Amethyst Review

Leaving the Vatican

It is Thursday and I am in the Vatican,
because that is what Catholics
should do when in Rome.
 
The cold eyes of male saints
and Christ the Redeemer regard me
with centuries of stony indifference.
 
I am in the Vatican to receive confession,
because that is what Catholics
should do when in Rome.
 
No drapes or doors hide the penitents,
only signs indicating English, Italian, Spanish, among others.
Wooden spool kneelers hurt like hell.
 
Bless me Father for I have sinned.
I married a divorced man.  Then I had an affair. 
I cut my left thumb to perform a Wiccan blood spell, once.
 
This quilt of guilt took decades to sew,
each scarlet thread a part of me.
Pendulum weight, swinging free, seeking equilibrium.
 
I eat lime gelato on the Spanish Steps,
buy overpriced designer clothing at Dolce and Gabanna
and vow to never ever debate the confessor.

Susan Cossette lives and writes in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Author of Peggy Sue Messed Up, she is a recipient of the University of Connecticut’s Wallace Stevens Poetry Prize. A two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Rust and Moth, Vita Brevis, ONE ART, As it Ought to Be, Anti-Heroin Chic, The Amethyst Review, Crow & Cross Keys, Loch Raven Review, and in the anthologies Tuesdays at Curley’s and After the Equinox.  

Who is    this listening
 
To the aurora
Without source like
The iridescent aubade
Of robin songs dripping
From pine silhouettes
Reaching the opal
Ascent of sky
 
 
Who is this    listening
 
Is the first and last sense
Of one’s abode in this world
 
Has no ground like thoughts
That drift through the mind
 
The opal essence
 
Where neither speech
Nor voice are heard
Yet they plumb the earth    
Their words the world             
 
 
Who is            this listening
 
In the beauty of intimacy
Has all opalesced like dew
Abides the womb of morning  
 

Elder Gideon is the author of Aegis of Waves (Atmosphere Press, 2021) and co-author with Tau Malachi of Gnosis of Guadalupe (EPS Press, 2017). His poems have appeared in dozens of journals.

I pray for linnets and kayaks 

the names, for the tongue 
that conjures them, I ask for bark cloth 
a traverse board, flexed elm spars 

for my hurts grant  me bog cotton 
like melted snowdrifts, 
make me an overset jar 
with pooled jam at my lip.

Colour me rose madder.
I’ll gazing at the evening
on this quiet shore 
the Hoy hills growing misty.

Lydia Harris lives in the Orkney island of Westray. She held a Scottish Book Trust New Writer’s Award in 2017. Her fourth pamphlet A Small Space is due from Paper Swans this year. Her first full collection, Objects for Private Devotion is due from Pindrop Press in 2022.

Egilsay


clink go the beads of the brothers,
they walk south between verges 
of thistle and mint 

in the nave, three sided stones 
mark the place 

the bell in the tower hangs
from an iron frame

this seed ripens

they know so little 
they lean on the stile
 
at the elbow of Brother Johan 
a red admiral quivers

a swallow rises 
behind Aslef’s shoulders

angelica, scabious, willow 

follow the bell 
smell the mint before the storm 
before the tide rolls in 

Lydia Harris lives in the Orkney island of Westray. She held a Scottish Book Trust New Writer’s Award in 2017. Her fourth pamphlet A Small Space is due from Paper Swans this year. Her first full collection, Objects for Private Devotion is due from Pindrop Press in 2022.

And months later, on the back of a scrumpled receipt, you uncover a bleeding scribble and think: ‘wow, who wrote that?’ Cut and paste to a search engine in pursuit of mystery scribble. Press a button marked ‘Images’. Scroll trite words balanced on backgrounds of spikey mountains. Become slack-jawed by intoxicating ideas of ‘no pain no gain’ ‘the undoable is doable’, ‘you can change your life if you could just…change your thoughts’. But the bleeding scribble is elusive. 

‘Well, I couldn’t have written it’ you say to the screen. ‘It’s far too good for me! Did someone say it on the telly? Was it on a T-Shirt? A mug? The cover of a journal? Did the man who came to fix the boiler say it? Did my cat telepathically beam it to me?”

I pin the runty receipt to my cork board; the origins of this scribble haunt me. If I wrote this, I’m a better writer than I think…

My fragile human ego is governed by self-doubt. If you want to be a writer, then write. Deep sigh. Should I sit and write something? My mind kicks and screams, procrastination at full throttle.  What’s the point of writing? Who do I think I am? Nobody will read it anyway. 

And then comes a split second of clarity, just a hint of a whisper, like a feathery dusting of hope, a shallow tremor of a smile. What was that? Speak up!

I’ve no time to write today. I have books to read, films to watch, a wall to paint, a garden to plant. Perhaps I’ll write when I’ve finished composing my lists of what to buy, to cook, to waste… I could save time if I compose said lists wallowing in fragrant bubbles.  And I must wipe the kitchen worktops, put away the laundry, windup the grandfather clock. If a tidy house is a tidy mind, it will help me to focus. Unless tidiness hoards my creativity like a squirrel storing nuts for winter – kept away, out of sight, never sharing. Best leave the coffee stains and socks then. Perhaps just windup the clock. 

It’s 10am. The cat sleeps. Despite myself I type a chapter heading. Tippity-tap-tap. Maybe another few lines. Miaow. Lunchtime. Cat’s awake, telepathically beaming again: ‘tuna please’. 

There’s that pesky feathery whisper again.

2,000 words! Where did they come from? I like that bit of alliteration. I sit. Still and curious. Hazy, lazy, drowning in the day, my purpose in this seat is reluctant, unclear.  I Google: ‘why do cats stare you out’? Ah. ‘How often does a cow fart’? Oh!

Again, that feathery whisper, the unseen gentle voice.

And then.

A pink bloom unfolds like lover’s lips flounced over a custard-cream pie. My breath slows and deepens. I hold it and hear inspiration weaving her whispers through my parched mind like lemon-specked sorbet quenching a scorched chin. The feather settles, the whisper is clear, her presence an undeniable sunset, her gaze tethering, her willpower burning magnificence, a power greater than my own. 

And then I recall. The scrumpled bleeding rhyme and unfamiliar reason. A few months back stranded on an angry bus stalled outside The Ritz I scribbled whispered words of wisdom on the back of a receipt. The words were lost in the chaos of the day. I could barely hear her then but now, this time, I’m listening.

Alison Rose: Twenty years ago, having struggled to engage with traditional psychotherapy, Alison Rose began a spiritual journey towards recovery from childhood trauma. Now advocating a ‘road less travelled’ approach to healing, her first online course and accompanying book will be published later this year. www.yourmostpowerfulself.com 

Clark’s nutcracker

Nucífraga columbiána


After the breeding season 
we often find odd mates
like this Clark’s nutcracker and a Sterling jay

sharing a morsel of bagels 
in the parking lot of Anthony Lakes
they don’t fight, they simply share

while a few children, without masks,
ride the see-saw built to make bikers out of them
their father watches with arms ready to catch

across from the birds another family unloads their toys
and the birds lift and flutter away simultaneous
watching intently with identical expressions

they must be famished—with their young gone 
time to fatten for the winter that is yet to come
—a child drops a bag of chips, the birds

dive together to catch the booty— again, they stay close
it’s the end of a summer hotter than usual with fire smoke
and exhaustion from isolation—but today the cerulean sky

has brought them out, the sun shines without a curtain
scavenging together makes me wonder if Darwin
had it wrong, here I see a simple joy

—the Clark’s beak tenderly picks
at a chip on the Steller’s and both crackle 
in a chaunt not far from laughter

Amelia Díaz Ettinger is a ‘Mexi-Rican,’ born in México but raised in Puerto Rico. As a BIPOC poet and writer, she has two full-length poetry books published; Learning to Love a Western Sky by Airlie Press, and a bilingual poetry book, Speaking at a Time /Hablando a  la Vez by Redbat Press, and a poetry chapbook, Fossils in a Red Flag by Finishing Line Press. Her poetry and short stories have appeared in literary journals and anthologies.

thinking of Li Po and Du Fu while staring into a brook

tracing shadows 
i pause to gaze at my reflection— 
this mirror moves 

Tohm Bakelas is a social worker in a psychiatric hospital. He was born in New Jersey, resides there, and will die there. His poems have appeared in numerous journals, zines, and online publications. He has published 13 chapbooks. He runs Between Shadows Press. 

Kadesh


The word “Kadesh” means holiness, coming from the root for “sacred.”
The Israelites spent most of their 40 years desert 
wilderness wandering in Kadesh, the place.  
–Numbers 13 (paraphrased)


Perhaps there, 
   they dreamt of houses planted into the ground, 
      instead of living in tented camps; 
   they dreamt of tables 	overflowing with 	fruits and meats, 
      instead of just their daily manna rations; 
   they dreamt of the new lives they would start, 
      instead of just their desert wilderness wandering—

   whenever they weren’t weeping and grumbling 
      and their “If only we had died in Egypt!” protests, 
      cursing Moses and murmuring 	against their Maker.

Perhaps there, 
   they were ground to dust, 
      molded into clay, shaped 
         by the Potter, thrown into 
            the furnace, and re-polished.  

Perhaps, it was there that they 
   became the Chosen People 
      before being allowed in the land 
         flowing with 	milk and honey,
            ready for more sandalless holy grounds.  

Their process of becoming 
worthy of holiness and sacredness—
where 
the Israelites 
became
the Israelites.

e placed first in KoreanAmericanStory’s 2021 Virtual ROAR Story Slam.  She guest blogs for Backbones, promoting disability awareness.  e is an attorney with a disability.  She started a non-profit housing cooperative.  e is writing a poetry collection from the perspective of a woman with a disability living in biblical times.

Owl Song

To be fully present at the birth 
Or the death of someone is to be aware 
Of a transparent gate, unmoved right there 
In the center of the room. 
Neither its entrance nor exit contradict 
Its space, like the same gradient 
Of sky at dawn and dusk. Life and death, 
Day and night, circulate a gate. 
When this happens means 
As much as what. When can certainly be 
Mere coincidence, a randomness. 
When something happens does link
A chain of events. When can feel 
Predetermined, even fated. Perhaps 
Most mysterious of all, when can seem 
To descend by way of some divine plan. 
How one interprets what happened when 
Is a most volatile power of human will. 

Elder Gideon is the author of “Aegis of Waves” (Atmosphere, 2021) and co-author with Tau Malachi of “Gnosis of Guadalupe (EPS Press, 2017). He’s an alumnus of the 2021 Community of Writers, directed by Brenda Hillman and showing sculpture this fall with Verge Gallery’s Open Studio Tour in Sacramento.

The Gopis Circle 

With twilight’s approach we slip out the door,
singing away the burdens of our days
as we flee for the horizon. 

Our houses crumble behind us like dust,
all of our dharmas become light as feathers,
flying away on the tail of the wind.

Our families fear for our lives, 
believing us to be lost, irresolute,
vague, and unpredictable. 
They have never heard the sound
of the name of Govinda. 

All night long we follow the sound 
of His name, drenched in His nectar,
being done with all other things. 

The taste of His lila is all we remember now. 
It cuts through our bonds, easily
like a child laughing,
snipping away spools of ribbon. 

Natalie Lester is a poet currently residing in Ithaca, NY. Her work has appeared in Poetic Sun, Spirit Fire Review, Eucalyptus & Rose, and Sparks of Calliope.