A Flavour Called Deliverance

In the dark hovel

of deliverance

wings are waxed then clipped,

what was once easy, mastered,

becomes a myriad of difficult moves

resulting in immobility.

Hurdles are put under a microscope, intricately

seen now as an x-rayed fracture or

a clot under the skin swelling, expanding, 

turning purple.

In the last place before death,

a signature is made to replace

all others before, a final

heave-ho effort to maintain what was,

life-force inertia, a stickiness to fusion, 

straight-line progress.

But it slows, uses great effort to

keep going until it stops. And in that place

of cessation, in a vacuum space away from time,

metamorphosis is instant, vaporizing 

all resistance or structures left to hold.

It is untried, a beginning 

that has no obvious end,

consuming without harm or expenditure,

stillness in the astonishment, limitless,

encapsulating.

I’ve been in the dark hovel. 

I’ve witnessed its revelation.

Today doubts return as insects

swarming my insides with emergency

signals, sirens, targeting every open channel.

Simple dreams become hopeless and the

weight of life, too much to bear – entering

another dark hovel with no reservoir, 

no cooling down.

Hole

Lost amongst

the weakened growth,

yellow-stained dreams

and the sticky spread of time.

So much leading into separation,

so much nearby that aches and

cannot receive or release

the rage of perceived injustice.

The same day the hunters came

at running speed with their violence

and jarring confidence

was the same day I jumped into a hole

to escape, and have since stayed, casting my

shadows in this small space, safe in

the overgrowth.

Lost and lingering in this captured position

with a fickle faith that is not faith

because it is not absolute faith.

Eighty songs sung and slowly forgotten,

a predictable system to view and

try to fit into but there is a piercing in my side

that hurts when I sleep, when I

breathe, thinking of my lack,

my loss and not of the love

that is trying to pull me from

this freezing hole, even when 

my gratitude is lacking, gratitude 

mouthed but not meant.

Abducted by visible disappointments,

wide as flapping wings that cannot lift off.

A choice must be made. It is possible

to make a choice, to choose

to climb out and face the fear of freedom,

face myself, a small speck on the spectrum, 

myself, giving satisfactory effort, 

this one act of surrender.

I Am Gone

Free of its domination,

of its rotted breath consuming.

Your heart is a mix of manipulative

generalizations that cannot anchor.

And I am gone. 

I ran the lap and then

I ran it again, calling out your fever,

kissing the open fire.

I was trained to form habits being with you

in the lull between

expectation and judgement, 

never able to let down my guard 

or trust your tongue and motivations.

I give you my fortune, my good will

as I cancel this bond. 

I really don’t know you, 

I only know the yield between us 

is poisonous overgrowth, shadows advancing, 

conditional love and painful journeys without profit.

It has been sticky,

weighted with layers of

confusion and misunderstandings.

Occasionally it has been good.

I cannot carry your resentments

and I won’t carry mine.

Sometimes healing never happens

and trying to make it happen only

diminishes dignity.

Free, not an exuberant freedom,

just a dropping of the weight

of what I cannot change and cannot understand.

Freedom as peace from useless effort.

The gifts you gave me remain intact.

The future is open, its pathway

re-wired.

Restoration

In one swift happening

our dreams were born,

driven out of fantasy 

and dropped into flesh.

Mercy found us and saved us.

The calloused wound 

was cleared of its scar.

Gift after gift was ours.

Like discharged papers after

a long illness, or as though 

finally the medicine took,

and healing happened 

unfathomable and instant.

No after affects, no side effects.

What was once cut off

became integrated.

What was once confined 

became unbound,

became like nestlings 

that leapt from their nest

straight 

into perfect flight.

Jesus Knows

Jesus kneads the soul

into safety, illuminating

a launching pad and a way

away from the bramble and

haunted darkness of confusion,

falling into survival’s clutches, cuts,

snares and bone breaks, dream breaks,

where hope is a fragment of what

it was before 

when we were younger.

Jesus holds our hands, shows the

strength in choosing submission, the value

of releasing one chain and then another –

regeneration, cleansed of bitterness, 

regrets and greed

for what is not ours.

Jesus knows the full scope of our inner

civility, the intricate layers of deception

we follow to justify unkind acts, and thoughts that

deplete the joy we are meant to know when we know

Jesus, savior, lover to everyone,

every dying, every just-born

animal and star.

Focus and Lock 

The fractures spread

like ignored whispers

until they became cracks,

fissures, then full on separation –

body from body, lost from its

connecting bone.

Violently vapourized elements

of biology that lasted centuries,

that managed before to maneuver

eloquently despite always under

the threat of survival.

I pick a drum beat I remember

inside the wide rhythms of this harrowing

planet, my youth and where all things

get stored then used up, eventually.

Grasping for God beyond daily habit rituals,

found on a path done in replay, where there is

no play, only fear and inadequate resources.

Found and taking a step, a determination to detox

from worry in spite of 

its pressing pulse on mine, in spite

of disastrous possibilities as close

as reality, fighting for dominion.

I commit to faith. The temperature

is always shifting, there is no safe place here,

until death,

until the blackboard is erased.

I can preserve. I can serve and I can find 

a way away from fear, a way 

into a refined dignity,

holding steady, holding up myself like

an offering – burning but with an abundance

of fuel, never melting down

until my journey is over.

One Light

Through an exploration

into the darkest searing pain,

of days crammed into a corner

with spikes on all the walls

and the floor and the ceiling, 

rising, dropping, everything 

squeezing in.

No sleep, no technology

to help me or modern medicine

to ease the engine 

from driving full speed

until impact.

There I stayed for a week

or more, dispossessed of mercy at every turn

until the orbit finally loosened by surprise 

and a way out became clear.

While in, my true love sat with me and saved me.

My children stayed with me and kept me wanting a future.

Only in that repeat end-of-rope, end-of-hope agony,

chasing a cure but spiraling deeper into the lava pit,

was it made clear the necessity of love,

how love does not stop the pain 

or make the pain bearable, 

but cradles you while in the pain

and says you are not alone, says

I hurt with you, you are heard

and you matter, and you are loved –

miles infinite in every direction, 

saying be still, I am

and I am here.

Mercy Will Abide

Free-floating

now, just existing as

the accident and the healing

are over, and the revived

civilization has yet to come.

Holding a cane to walk,

an arm to lift up from 

sitting to standing, and then at last,

a smile, energy returning,

relief like the joy of a miracle.

Days when you thought you were dying,

past days shed and left in the past.

Grief is a word that multiplied 

and layered into a language,

absorbing both your understanding and conviction. 

Grief has died as has the white-knuckle-clenching,

the acceptance of suffering 

as the deciding factor.

Love is greater, doesn’t prevent or heal but

does overcome, is the only thing remembered

after the fact, in the end,

like a glowing cherished

vibrating orb –

love existing 

as the maggots

and lasers swarm, existing

in the plunge into excruciating pain 

and the abolishment of hope,

love – human, struggling

to keep loving,

turning reality’s bone crushing grip

into a blessing eternal, and in this way,

absolving.

For This Day

For today

you are my breath and focus.

The chloroplasts that feed off worry 

instead of sunlight

inch into pour pockets,

infiltrate my colon and distort

the wavelength I was given to ride

will have no lifeforce today.

A million signals of dread and doomed survival

will not race inside me like a swarm of centipedes

scurrying away from the light, but will rest

in one spot, stay put like a whirlwind covered 

in calm, there, but shielded from spread

or damaging.

For today, you will be my biology,

not just for morning prayers or midday talks,

but for all forms that arise from

my tongue and hands.

I will love you. I will trust you

like I always should,

pioneering this peace for today,

knowing you are here

even when insight fails me

and the surging bloodwind

is at my feet, at my throat,

you stand behind, in front and beside.

You are the end result,

the miracle pulsing within, 

driving the lead.

For today, I will be yours.

I will travel anywhere unscathed.

Through the Valley 

To see you writhe and twist

from fractures and complex

imbalances in the body, depressing

your joy unto death, remembering

each day plagued with renewed anguish

and the winter arriving with thick fog,

middle-of-the-night phone calls

full of tears and panic and there

we gathered – you and me and God and Jesus,

we found a bandwidth to lean into.

I must let it go,

your months of suffering and the tests and fear. 

I must draw a different equation that

will teach me a signature of peace.

Where you are planted is where you are now,

in divine deliverance, away from any anguish.

The same anguish I am still living in

and cannot seem to stop re-living 

despite God’s grace, despite how I was shown

your release into eternal love, despite 

the giant pillars of love surrounding me 

every day, since the day you left.

You have no pain,

you are as holy as the universe, in joy

as any infant suckling on its mother

or carried by its father, steady, safe,

enveloped in perfect protection

and a love so vast it radiates throughout every space,

eradicates all disease and fear gone before.

You are whole,

while I remain broken 

and keep breaking as I try

to understand –

I loved you, but my love 

could not save you from your suffering.

I love you and I know now you are saved,

resurrected into glory.

I must grow my strength stronger than my pity,

know God’s love is stronger 

than the senseless vaporous dream 

that haunts the dying and the ones left 

like me (tossing, flailing, helpless)

after death and because of it.

Where to Go

Into the summer I go

to be loved by you.

For the mercy of you is rich

as fire, as the wind speeds up its

flames, consuming dead debris.

Where forgiveness is the act of mutually

releasing and of being released –

knotting, unblocking, so the line is

straight, and the flow is unclogged 

and dreams dreamt in the mind, 

connected to the divine

are immediately realized like a kiss 

received then reciprocated 

where echoes are placed in pockets, locked in

layered dimensional spaces, existing, not

overlapping, not interfering

with the breathable air.

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 lives in Toronto. She also sculpts, working with clay; www.allisongrayhurst.com