Amethyst Review

Stepping Through the Canyon


Stepping slowly up 
the creek in Rattlesnake Canyon,
I balanced on boulder, then rock,
each perch skirted
by the water’s effluence,
its restless flow, each
step a movement into
the hidden hills of morning.
Like everything that matters
in this life we’re said to lead,
what happened next did not
come from me, but came over me—
like a crossing into 
the oak’s long shadow—
this ache, this dark song,
this pleasure in the breeze,
the water’s chime, the endless
time borne within 
the moment.  I moved, 
but did not move, breathed, 
but did not breathe, my lightened 
heart was certain it would never 
cease its knocking at the door, 
and even the birds
whistled a keening melody,
that would not pass, but draped
the air like silken pennants.

Daniel Thomas’s third poetry collection, River of Light, was published by Shanti Arts Publishing in 2025. His previous books are Leaving the Base Camp at Dawn and Deep Pockets. He has published poems in many journals, including Southern Poetry Review, Nimrod, Poetry Ireland Review, Vita Poetica, Radix, Atlanta Review, and others. More info at danielthomaspoetry.com

Grace Massey is a poet, classical ballet and Baroque dancer, gardener, and socializer of feral cats. Grace was an editor in educational publishing for many years and has degrees in English from Smith College and Boston University. Her poems have been nominated for Best of the Net and have been published in numerous journals, including Quartet, Thimble, Lily Poetry Review, and One Art. Her chapbook, A Future with Bromeliads, is available from River Glass Books, Grace lives in Newton, Massachusetts. She can be reached at gracemasseypoet.com/

No-Man's-Land 

The waitress with warning eyes 
her smile a purring cat, serves coffee.

An old man strokes his komboloi 
the sun is a blood orange.

Banana leaves mouth the name:
Ledra Street where in the palm of Nicosia

my steps crush the copper bracts
of bougainvilleas, I notice the white of a taper 

then cross into no-man’s-land.
Years have fled leaving the dead 

in streets spooked with martyrdom.
Shuttered windows; shattered roofs

the cats skinny and stressed
in a silence of neglect.

My mind fixes a broken bouzouki 
remembers a sunken cord of rebetiko.

I hold on to it, a little bit of Aunt Katina’s kitchen
whose great iced cookies

have crumbled into the mouth of conciliation,
and with it her icon’s miraculous healing.

The Virgin’s tears dried in the heat of the firing,
I near the sandbags and barbed wire that trail 

stations of a cross, that banishes laughter: 
a crown of rusty thorns at the frontier.

Kate Hill-Charalambides is an English teacher of dual nationality who lives in Alsace. She has worked for an association against human trafficking which is recognized as being of public utility. Her poetry focuses on human rights, spirituality and feminism. Her poetry has appeared in DREICH 3 SEASON 9 (No.99), SNAKESKIN, Cerasus Poetry ; Piker Press and The Dawn Treader.

Prayer One

Divine 
Hymnia,
by whose 
grace go I:
Grace me,
undeserving,
elderly man,
no better, no 
worse than 
most, help 
me to sing 
songs to
to the wind 
by whose 
grace go I. 




Prayer Two

Divine 
Hymnia,
by whose 
grace go I:
Teach me 
songs of 
the wind.
Teach me 
to breathe,
to whisper
in tall grass,
to rattle the
ripe barley.




Prayer Three

Divine Hymnia, 
by whose 
grace go I:
Teach me
the songs of
thanks giving
that I may be
thankful for
the wheeling 
years I wailed
my way into,
and by whose 
grace go I,
this old man.

Gerald Wagoner‘s childhood was divided between Eastern Oregon and Montana where he was raised under the doctrine of benign neglect. With a BA in Creative Writing, Gerald pursued the art of sculpture, and eventually left the Northwest to study. He earned an MFA in sculpture from SUNY Albany, and moved to Brooklyn, NY in 1982. Gerald exhibited regularly and taught Art and English for the NYC Department of Education. He currently concentrates on writing poems.

Strange Flowers 

somehow the summer 
still grows strange flowers 
that we collect in blue vases
like the prayers we forget to say

all the rose beads scattering
like raindrops in a lazy sun shower 
and the half-forgotten trinity we 
never really did believe in anyway

but years ago, we were barefooted 
singing to an audience of angels
all dining on our tiny voices 

as we swayed like the summer flowers
we keep now in blue vases
like the prayers we no longer 
remember how to sing

Kay Ann Kestner’s screenplays have placed in a variety of competitions. She is the founder and editor of the literary journal Poetry Breakfast, which she established in 2011. Her poems and short stories have been published internationally. You can read more of her work and find her latest projects on her website at www.KayKestner.com.

The Windshield’s Reminded of America the Beautiful

—inspired by a photograph of a desolate highway in the Mojave Desert


Along this desert highway
where notes of amber wave
beneath Mojave skies
I reveal the blues of cobalt
mirror the melody
of mountains
their steely gleam.

Undimmed
as teal intones
beside scarps of sapphire
my glass reflects the music
of this deserted road.

Along this desert highway
where burnt sienna thrives
in sweeps of sepia
the front seat holds the harmony
of my passengers
their love for one another
this united landscape.

We praise this drive
its majesty
from dune to shining peak.
God shed His grace on thee.
 

Jeannie E. Roberts is the daughter of a Swedish immigrant mother and the author of nine books, including her latest full-length poetry collection On a Clear Night, I Can Hear My Body Sing (Kelsay Books, 2025). An award-winning artist and poet with bachelor’s and master’s degrees, she serves as a poetry editor for the online literary magazine Halfway Down the Stairs and is an Eric Hoffer and a multiple Best of the Net award nominee. She finds joy spending time outdoors and with loved ones.

Ceremony

A speechless conversation
Between two tea bowls on one tray.
The earth exhales
And sighs relief
When the water fills the latent leaf
And unfurls the tension.

On the tray of elemental pillars
The parched one is united
With the giving. Rotate it,
Then gaze into my tea bowl
As it contains the soul
Print of its holder.

The tea bowl might look modest,
Though it fits the sea that’s warm
But wild; the wood that’s firm
But bending, and light that wakes,
Yet fades unless you notice
The big things in the smallest.

Olga Khmara is a Belarusian poet. Her work explores nature as a living witness. Her poetry has appeared in BirdLife Norge and is forthcoming in Sky Island Journal. She works as a nature guide.

Avia, St. Peter's Square

First they scanned as nuns, impaired by habit
With struggling gait given to mortal wonders
On glazed terracotta perch a trio of seabirds, bellwethers
Bedeviled a bit by the fumes, white and final
Yet of great tidings — the Throne of Saint Peter:
Their plumes told the groundlings and their Facebook
Familia that Collegium Cardinalium, least its
Youngest electors, had stoked ultimate fires
While troubled winged trinity of errant herring gulls
Mince about atop Pontelli’s jeweled lockbox.
Votaries to votes, then those to smoke, elate a conclave—
Wings of angels flit across the ribbed ceiling
Sealing its pastel cage of flightless cardinals.
So the flock gathers, flounces, sheds feathers
Arancione webbing, mystery lifted, pronounces
Aloft a new dawn to an unsettled congregation 
Lost amid shadows marbling the piazza
Craning necks crossed by the mumbled perception
As soft vespers descends and the seagulls depart.

R.H. Russell grew up in New England, which he continues to call home. One of his poems was recently honored by the Inkwell Writer’s Alliance of New Hampshire; he has published in both 2025 issues of Touchstone, the journal of the Poetry Society of New Hampshire, as well as in the online journal Snakeskin.

At the Cloisters

In a place of ancient peace I wait for my friend,
rub my hands over columns carved by other hands 

that long ago found peace under ancient European soil.
A benediction of fountained water flows over stones as rain 

drips on cosmos, fennel, and medieval healing herbs.
At the Trie Cloister Café my friend sheds tears

on uneaten focaccia, breaks the present peace, 
drowns the soundtrack of Gregorian chant 

with her litany of fears about the future.
Look! -  I say.  Across the way

a young priest lures sparrows with bread 
in an outstretched palm 

steadied on the stone wall, 
restoring peace to the ancient setting.

Gretchen R. Fletcher won the Poetry Society of America’s Bright Lights/Big Verse competition and was projected on the Jumbotron while reading her winning poem in Times Square. One of her poems was choreographed and performed by dance companies in Palm Beach and San Francisco, and others appear in datebooks published in Chicago by Woman Made Gallery. Her poetry has been published in journals including The Chattahoochee Review, Inkwell, Pudding Magazine, Upstreet, Canada’s lichen, and online at Poetry Southeast, SeaStories, and prairiehome.publicradio. Her chapbooks, That Severed Cord and The Scent of Oranges, were published by Finishing Line Press.

Mountain Pose

On the teal blue accent table inside the sunroom,
an orange votive flame belly dances in bendy heat.
The tiny light centers my morning meditation,
starting at the root chakra,
working its way up to my monkey mind,
when an almond-eyed squirrel stops me. 
Standing in a ring of lilies beyond the pensive flicker,
feet hip-width apart,
prayer hands to his heart clasping an acorn—
practicing gratitude before eating the meaty seed,
the white swath of his belly expanding, contracting,
and me admiring his perfect mountain pose.

Lori Zavada is passionate about free verse poetry, and sentience is a common theme in her work. Her down-to-earth approach strikes a balance between creativity and accessibility. Her work is published in Of Poets and Poetry, Emerald Coast Review, Silly Goose Press, The Lake, Gyroscope, Macrame Literary Journal, and Wild Whispers Poetry. Find her latest co-authored collection of stories and poems on Amazon: Awake in the Sacred Night: Stories and Poems.