into the giving of roses or waiting

for the things within to confirm connection with what is heavy,

tedious and demanding. I will stay in place, committed to my familiar adventure,

block the gold from clawing on my screen. I will just look

and see nothing new, feel like a shoreline on a day of perfect weather.

I will not be drawn. I will myself concealed

in my mad lagoon, immune to any intoxicating distraction or further

longing.

It Happened

It happened when

the air grew thick

as toffee candy

and love slipped into the cupboard

behind a rack full of old clothes.

That is when the lights broke and a new view

came headlong in – one that feels like

holding hands out, spread and still

under placid waters or

a photo charged with self-contained life.

That is when I stopped speaking, even praying about

the same large dream. That was the day I walked up

the stairs and accepted the marks across the wall, the dents

in the doors and my aging fingernails.

It happened then like a quote upon my door, read and

re-read at each failing moment.

It happened and has not stopped –

less words now

less of everything and less of the burden

of its heavy worth.

A few words from Allison Grayhurst: Over the past twenty years my poems have been published in journals throughout the United States, Canada, and in the United Kingdom, including The Antigonish Review, Dalhousie Review, The New Quarterly, Wascana Review, Poetry Nottingham International, The Cape Rock and White Wall Review.  My work was also included in the Insomniac Press anthology Written In The Skin. My book Somewhere Falling was published by Beach Holme Publishers, a Porcepic Book, in Vancouver in 1995. Recent places where my work has appeared or will soon be appearing include: Quantum Poetry Magazine, Indigo Rising and Message in a Bottle Poetry Magazine.

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Douglas Polk

 

 

Labels

Prevocalic,

Letters in a word, 

not all letters, 

must first be a consonant, 

labeled such by the sound it makes,

like people labeled because of skin color,

Prevocalic,

 because of where it stands in relation to other letters,

 different letters, 

vowels, 

whose sound comes forth unobstructed from the mouth,

Labels, 

instructive, 

but not an end in themselves.

 

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Bio: Polk is a writer of poetry from central Nebraska. Feeling persecuted most of his life he has published three books of poetry; In My Defense, The Defense Rests, and On Appeal. He lives with his wife and two boys and two dogs on the plains of Nebraska