Sliding through the sewage tunnel gleam
(poem in seven parts)
I
Forgotten (soon)
Hard and cold as an ice storm
killing, hardening life
in its blanket frost.
The only love you keep is what
you can control. If you can’t control it,
you ditch it with a kick,
with a higher-than-though mighty sneer.
Digger in the rocky lifeless garden,
resisting you, you claim as savage stupidity
because you claim to hold prophecy,
ancient words of a babbled dream,
zodiac tamer whipping up a storm
or a healing balm to break delusion.
When there is no compliance or
cheerleaders cheering,
you turn,
start character-flailing, lying, slicing into
the corners of human frailty
to etch yourself out a victory and walk away.
Atrophied heart inside you, a high ceiling
that will go no further, cannot expand
into compassion-for-your-enemies
overflow
Dive back into the water-pool where all who
encounter you are obedient to your command, move
to the mountain where uncertainty cannot
reach you – exchanging truths in monetary form
and claim it all as blessed achievement.
Where was your kindness, your golden glow,
when you drove a knife into my loins
before you departed,
trying to lure me into self-loathing?
Low,
like arrogance, hubris, and lying are low,
immutable as a dead thing swinging in
the wind – movement, but no breath.
Farewell friend of the seventh solider, fallen.
I need nothing here
in your palace of falsities,
closed off from humility and the equality of grace.
You could have left without letting me know
you never had my back, that you were always
back there, clawing with judgements,
grievances.
You could have just left without the
tongue-lashing psychological deception,
just turned away without the gutting,
flipping all those years of friendship
on their side, upside down, lying
like liars do with complete certainty,
no remorse or self-doubt,
amputating any devotion
I had left for you,
boiling its remains
on a rack of putrid oil and extremes.
Walk away, dragging this downed horse behind you,
into the thorny bramble of your defiant prejudice
into the fantasy of your less-than-holy paradigm, broken.
II
Broken Glass
Coward,
keeper of a false fixed star,
keeper of many truths,
knower of none.
Coward,
throwing glass into my garden.
Brutal, unnecessary cruelty so you can
own the platform as you leave,
nose stuck high in the air,
hands cleansed of any doubt or wrongdoing.
Coward,
incapable of walking through the mire
hand in hand, of not letting go and trusting love no matter
the centipedes writhing, the small gnawing things
and the larger creatures that scare. Incapable
of owning your own transgressions, or prioritizing
love above your frightened soul.
Coward
cussing a friendship because you quit,
cussing and lying and tossing the broken glass
from your high and mighty mountain.
Coward
with blood on your hands,
who must turn back as you leave,
thinking you’ll say your piece,
but really just recklessly, heartlessly tossing
broken glass.
III
Getting there
I am almost on the other side
(one day, second day)
where forgiveness collides
with terrible truth,
where pain is overcome with pity,
releasing my shield and cry
for human justice.
Quickly through the process
after the breaking of the sun,
after seeing the secrets you stand behind
to prop up your persona, after still,
your deliberate hurt was hurled, and after that,
ending it with pat-on-the-head platitudes,
even still, I forgive you.
I am almost there, I pray to be there, in spite of
your attempts to drown me in false accusations,
in spite of your attempts to undermine my autonomy.
I say, so be it, I am almost on the other side,
sensing a freedom, an inspiration
clearing the thicket of your malice,
almost healed of your viper-tongue lick,
your sticky twisted back-flip truths,
spiritual elitism of the highest order.
I am almost there, and I am feeling good,
relieved, now away from your succubus suckling,
away from your tight-grip surrealism,
distorting clean lines, bright glowing rivers
and intimacy.
I forgive you. I forgive your incapacity,
your hard didactic tongue.
I forgive your small circle land, retreat
from a faith that holds faith no matter the outcome,
that part is easy.
But your foul lying insults
as you turned away, are harder to bear.
I will get there,
I will not carry you with me –
not your soiled diaper dripping, not a single
attempt to condemn me,
or the labels you blew towards me,
blew, night wind cursing, blew
into nothingness.
IV
A Dead Man’s Pockets
Petty, trust snapped
a killed bug on a windshield.
Into the grave, folding, four-fold,
soot in the ears, on your eyelids,
and your poison almost run through.
You lost me long ago, your spell thinned out,
held no power or impact long ago but I thought
love existed between us still, thought
respect existed between us,
that we were more than a bowing down
to your sure-fire claims.
On my side it did.
I cared for you, wanted your dreams
to glow and be more than you ever imagined,
when all you wanted from me was
obedience to your cause.
As long as I just kept my place,
just below your shoulder blades,
we would be fine.
Why can’t you love?
Why the subterfuge madness
parading around as absolutism?
Why couldn’t you acknowledge
my side, apologize for your
terrible accusations, bend a little,
suck in your puffed-up ego a little,
make room for someone other
than you, your way,
your branding rod?
There are more birds in the sky
than there has ever been,
more spark in my fountain than
I have felt for while.
Clarity is shameless,
a stream that rides, collides
with the rusty metal haul,
goes around it until it becomes one
with the waterfall, a cleansing continuum.
V
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.
VI
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.
VII
Ribbon
It is ok to still love you
though our personal love has been
caught by the fishing net,
drowned by the struggle.
It is ok to want you to be ok
and even thriving on a splendid mount,
trailing through the forest.
Though your axe came down
in a forced entanglement of muscle
and sinew, although you have failed me
and hurled enmity into my spine,
in a sharp take-me-down twist
that wanted to leave me maimed,
it is ok.
I am ok and I still love you,
not for what we were but
for who you are, now,
a person trying to
seize for yourself a homeland,
believing you are doing the right thing,
believing your betrayal was a necessary closure.
Closed now and I am ok
and I still love you
over here where we will never meet
in this life or any life again.
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