Amethyst Review

Seeing is Believing

 
When you look at the sky
And see absolutely nothing,
God's a bit like that.
 
Gradually you make out
Birds gliding high above,
Seeing the world as it is
Not, how we think it should be,
God’s a bit like that
 
You notice clouds,
That may or may not bring rain,
God’s a bit like that.
 
Then you are made aware of the sun
But can not look directly at it,
Because of its brightness,
God’s a bit like that.
 
And when night comes
It is black, and once again
You can see nothing at all,
Yet you know on another night,
Perhaps the next night
You will see the moon,
And her apostles the stars
Lighting the way,
God’s a bit like that.
 
© Bernard Pearson
 

Bernard Pearson’s work  appears in many publications, including; Aesthetica Magazine, The Edinburgh Review, Crossways, Patchwork, FourxFour, The Gentian.  In 2017 a selection of his poetry In Free Fall was published by Leaf by Leaf  Press. In 2019  he won second prize in The Aurora Prize for Writing for his poem ‘Manor Farm’.

Living

Lucinda enters the dimly lit church and kneels in a pew. Her parish is open twenty-four hours for Adoration on Thursdays. It’s her favorite time of the week, a private time for private prayer. After reciting her rosary, she slips out of the pew and stops in front of the statue of St. Jude to light one of the votive candles before she leaves. Looking up at the huge statue of her Patron Saint, she remembers how he protected her as a child, helped her escape the stranger who tried to pull her into his car one day after school. She survived, thanks to the saint. How he helped her escape her abusive college boyfriend. And she survived. How he helped her endure fifteen years of marriage to an alcoholic. And she survived. “Thank you for protecting me, St. Jude,” she whispers to the statue. “But I’m tired. Tired of surviving. Tired of taking care of needy people. Tired of doing for others and never for myself. I want more. I want to live. Surviving isn’t living. Teach me how to live well.” As she lights one of the votive candles for this prayer, her cell phone beeps in her purse. It’s a text from her sister, Paula. A distress message. The only kind she receives from her sister. It seems Paula’s babysitter quit, and she needs Lucinda to come over right now and babysit for her. It’s no wonder Paula can’t keep a babysitter. Her children are little monsters. Even so, Lucinda always comes when summoned. Paula is her only sister. What can she do? Beneath the serene face of the saint, Lucinda’s gaze rests on the flickering votives. All those candles. All those prayers. Always answered. After a while Lucinda makes the sign of the cross. Then she turns off her cell phone. She opens the big glass door of the church and steps out into the delicious heat of a summer afternoon.  

Laura Stamps is the author of several poetry and fiction books: The Year of the Cat, In the Garden, Cat Daze, Tuning Out, and more. Winner of the Muses Prize. Recipient of a Pulitzer Prize nomination and 7 Pushcart Prize nominations. Mom of 5 cats. Twitter: @LauraStamps16. Website:www.laurastampspoetry.blogspot.com   

First Word


We waited – 
through coos 
and babbles, 
pebbles the tides 
tossed from his lips,

waited 
for a sound
we could proudly 
proclaim
as papa, 

for something 
akin to boo
as blueberries 
purpled 
his chin.

Finally, as sun 
startled 
his drowsy eyes,
he said ite. 
With outstretched arms 

he chased beacons 
bouncing across the ceiling,
wobbled 
into the shared space 
of language,

and first, 
there was light

Joanne Durham is a retired educator living on the North Carolina coast, with the ocean as her backyard. She was a finalist for the 2021 NC Poetry Society’s Laureate Award and the NC State Poetry Contest. Her publications and background can be found at https://www.joannedurham.com/.

Pandemic Bread


—on reading Meta Kušar’s Ljubljana no. 71 



A messenger arrives 
slender and pale
announces herself 
with a string of titles
reclines on the spine 
splits apart at the center
pages swing open
on a double hinge

La voix dans le corps
The Voice in the Body
Glas v telesu 


Three different voices
but one language shared
by three women poets
from a small green land 
of mountains and caverns
rivers underground
dragons and bridges
where writers abound

Their sweet mother tongue
transplanted turned sour
my grandmother said 
as she kneaded her bread
a weight to abandon
to forget and erase
—until I resolved  
to claim it again

Now a book in Slovene
(and English and French)
opens itself 
to the lesson I need
from a faraway poet
who tended her bread 
spun stories in words
not known to me yet


The poet reminds us 
to be patient and wait
for a gradual ripening 
of what matters most
whether bread or poem
soul or song
they grow together
in shared time and place

Fermentation continues
in the cold and dark
when our back is turned
even when we forget
each pocket of air
will rise and expand
gluten grown strong
with each intertwined strand

An overworked dough
is bound to collapse
but flavor will deepen
when hands do not rush
when we pause to wonder
and we trust and wait
the gift will appear
that was ours
from the start

Background note by author: Meta Kušar is a well known Slovenian poet and essayist. Her long multi-part poem Ljubljana (2003) was subsequently included in the trilingual anthology La voix dans le corps/ The Voice in the Body/ Glas v telesu: trois poetesses slovènes; Ljubljana: Slovene Writers Association (2005). 

Blair Kilpatrick is a psychologist and musician in Berkeley, California. She is the author of Accordion Dreams: A Journey into Cajun and Creole Music (U. Press Mississippi, 2009). She was the recipient of the first annual Slovenian Literary Award (2019) and is currently working on a family roots memoir. In her free time, she enjoys baking bread, playing the Cajun accordion with her fiddler husband, and visiting their adult children in Toronto and New York. Her website is www.blairkilpatrick.com

Where You Need To Be
 
Sometime
In whatever ocean
You find yourself
You can feel
The subtle pull
Of direction
Being sent to you
By the moon
Wherever it may be hiding
And if you can let go
It promises to carry you
There you need to be

Gerry Grubbs is an attorney who practices law in Cincinnati OH. He has several books out from Dos Madres Press, the most recent is Chrysanthemum Moon.

Roadworks


The high priests in their hard hats
stand round the ruptured gravel,
numbed by the spell of an old tree
that has wounded the pavement.

Six acolytes in orange glimpse wisdom; 
then, like failed Buddhist novices, 
they busy themselves with lights and signs
and prepare to inter their god.

As the congregation of cars
backs up along this pilgrims’ road,
machines fill the cracks, the shrine
is rolled flat and anointed with tar.

In an hour it is over, the mute deity
overwhelmed by these temporal repairs:
where once worshippers gathered round trees,
the gods lie beneath them, forgotten.

Events once ascribed to fate
and the wrath and revenge of the heavens
are now blamed on human intervention -
the diversion, the accident, the delay -

But the cracks will reappear: it is quite beyond us 
to fashion or comprehend the world
while earth moves and trees root.
Allow extra time for your journey.

Jeff Gallagher is a poet and playwright from Sussex, England. He has had numerous plays for young people published and performed nationwide. His poetry has appeared in The Journal, One Hand Clapping, Makarelle, Spellbinder and Runcible Spoon.

Onion Skins 


(or huevos haminados)

Curling brown leaves
a pile of discards 

But I see treasure
scraps of parchment 
for telling an old story

The onions emerge
shiny and white 
brown coats left behind 
stripped by
a masked man 
with kind eyes
hands the color of onion skins
who does not look surprised 
when I ask
for a bag of the leavings

—I’ll take an onion too, I tell him

I want him to know
I know
grocers can't make money
on a bag of 
onion skins and air 

—Come back on the weekend, he says
and I can give you more

He wants to help me
— does he know?
I hear an echo of Spain 
in his voice
so perhaps he shares
my secret

We have survived this plague,
my man and I,
passed over
at least this time
So I have ventured out
searching 
for a few more provisions
for this season
this day
this evening's meal 
of remembering

Betrayal and death
and rebirth
or at least deliverance
endings and beginnings
two stories intertwined 
two traditions
but hope and gratitude
either way
 
I almost forgot about the eggs

Now back home
they are swimming

Floating in a swamp
of onion skins
chips of garlic
oil slick on top

They will emerge transformed
by water and fire
their shells burnished deep russet
whites gone nut brown
yellows a deeper gold
and inside
the ancient taste of
smoke and tears


—Passover/Easter 2021

Blair Kilpatrick is a psychologist and musician in Berkeley, California. She is the author of Accordion Dreams: A Journey into Cajun and Creole Music (U. Press Mississippi, 2009). She was the recipient of the first annual Slovenian Literary Award (2019) and is currently working on a family roots memoir. In her free time, she enjoys baking bread, playing the Cajun accordion with her fiddler husband, and visiting their adult children in Toronto and New York. Her website is www.blairkilpatrick.com

Faith 

this is how we worship when
the cross is an oxygen tank 
chained to our backs at birth. 

we starve for the setting sun
and communion is had on 
unholy days. crucifixions come 
cradled as scent of blood-red 
wine after decades of drought. 
we drink deeply. we die of thirst. 

our New Testament descends 
as the oldest myth in life’s album 
of make-believe moments. see 
it run from what was burned. 
see the bruise become a scar. 

we at the pulpit are Cain. our 
crops converge into swarms 
of locusts. we in the pews are Abel 
and sit, sobbing like newborns 
for warmth we cannot remember.

this is the cuter damnation.
the pretty one who ties her hair
in bantu knots and laughs as the 
shackles are tightened. 

Monica Mills is a Jamaican-American writer and poet. She is from Maplewood, New Jersey and has a bachelor’s degree in political science and English from Rutgers University. Monica’s recent work appears in journals such as West Trade Review, Anthologist, and New Verse News among others. She enjoys rainy days and ginger tea. 

Life itself is a resignation.

            Go ask the mouse in talons mid-flight.

Butterflies know your destination.

 

            Swaying, short-lived, in heroic retaliation,

they fluttered in secret one starry night.

            Life itself is a resignation.

 

Unless you are fooled by power and temptation.

            Did you really think they wouldn’t fight?

A dozen butterflies know your destination-

 

            one can travel only so far on manipulation-

I’m not going anywhere, darling! You said in spite

of life itself, a resignation.

 

You believed your culture would be your salvation.

            A Pax Romana, or Caesar in white,

yet the butterflies know your destination.

 

            You thought you could rise above conviction,

but their weary wings gained greater height-

pulling you down to a life of resignation-

these brave butterflies knew your destination.

Nancy Byrne Iannucci is the author of Temptation of Wood (Nixes Mate Review 2018) and Goblin Fruit (Impspired, September 2021). Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in a number of publications including Gargoyle, Ghost City Press, Clementine Unbound, Dodging the Rain, Three Drops from a Cauldron, 8 Poems, Glass: A Journal of Poetry (Poets Resist), Hobo Camp Review, and Typehouse Literary Magazine. Nancy is a Long Island, NY native who now resides in Troy, NY where she teaches history at the Emma Willard School. Web: https://www.nancybyrneiannucci.com/

Attainments


At the end of our anthology, the ambient stir-- 
an expedition through wobbly terrain: like  
one held captive before a buffet, not permitted 
the courtesy of consumption. There is no-one
to implicate but my untutored heart and hungry 
body. Each togetherness has a tenure. There is 
grace in accepting it. In the shapelessness of
drifts, I see a silhouette: this is consciousness.

Sanjeev Sethi has authored five books of poetry. Hesitancies by CLASSIX, an imprint of Hawakal, in July 2021 is his latest. A month before it, he released Bleb from Hybriddreich in Scotland.  He is published in over thirty countries. He is the joint-winner of Full Fat Collection Competition-Deux, organized by The Hedgehog Poetry Press UK. He is in the top ten of the erbacce prize 2021 UK. He lives in Mumbai, India.