Amethyst Review

a flake from a leaf in the Book of Kells

it is all that is
left behind
a life lived without ornament

the details hidden
the black hours
implicit in design.

it is the secret world
of the page we create
the ornate foliage and flourishes
	embellished with ink
	the color of blood.

it is what makes us
most alive

this catalog of imagined beasts
made real with freehand stroke
and sweeping line.

they are the faded icons
of lost desire, tendrils
of ivy leaf
	and burnished gold.

they are fictions of innocence 
betrayed
parables of faith

a child’s crude drawing
of paradise
	remembered

Ken Cathers has just published his eighth book of poetry entitled Home Town with Impspired Press in England. He has also recently published two chapbooks, one entitled Kiefer by broke press and the other entitled Legoland Noir by Block Party Press. His work has appeared in publications from Canada, the United States, Australia, Ireland, England, India, Hong Kong and Africa. His current work continues to explore the boundaries of poetic form and subject matter.

With Emily

My thing with feathers is black and white, 
a speckled hen, like something out of a picture book,
or a nursery rhyme but real, limping then hopping
and finally, lying quietly until I realize that her only hope
is me, a makeshift scalpel and a chicken-keeping forum.
And so I transform into a surgeon—who knew 
so much blood could flow from a chicken’s foot?
For weeks, I force open the wound open 
for another round of treatment 
every morning and every evening, 
until one day she flaps her wings in my face 
telling me that yes, hope holds so much power 
that saving the life of a single chicken 
can feel like saving an entire world.

Janet Madden is a writer, reader, teacher, ritualist, gardener herbalist and handquilter who resides on the West Coast.

The Expansion

And like a trillium seed
waiting for nine years
to reach up,
to tear the earthen mask from its face,
like the violent dancing of pines 
before a storm—
it begins again. 
That force from behind time,
from all those bodies
feeding me from their breasts 
until I become their sharper form,
green lines against the distance,
my eye focused in the 
mirror of the Crow’s.

I have the power to tear down 
towering constructions, 
the ones reinforced daily 
by those who are alive like a shrug. 
I have torn limbs from oaks 
and planted willow seeds
by the drying-up streams. 
I have said,
“I know you,
I know you,
I know you.”

And then—
I know you. 

And I am a mycelium tendril 
carrying messages through life,
in service to the mystery
of dancing,
the mystery of the joy of moving
to feel Earth’s tongue upon my ear,
whispering incoherent melodies. 

Like the rest of us,
I have grown used to living
as a casual endeavor. 
If it is nothing, 
then it is nothing to look away
from the cardinals 
watching me through the window
with Her eyes. 
If it is nothing,
it is nothing to say the mind
is just a hindrance 
to the railway of existence. 

I turn my face upward
and I laugh.

Filled with the strength of this moment,
outside of lines,
I almost tear my wet finger from its socket. 
I lay back, 
watching colors on my skin,
more real than the concrete
I accidentally stamped my foot into. 
The circle of history and songs
curls through me,
around, 
back out—

I watch the boundless 
veins of my hand. 

Moriah Brown is a poet and novelist living in Raleigh, North Carolina. Her poetry has been published in Creation Magazine, The Passionfruit Review, and The Woolf, among others, and has also been featured in various anthologies. When she is not working as a medical assistant and bartender, she is writing or walking in the forest.

With Every Whim of Waves
 
A bottle washed up on the shore,
sand greeting it with a hug.
 
Message inside says,
I’ll love you forever
 
I wonder if it’s meant
for the ocean.
 
Surely, if for a human, the message 
would be delivered directly
 
by a soft whisper-like voice,
slipping up next to the ear
 
of the beloved, but if meant
for the water what better way
 
than enclosed in a bottle
that will tumble & float.
 

Robin Wright lives in Southern Indiana. Her work has appeared in Amethyst Review, The Literary Nest, Rat’s Ass Review, As It Ought To Be, The Beatnik Cowboy, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, The New Verse News, One Art, The Loch Raven Review, Panoply, and others. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and a Best New Poets nominee. Her first chapbook, Ready or Not, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2020.

thinking of cold mountain

han shan (a chinese hermit-poet)
took to the hills to lead a life
in the clouds — nothing to do
but dance to singing cicadas…

in some of the scribbles, he writes
of wife and son… in others, a brook —
laughing joy. laughing sorrow.
nothing steals his thunder!

that old ghost haunts poets
when it rains in small-town, anywhere:
was that you in the flash of the cardinal?
the empty trash bins that line the street?

in that lavender flower i don’t yet
know the name of? or just in the
verse… which helped ease me
through this evening’s worries?

Adream Marquis (he/they) is a poet working in the Affrilachian foothills of Muscogee and Cherokee North Georgia. Their transdisciplinary work is deeply rooted in the haunted naturalism of their environment, and they seek to sing its mysteries. Adream hopes to inspire in each an itch for that magic hiding in all of our unique ecologies.

Once Upon a Shadow


Whether light is breaking 
trough a cloud, 
or oranges and bananas
create depth in a basket, 
silk and taffeta
rumpled in folds,
or sea, particles in the ocean, 
dolphins splashing green, 
rising up against the jets,
images that some will understand,
others blink in puzzlement,
who comprehends truth?

What absolute power 
watches with interest,
measuring sins 
like you would measure coffee,
one tablespoon at a time,
each grimace on your face—
a mirror of lust in your heart, 
pours blood over your soul 
like falling rain, and some of you 
believe this is an act of mercy.

Late in the afternoon,
sun begins to play
behind clouds, houses 
or simply sinks below the horizon, 
you think back to those 
ripples, folds, light and shadow, 
a painting by Rembrandt or Rubens
or some other artist 
who knows salvation’s name.

Linda Meg Frith is retired Social Worker and long time member of Green River Writers. She has published poetry in Amethyst Review, eMerge, River and South Review, Rainy Weather Days, Eclectica, Tipton Poetry Journal. She received a 2025 Pushcart Nomination for her poem, ‘Home is Where the Hurt Is’. Linda Meg lives in Louisville, KY.

Leylines
(In loving memory of Amanda)

And that was the top of the Tor, 
where all that masculine energy 
direct from St. Michael’s leyline 
had sluiced the strength from you.
Especially cruel, only a day after 
your swollen ankles were soothed
in the healing divine-feminine wash
at Chalice Well lower down the hill
on the curative leyline of St. Mary.

And five months later, that long &
drawn-out, fatal struggle at Queen
Elizabeth’s. Do we live to die to live? 
And, in between, float? At the place 
of tryst ratify my presence, love. As
we reconnoitre for Avalon’s original
location, as if ready to embark from
the Somerset Levels to some other-
worldly, fabled Atlantis where, in that 

sea of mist, all our leylines converge.

Mark Wilson has published five poetry collections: Quartet For the End of Time (Editions du Zaporogue, 2011), Passio (Editions du Zaporogue, 2013), The Angel of History (Leaky Boot Press, 2013), Illuminations (Leaky Boot Press, 2016) & Paolo & Francesca in a Colder Climate (Black Herald Press, 2025). He is the author of a verse-drama, One Eucalyptus Seed, about the arrest and incarceration of Ezra Pound after World War Two, as well as a tragi-comedy, Arden. His poems and articles have appeared in a wide range of international magazines.

Another Matter


These tiny souls.
Our curious minds.
What more do we need
To harness success,
Than a single idea at a time.
But let’s think large.
Imagine the entire world
Without size or dimension.
Envision an infinite planet
Too complex to implode.
The rest is guesswork.
A few theories here,
A simple hypothesis there.
Yet it all makes sense—
Balanced ever so delicately
On a black spider’s back,
And a web of silk, no doubt.
What more is required?
Stay focused, if possible.
Keep both feet on the ground;
Your brain in constant motion.
As for the heart though,
That’s another matter.

Bart Edelman’s poetry collections include Crossing the Hackensack, Under Damaris’ Dress, The Alphabet of Love, The Gentle Man, The Last Mojito, The Geographer’s Wife, Whistling to Trick the Wind, and This Body Is Never at Rest: New and Selected Poems 1993 – 2023. He has taught at Glendale College, where he edited Eclipse, a literary journal, and, most recently, in the MFA program at Antioch University, Los Angeles. His work has been anthologized in textbooks published by City Lights Books, Etruscan Press, Harcourt Brace, McGraw-Hill, Prentice Hall, the University of Iowa Press, Wadsworth, and others. He lives in Pasadena, California.

Shalom Shabbat

Whenever I was Martha, anxious about
many things, my spirits fell 
and puddled like the rain.  But since

I recognized—my Mary side—the one
necessity, I find rain
restful, in its easygoing persistence. 


Housework we will always have with us,
but rain tapping the windows
makes an unassertive friend, till my eyes

drowse over, and I nod off smiling.  He,
the sister’s caller, did not expect
to be entertained, to be made much of,

but simply to sit
encircled, and talk of times yet to come,
to bless and be blessed.

Outside, rain is content
with its work, giving grass its birthright.
A sunny day will be its Sabbath.

Russell Rowland writes from New Hampshire’s Lakes Region, where he has judged high-school Poetry Out Loud competitions. His work appears in Except for Love: New England Poets Inspired by Donald Hall (Encircle Publications), and Covid Spring, Vol. 2 (Hobblebush Books). His own poetry books, Wooden Nutmegs and Magnificat, are available from Encircle Publications.