Amethyst Review

Glass Door Handles


You have been wheeled to a table
and you speak a complete sentence when 
you see me, “Our relationship is deep.”  
I nod and say, “Yes.”  This is a fine start
to any day but I notice you’re not wearing
your glasses, so after wheeling you to 
a place where we can hear ourselves talk
I return to your room to find them
but can’t.  Also, I’ve noticed that no one
has brushed your teeth again this morning.  
I walk out to administration and leave
a message for the director.  Every day
it’s glasses or you’re dressed in someone
else’s clothes or that you need to be
changed and you’ve only gotten up.
But I calm down and I try to get you
to sip a cappuccino I brought. 
You dribble as you drink and I need
to dab your long-sleeved red t-shirt.
Breakfast is late but we make do
by my telling you about the handyman
that’s coming to fix the front door 
glass door handle later this morning.  
You are intrigued since you have 
always loved the way light plays with 
the facets of those cut glass handles.  
When the doors are opened 
to the dining area, I wheel you 
to our table by the window, point out
new blossoms that opened, new leaves
unfurling on branches of trees.

Wally Swist’s new books include Aperture (Kelsay Books), poems regarding caregiving his spouse through Alzheimer’s, and If You’re the Dreamer, I’m the Dream: Selected Translations from Rilke’s Book of Hours (Finishing Line Press). Poems, essays, and translations have appeared in Chicago Quarterly Review, Commonweal, Healing Muse, North American Review, Other Journal, Rattle, and Your Impossible Voice. Huang Po and the Dimensions of Love (Southern Illinois University Press, 2012) was co-winner of the 2011 Crab Orchard Open Poetry Competition. He was also the winner of the Ex Ophidia Press Poetry Prize in 2018 for ‘A Bird Who Seems to Know Me’.

Starvation Offerings

I offer it up. Yes,
I offer the fibrous red meat,
the flakes of species older
than the humankind,
the milk of what’s holy
and unholy, to this
altar. I gouge out a part
of my soul and hold it
up to you. A glistening
nimbus of spirit in a
decanter glazed with
blood. It rots.
The darkness of existence
overflows and drips on
my bare foot. It crawls. It grows.
It grows. It rises. It floods this
temple like a tsunami and it
washes over me. The door is
sealed shut. No one gets out.
Not even me.

I say my prayers with black
tides up to my chest. I have
not drowned, not yet.
Sunlight escapes into this
cold chamber through gilded
foliage. It blinds me, although
my eyes are closed. I recite
psalms written by no one
to placate the grumbles in
my cleaved soul. I wade
the waters for that golden
apple, that staff atop the altar.
Psalms become bubbles,
breaths become suffocation,
but my hands are firm. So close,
so unreachable. Is it water, 
or is it a holy relic? In
a stupor, I hear oratorios,
storms, chewing, birds, 
bell tolls. I wake up
in orange blossoms.

Molly (Siyu) Chen is a student at Wellesley College and an alumna of Interlochen Arts Academy and the Kenyon Young Writers Workshop. Her work has previously been published in The Wellesley Review and by TABLOID Press. She has been recognized by the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers and Write the World.

In the Presence

Play always as if
in the presence of a master or mistress.
So said Schumann.
Reflecting on this, said Isserlis,
we would not then drift off and dream as we played
or check email and other things.

So my advice? Forget the concern that you express.
Do your best to compose or paint or dance,
ink your thoughts or touch the keys,
start with the song within your mind
or upon the score,
don’t stop to spend one second more
on war and famine 
and death in store 
for all of us.

Play now as if in the presence
of your god or goddess, maestro or maestra,
no more, but certainly, no less!

_______
*Inspired by Steven Isserlis in Robert Schumann’s
 Advice to Young Musicians Revisited by Steven Isserlis.
 Isserlis is a renowned concert cellist and author.

Ann Grogan is a late-life pianophile, newbie poet, and retired attorney. Her work promotes the unequivocal permission to pursue one’s passions at any age, including her beloved music. With humor and thoughtfulness she often reflects on her struggles to relearn to play the piano, and support for the suppressed voices and experiences of women. When not practicing her piano or writing poetry and her blog, she volunteers at Planned Parenthood or engages in community activism. She is the author of two volumes of poetry, Poetical Musings on Pianos, Music & Life, and resides in San Francisco, California.

The Sand Mandala

We are the center
                                       and the surrounding.
We look out at eyes
                                       looking back at us.
If we find the center,
                                       casting out her radius,
like a magic wand,
                                       we can trace the shape.
Gods and demons
                                       dance together.
Eyes look at us
                                       looking back at them.
In the hub
                                       of the spinning wheel,
lies one eye,
                                       blinking slowly.
Demons and gods
                                       seek one pleasure.
The void inside
                                       the vortex is full of space.
In the hub
                                       of the spinning wheel,
lies one eye,
                                       closed and open.
The swirling abyss 
                                       draws us within.
The void inside
                                       the vortex yawns with life.
We are born
                                       inside a palace
inside a palace.
                                       Always at rest,
the abyss draws us
                                       into our origin.
White and black,
                                       blue and red,
yellow and green
                                       are swept together
into the gray
                                       of distance.
Briefly we dwell
                                       within a palace
within a palace.
                                       We chant mantras
while we are carried
                                       to the river.
Purity and death,
                                       healing and desire,
humility and harmony
                                       are swept together
into the gray
                                       of silence.
As we enter the center,
                                       casting out her radius,
like an invisible wand,
                                       we follow the path
of the eternal way.
                                       We chant mantras
as we are poured
                                       into the water.
We are the surrounding
                                       and the center.

Jacob Friesenhahn teaches Religious Studies and Philosophy at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio. His first book of poems is The Prayer of the Mantis from Kelsay Books.

In a Darkening Sky

The sun peeks through
a gray wool sky
like a shutter 
opening in a camera.

There’s a sense of something
bright behind the cloud cover,
something worth standing
in place until my breath returns.

Swallowed beneath, 
all I want is the chance 
to keep staring at the light 
pouring through a single hole 
in a darkening sky.

Jacqueline Jules is the author of Manna in the Morning (Kelsay Books, 2021), Itzhak Perlman’s Broken String, winner of the 2016 Helen Kay Chapbook Prize from Evening Street Press, and Smoke at the Pentagon: Poems to Remember (Bushel & Peck, 2023). Her poetry has appeared in over 100 publications. Visit her online at http://www.jacquelinejules.com.

The Catholic-born Buddhist Recounts Visiting Angkor Wat 

Exhausted from the long flight, we rise early. We sigh 
when we finally see the abbey. Time has stopped, 
leaving us frozen in a pocket. 

The monks go about their business. They don’t
pay attention to the tourists–even the faithful.

We each struggle in this finely-made net. This morning, 
an egg-white omelet. No begging bowl for me. 
The paper cut from my last day before leaving New York
City throbs in time with my pulse. 

I traded the God of my youth 
for Buddha, and yet believe
I should cross myself
in this sacred space.

Lynne Kemen’s full-length book of poetry, Shoes for Lucy, was published by SCE Press in 2023. Woodland Arts Editions published her chapbook, More Than a Handful, in 2020. Her work is anthologized in The Memory Palace: an ekphrastic anthology (Ekphrastic Editions, 2024), Seeing Things and Seeing Things 2 (Woodland Arts, 2020 and 2024). Lynne is President of the Board of Bright Hill Press and has served on many other not-for-profit boards. She is an Editor and Interviewer for Blue Mountain Review. She is a nominee for a Pushcart Prize (2024).

Umbrellas

Hundreds of multi-colored umbrellas float above our heads
red, green, yellow, and blue dots of vivid sight
arranged in a kinetic mosaic of nylon and steel
a colonnade of color filling the sky

my friend and I are not fully protected in our wandering below
as we saunter from sidewalk to curb and back again
from restaurant to shop to gallery
separate and alone within the whole 

the lazy rain drips through the many cracks
through the voids around and between each one
the umbrellas are singular and apart, but the same design
within the space formed by this artistic installation

each an integral part of the overall creation
where they all tip and bounce in the wind
with their handles, like the letter j
twirling, spinning in every direction

all higgledy-piggledy
as if they cannot make up their minds
or are unable to control the frenetic motion
that has been instilled by the artist

my capacity for emotion is infinite
but there is no longer room for animosity
no room for dissension as to which
of the umbrellas has an appealing hue

an agreeable orientation or shape or size
and which one displeases or dissatisfies
there is no purpose in sustaining such philosophies
it is not my right to make that choice

at my age, differences can bring disappointment
but they are not a sign of failure or defeat
we are not separated from grace for being made of flesh and bone
we are accepted with all our fragilities

the lonely ship to the isle of judgement is ready to sail
the innocent and the deserving few without sin
are permitted on board, but I will not be on it
I must have mislaid my ticket

while walking with my friend
down the dampened street together, arm in arm 
underneath that rainbow umbrella promenade
on a cloudy morning in the chill of October

After retiring recently, Mark James Trisko heard his muses yelling loudly in the night, begging him to let their voices be heard. His work has appeared / will appear in Valiant Scribe Literary Journal, Spirit Fire Review, Amethyst Review, As Surely As the Sun, The Penwood Review, St. Katherine Review, and Austur Magazine. He currently lives in Minnesota, with his beautiful spouse of 47 years, four wonderful children and eight above-normal grandchildren.