The Letting Go
I
Blast
Blast your devil’s heart,
make it
into paper confetti,
take it
into outer space
and leave
it there.
You stood on my shoes as I was
wearing
them, dug your heels in
and spat in
my eyes.
Cruel corpse rising from a muddy
grave,
you are
weak and monstrous, always claiming
to be the
victim of someone else’s scheme.
You are
madness, the sharp ridged knife
of madness
flaying in chaotic whiplash
at the sky,
the birds, and all manner of trees.
Take back your darkness, swallow it
whole,
let it stew
in your innards, ruminate, reuniting
with the
depravity already there.
You will never lie to me again,
pretending
you wanted love when all you wanted
was to
spread your malignancy, vengeance
for an
imagined wrong, to give a landing slap
with the
full force of violent resentment and envy.
Slither away, your bite left no
mark, ineffectual
as your
attempts to love. Judas, Brutus, master
of deep,
un-emerge-able hell. Go home. Blast away
your caked-on
body filth, reductive stench, spoiling
all you
claimed to hold sacred.
II
Scapegoat
Give yourself over
to the burn
on your back,
the sordid
array of demons
counselling
your thoughts.
Let loose
the bell string,
pull hard
and hard again.
Find
yourself a ditch to
fall into,
scream out of,
wailing at
the stars.
Ruin a good morning with
your sticky
filth, throwing blame
to deflect
from the wounds of
your own
weakness.
I add you
up - here, here and here.
I will not
play along
with your parlour-tricks,
your mayhem
of
pointing-the-finger lies
when what I
gave was love
- not
perfect - but love nonetheless.
Coil up in
your bitterness, resentments you wear
like a
special pair of shoes,
walking
around, leaving prints over prints
of your relentless
pointless pacing.
I am not who you think I am, not
willing
to hold
guilt for your depravity, for a crime never my own.
I will say
it again - I loved - I gave you love
the best I
knew how, and I showed kindness.
Give
yourself over to the intercourse
of false
justifications and accusations and
see how it
feels to be alone, here,
with what
is left -
broken
dollar-store jewelry, dandruff flakes.
Give
yourself over and
get lost,
out of my
thoughts
out into
the isolated frozen-dead terrain
of your own
sick making.
III
Monster
Surrender to restore
the gifted
strength, bruised
by curses,
but otherwise unharmed.
Lay down
the cloak of justice,
Achilles’
revenge. Shout fire!
and let it
burn.
What I did was falter,
over speak
with heart-felt enthusiasm,
that is all
- thinking it was to a friend,
when in
fact it was a snake, no, a worm,
without
backbone, fangs or face.
Pour salt on it, watch it dissolve
into its
true slime-form, formless
as the
excuses of Brutus who cared nothing
for Rome,
for Caesar, had only his own
power-grab
in mind, wounded
that he was
not chosen, pride-puffed,
feigning
altruism to self-justify
his
ruthless deed.
Appear to me, then pass like a bad
smell
when a
window is opened, or lavender calm is sprayed.
I was
fooled when I should have honoured
the signs
before, left, when I first witnessed
your
shadow-flood self-pity play. Then
I should
have hung up the phone and never
called
back. But I kept on, over that hurdle, ignoring
its truth, always
wondering, waiting for the monster
to unmask
again. When it did, it was worse than before.
The wolves of hell have you now,
surrounded
on all
dimensional sides. Your vicious tongue,
still
twisting and twirling, angered at the glare of the sun.
Promise me never to return. I
promise you
I have
walked by you, looked, then walked
further up
the devil’s back, out
of the
inverted pit of your doing, never to look again.
Know I have no good memories of you,
they have
all been eradicated by this hideous calamity.
Your words
of love ring like lies,
hiding a
hostile, grudge-madness,
a decade of
trust mutilated by spiritual sickness.
Know your hydra head is now exposed,
sliced off,
cauterised, nullified at the core, illusion blown -
your
sweet-honey-poison dried up, disposed.
IV
Deviant
Diminished
in love
by
excessive self-pity, locked
in anguish,
in anger, in the burn-machine
lake layer
of hell
as the long
sword of your insanity
is wielded,
intending to split
my skull in
two.
I felt it breeze
past, just missing its mark.
I felt the
shock as I swerved, as you
suckled on
the teat of your unfounded
resentments,
brewing for months, draped
in pretty
fabric, niceties and endearments.
How long
had your soul gone foul,
and I never
noticed?
No discussion,
just your rigid arthritic finger
pointing,
your creased forehead further creasing,
corpse-like
and rising like a poltergeist
from the
boiling mire.
Poor soul.
Poor you as all of your
bold
spiritual proclamations are reduced to naught.
Take care
old woman. You cannot create
or be
uplifted tied to this abhorrent deformity
of deluded
self-righteousness.
You can
feel good for a second, lift your sword,
and be
exhilarated. You can rub your hands together,
feel the
power of cruelty, demolishing
a
friendship with one swift cut.
You can and
you did, and it is now done –
The cancer
I never knew was there is removed,
every cell
radiated and eradicated.
I proclaim
gratitude for getting me out,
for
releasing me from the leach tethered to my underbelly,
masquerading
as a trusted alley.
I see you,
your collected violent distortions, the rage
you assume,
your sword in its ruthless downward assault,
swing,
strike past, dark mass amputated, and I am set free.
V
The Hollow
The burn
was received, betrayal
like a
thousand strikes
on the same
spot - ripping off
first my
skin, then sinews.
A burn like
a confession of hate,
masquerading
for years as love.
That side
has now descended, into the hollow,
along with
all that burns and whose heat
cannot be
tamed or reconciled.
I put a
steel sheet over that hollow,
cover it
for good and breathe easy in my escape,
tie my hair
back and sing loudly with
my joy and
intellect intact - with my trust in
God
unharmed, my language rejuvenated.
Layers of arsenal fumes, rising,
I see you below
in that hollow
hunched over,
lamenting
a sickly
self-pitying cry.
Already your
hands and arms, up to your elbows,
buried like stakes deep in the unforgiving ground.
You cannot move.
You cannot hope
for better days.
Your hissing is
useless, and the venom from your lips
dissipates into
nothing as it leaves your gaping mouth.
You, stuck in a
frozen mire, cut off
from the current,
condensed, calcified, and stalled,
with only your
conceit, your woe-is-me!
to give you
voice, some
semblance of
rudimentary comfort.
Allison Grayhurst is a member of the League of
Canadian Poets. Five times nominated
for “Best of the Net”, 2015/2017/2018, she has over 1260 poems published
in over 500 international journals. She has 21 published books of poetry, six
collections and six chapbooks. She lives in Toronto with her family. She
also sculpts, working with clay; www.allisongrayhurst.com
Collaborating with Allison Grayhurst on the lyrics, Vancouver-based
singer/songwriter/musician Diane Barbarash has transformed eight of Allison
Grayhurst’s poems into songs, creating a full album entitled River – Songs
from the poetry of Allison Grayhurst, released 2017.
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