Amethyst Review

The Horses of San Marco


(Inspired by Canaletto’s Capriccio: The Horses of San Marco in the Piazzetta, 1743)



Know us, you who gaze upon us.

We were Greek once.
Always the quadriga domini.

Our eyed wings are gone—
Eyed like the peacock’s—
A peacock who spouts fire.

Our chariot is gone—
Yoked we were to
A griffin’s head,
Who, living,
Had wings to carry 
His throne
(Ezekiel knew its shape and color).

Had we just our wings,
We would lift the
Basilica
Up
Up 
To
God,
Where it perhaps
Has not been before.

We are the cherubim--
Not the fat children you like in paintings--
Who know the facets of His 
Knowledge,
Tear wisdom from the air
With the ripping of our hooves
(Jerome knew our shape and color).

Behold us, small visitors—
Not as we are in these still shapes,
But as we are,
As we will be again.

Daniel A. Rabuzzi has had two novels, five short stories and ten poems published since 2006 (see www.danielarabuzzi.com). He lived eight years in Norway, Germany and France. He has degrees in the study of folklore and mythology, international relations, and early modern European history. He lives in New York City with his artistic partner & spouse, the woodcarver Deborah A. Mills (http://www.deborahmillswoodcarving.com), and the requisite cat.

Oh


After all, we are made of words.
At the Big Slam, the Spoken Poet
rounded the verses (multi multi multi!)
villanelling “let there be” until Round
Six, the Great Verb Shift to
“let us make”

we are that “us”
we make it all from words 
enjambed between zen 
emptiness and universal thisness
zoom in:
that quantum void is really
the triangle in the letter A
the desirous space in ל‎
the oval in Oh



Note: Hebrew letter, lamed.

Wayne-Daniel Berard, PhD, teaches Humanities at Nichols College, Dudley, MA. He publishes broadly in poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. His poetry chapbook, The Man Who Remembered Heaven, received the New Eden Award in 2003. His non-fiction When Christians Were Jews (That Is, Now), subtitled Recovering the Lost Jewishness of Christianity with the Gospel of Mark, was published in 2006 by Cowley Publications. A novel The Retreatants, was published in 2012 (Smashwords). A chapbook, Christine Day, Love Poems, was published in 2016 (Kittatuck Press). His novella, Everything We Want, was published in 2018 by Bloodstone Press. A poetry collection, The Realm of Blessing, was published in 2020 by Unsolicited Press. 

Kenosis


Blown slantings of snow thicken 
on the ground and on the sides of trees.

When the wind shudders and buffets,
fence lines and brown volumes of cows

blur. At the river, the flakes, singular
as fingerprints, vanish into the fluent, 

downward rush of a beginning winter.
At last we understand: brief forms

dissolving in the formless, words given 
back to the air, intricate and breakable.

James Owens‘s newest book is Family Portrait with Scythe (Bottom Dog Press, 2020). His poems and translations appear widely in literary journals, including recent or upcoming publications in Grain, Dalhousie Review, Presence, Queen’s Quarterly, and Honest Ulsterman. He earned an MFA at the University of Alabama and lives in a small town in northern Ontario, Canada.

Inferno


Infinity on infinity of perpetual circumambulating 
Torrents of Turin torment 

Our consolation is that we are the interesting souls
Pain can be a paradise

Rose Knapp (she/they) is a poet and electronic producer. She has publications in Lotus-Eater, Bombay Gin, BlazeVOX, Hotel Amerika, Fence Books, Obsidian, Gargoyle, and others. She has poetry collections published with Beir Bua Press, Hesterglock Press, and Dostoyevsky Wannabe. She lives in Minneapolis. Find her at roseknapp.net and on Twitter @Rose_Siyaniye

Random Reflections


Light drifts, changes,
day rolls into furnace, all fires are fire.

Then there is the blank space
The wall clock stops at quarter to nine.

A dust storm blows the tiny bird’s nest
The flowers fade, I don’t speak of it.

The afternoon shifts to the evening
with crumbly sigh, dimness sinks the needle in.

The voice of the winds like any old
memory, strays in the winnowed sand-yard.

My diary pages are open all night inside
the dark drawer.

And I learn to burrow in the dark yet
I shudder from where the Universe begins.


©gopallahiri


Gopal Lahiri is a bilingual poet, critic, editor, writer and translator with 24 books published, including five jointly edited books. His poetry is published across various anthologies globally. Recent credits: Ink Pantry, Verse-Virtual, Madrigal, The Best Asian Poetry, and elsewhere. He has been nominated for Pushcart Prize for poetry in 2021

Walking Through a Mixed Conifer Forest on a Summer’s Day 


O earth, 
let us forever know
the smell of the forest floor
that embraces first heat of day 

where sap 
like honey crystallizes 
entombing citrus scent

and moss unfurls to water
and aspens wave their greeting
and pine trees whisper stories to the wind

and huckleberries seduce bears
and thimbleberries surely shelter fairies
as cottonwood twirls and tumbles on the breeze

and we inhabit our bodies
and our feet carry us forward
and we walk at the pace of the forest
and our minds lilt and drift with the butterfly
and our spirits bubble and gurgle with the creek

and firs and pines exhale wisdom
and being nearby we inhale wisdom 

and it’s May
and fires are a distant thing
and the Swainson’s thrush sings
and the chipmunk plays hide and seek 
and the golden mantled squirrel chatters
and the deer watches silently at the edge
and the fir trees drop their protective caps
and the new growth is soft, and ever green
and the spider web glints in the morning light 

and the ants delight in decay
and decay smells rich and inviting
and the next layer builds on this one 
as life begins and ends on the forest floor

Elizabeth Domenech is a writer, naturalist, and advocate for conservation and wildness. Her writing can be found published in Montana Naturalist, the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, and Pivot and Pause: A Poetry Anthology of Resilience, Remembrance and Compassion (2020). She lives in Bozeman, Montana. 

That patch of perennials


The warped picnic table
engraved with the paint
stains and barbecues.

The critters, a medley of
mourning doves, deer and
opossum, plus the countless
stray cats I have fed.

Those six standing sycamores
greening with leaves, birds
on the branches, corralling
and cawing from morning
to midnight.

And that patch of perennials
we’d planted two decades ago
reminding of where we had
been and where we are going.

When not writing poetry, Emalisa Rose enjoys crafting. She walks with a birding group each month through the neighborhood trails. She volunteers in animal rescue. Her work has appeared in Amethyst Review, Mad Swirl, Writing in a Woman’s Voice and other wonderful places. Her latest collection is This water paint life, published by Origami Poems Project. 

The Wake

It’s not clear
where the river begins 
     where her body ends
watery thoughts     phantoms  
meeting only to part 

a looseness expanding
as stars might deepen—
     one empty breath at a time—
to fill a winter’s sky
ave     ave

it’s not clear     
is it she or the river 
     that pulls me so?

I dip my fingers into her hair
stare into lidded eyes

a dragon lies in the depth of each
it seems to be sleeping
     dormez-vous?    dormez-vous?

a bell is ringing 
dormez-vous?    

Scott Elder lives in France. His work has mostly appeared in the UK and Ireland. A debut pamphlet, Breaking Away, was published by Poetry Salzburg in 2015, his first collection, Part of the Dark, by Dempsey&Windle 2017 (UK), and the second, My Hotel, is forthcoming in Salmon Poetry 2023 (Ireland).   Website: https://www.scottelder.co.uk/

Nocturne


In the beginning there was darkness,

            there was no ray 

and no prism,

           no rainbow

to arch above the clouds,

           there was no water

to veil the earth,

           no splendid sun to blaze,

and no gentle breeze

           to murmur.

In the beginning there was no pain,

           no mother to wail

for her dead son,

           there was no sin

no spirit,

           no father.

There was no apple

           to want,

no tongue

           to lick the nectar,

no desire.

           There was no star

to pierce the night,

           no heaven for angels

to descend from,

                      there was no cross,

no candle,

           no altar.

There was no blue sky,

           no wing to unfurl

and no wind beneath,

           or above.

In the beginning

           there was darkness,

there was silence,

           and love.

 

Shakiba Hashemi is an Iranian-American poet, painter and teacher living in Southern California.  She is a bilingual poet, and writes in English and Farsi. She holds a BFA in Drawing and Painting from Laguna College of Art and Design. Her work is forthcoming or has appeared in Atlanta Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, Ibbetson Street Magazine, The Indianapolis Review, I-70 Review, Cream City Review, The Summerset Review, Roanoke Review, Collateral and the New York Quarterly Anthology Without a Doubt: poems illuminating faith.

Space Made of Breath


I emptied the cup and then
poured out the emptiness
but then I looked in and
there was still more

what was your original face
before you were born
and what was the original
face of this cup when it was
still just the dust of the earth?
what was the "i" before it
grew into a self-important capital?
lost its dot into a glazing
that wanted to shine even
though it was just earth
cradled between someone's hands
a container for emptiness
and you can never pour it out
it's too full of itself like I'm
too full of "I" and dust

I am Earth that wants to be
cradled but my bones are
too full of emptiness
and when you look at my breath
it disappears, it was never there
you can't add air into air
and make it separate
why do we try so hard to
draw our diaphragms into
space made of breath?

Maija Haavisto has had two poetry collections published in Finland: Raskas vesi (Aviador 2018) and Hopeatee (Oppian 2020). In English her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in e.g. Moist, Capsule Stories, Soul-Lit, ShabdAaweg Review, The North, Streetcake, ANMLY, Eye to the Telescope, Shoreline of Infinity and Kaleidoscope. Follow her on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/DiamonDie