Amethyst Review

NEARING OUR DESTINATION
 
A sacred site. There was nothing here before rush hour, only fragments of a golden age. Between the wars, commercial reconstruction of open landscapes, the boundaries of the city. 
 
Full of plans and a desire to be nomadic, we made pilgrimage to the source, the scene of the explosion, would have nothing said against crowds and public places.   
 
We tried the door but could not get in.
 
   © Rupert M Loydell
 
 

Rupert Loydell is a writer, editor and abstract artist. His many books of poetry include Dear Mary (Shearsman, 2017) and The Return of the Man Who Has Everything(Shearsman 2015); and he has edited anthologies such as Yesterday’s Music Today (co-edited with Mike Ferguson, Knives Forks and Spoons Press 2014), and Troubles Swapped for Something Fresh: manifestos and unmanifestos (Salt, 2010)

Spring Dawn
 after Meng Haoran


Spring dawn, submerged in sleep.
After the shivered night
slowly resurface to warble and chirp.
A chisel scrapes the air, then a spate
of notes in a drowsy cooed lament,
arpeggios of birdsong belling
the room after last night’s ferment:
sudden squalls and rain-shelling,
drills on the roof, branches popping
under the gale—an unsettled zone
arising and passing. The way they will.
Tried to note each rain-bead dropping,
then let it go. Petals must have blown
to earth (how many?), now scattered and still.

Ken Turner has lived and taught in Asia, Africa, and Latin America as well as the US. His work has appeared in Southern Poetry Review, Atlanta Review, Silk Road, Summerset Review, Asian Cha, and elsewhere, including in several anthologies, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Candlemas, Midpoint of Winter

I could tell by the light of last night’s full moon
it would snow today.
Snow-filled dreams carry weight this time of year.
Sure enough, swirling clouds have shifted into position.
I whisper to green shoots
poking bravely through the soil:
“Not yet.”

The contradictions of February.
This short month passes so slowly
though the days lengthen,
minute by stolen minute,
offering hope that the earth
will return to living color
eventually.

Activity thwarted,
I reflect winter’s rhythm,
treasure the stillness,
yet curse the frigid air
that burrows past down-filled layers.

Mark an X in the seasons’ wheel,
solstice to equinox
and back again.
In this trough, this deep winter silence,
Gaia dances the spiral dance of promise.

 

 

Emily-Sue Sloane lives in Huntington Station, NY, where beautiful vistas hide beyond crowded roadways. Writing poetry helps her to frame her personal observations within wider, more universal truths. Her work has appeared in Front Porch Review, The Bards Annual 2019 Poetry Anthology, Avocet, The Weekly Avocet, and other anthologies.

Wet Nurse of the God
‘Maia’ was the wet nurse of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun. Her rock-cut tomb was discovered in the Saqqara necropolis in 1996.
 
I thought I’d get some peace here in the afterlife – 
brought all my things for relaxation: smart folding
chair, sunshade, systrum, pots of unguent – might
have time for a face mask here, I thought. But no – 
I’ve been disturbed so many times over the ages – 
men fumbling, rummaging, breaking their way in. 
This time’s no different; here they come, digging, 
opening up, shining their lights, interrogating.
I’m royalty, you know – albeit a by-blow – although
we’re all related – brother-husband, mother-aunt,
you get the picture. Great one of the harem, one of 
this lot reads, sizes me up.
 
Look over there, I tell them. Find my name,
though even that disguises. You can piece
it all together, tell a tale – how I fed the flesh
of a god, educated his body. He was another one
knew what he wanted, eyes closed, mouth open,
rooting, bobbing, frantic till he’d latched on. 
I feel that tug still.
 
There’s me – look, there’s a story – yes that’s a throne.
I sit and dandle the boy-king in my linen lap. Or here,
lotus-crowned, I’m resurrected, hand raised – but
am I doing homage to my lord or being goddess Bast,
cat licking her kitten, smoothing a milk drop from
his divine face?

Ann Cuthbert enjoys writing and performing poems, usually with the Tees Women Poets collective. Her work has been widely published in magazines and anthologies online and in print, most recently 14 and Not Very Quiet magazines. Her poetry chapbook is Watching a Heron with Davey (Black Light Engine Room Press). 

WILLAMETTE AUGUST, SYDNEY LANDING
 
It is getting toward evening and the light is falling down
Green tree lined banks make the river look like an eternal corridor
Like one of those classic European architectural tricks
          Where the road, flanked by tall elegant buildings,
          Gracefully curves away from the eye and into an unknown possibility.
The same here with cottonwoods and Oregon ash 
            Taking the place of anything created with 
            The contrivance of human hands.
 
Infinite and limits on display here at Sydney Landing.
 
If the source has limits
    The trees' attention on each bank blocking out the land behind tan cliffs
            Wicked submerged logs
            The tittering of a rock shelf
            Amusing so obstinate in the river’s powerful cut
If this source is limited, then so are we.
 
If the source is infinite
            This water, flowing from the sky to here
            Through another grateful graceful corner then another
            Until it finally finds its way back up into the sky
            Which is right now cloudless and other-waterly blue
If the source is infinite, then assuredly so are you and I.

Marc Janssen lives in a house with a wife who likes him and a cat who loathes him. Regardless of that turmoil, his poetry can be found scattered around the world in places like Penumbra, Slant, Cirque Journal, Off the Coast and Poetry Salzburg. Janssen also coordinates the Salem Poetry Project, a weekly reading, the annual Salem Poetry Festival, and was a 2020 nominee for Oregon Poet Laureate. 

The Lyrebird
 
Surely one of the most extraordinary voices in the animal kingdom.
—Jennifer Ackerman in The Bird Way
 
Adept in mimicry, the lyrebird
can sound like almost anything: ax blows,
a banjo’s twang, a cello’s highs and lows,
and scores of different birds. It seems absurd,
so deep a repertoire in just one bird,
and why it’s so prolific no one knows.
Oh, there are theories, couched in careful prose,
but none would dare to claim the final word.
I think the lyrebird gives prose the lie
by telling lies that tell the truth, in verse,
net up, in imitation of the leaves,
the waves, the raptor’s cry, the quarry’s curse.
But lyrebird, too, may deceive. Truths fly
at speeds no swooping peregrine achieves.

Dan Campion is the author of Peter De Vries and Surrealism and co-editor of Walt Whitman: The Measure of His Song, a third edition of which was issued in 2019. His poetry has appeared in Poetry, Rolling Stone, and many other magazines. A selection of his poems titled The Mirror Test will be published by MadHat Press in February 2022. He lives in Iowa City, Iowa.

Spying on my Beloved Ghosts

The wood of the old farmhouse still crumbles,
the paint powdery and chipped.
I pick at a flake with my fingernail
float from room to room through a fragile past
tumbling along the scent of dust and bone.

My sisters waken in the bedroom to the cry of the osprey.
Insulted by the dawn, she shrieks loudly and dives into her hunt circling, circling
over woods that still hold Indian pipe and lady slippers –
as thrilling to find now as we did then.

I lift a tattered sheet curtain revealing poses of ancient paintings acted out

With mops, brooms and tablecloths

My mother is rouged and lipsticked, frantic and angry.
Before church, she moans about my dirty nails,
dirty face, scabs on my knees, she wants me to atone
for all of the dirt a child could possibly wear,
intoning Sweet Jesus why can’t this child bear to stay clean.

The scent of printers’ ink and cigarettes wafts around my father. 
He’s hiding in the library until church is over, praying to be spared
its infinite blessings. Praying for salvation

from the off-key voice of the pious choir lady

raised in praise of the Glory of God in the Highest.

The air on the porch is heavy and thick with the remains of the night fog –
phantoms idly conversing within a cold dampness.
that never dries, the salt air
clings to my skin.  My old dog looks up,
thumps his tail with a vague sigh of recognition.

I pull away from my Beloved Ghosts,
and gather smooth flat rocks in my pockets.
I skip them two, three, four times across the inlet.
If I frighten the night heron standing alone at the lagoon
I will ask her by what right she deserves peace.

Susan Peters is a New England girl through and through.  Born in Massachusetts, she spent much of her youth in Maine in the country of the pointed firs.  Her passion is horses, particularly Icelandic horses and she frequently travels to Iceland to ride and learn as much as she can about Icelandic sagas.  She began writing poetry after her children were grown and has been trying to catch up ever since.

Lisa Borkovich lives in Hamilton, Ontario and writes when inspired.

Sacred Numerology 

My sister points at a passing van
with Faith Technologies printed on its side.
Make a good tattoo she comments and bets me
that 40 percent of folks under 40 get tattoos
these days.
  
She likes her Biblical numbers and preaches
to me on three fingers that 40 is holy—
for 40 years the Israelites wandered the wilderness,
for 40 days Jesus fasted and fought temptation,
for 40 nights Noah waited and watched it rain.

She’s turning 70 soon.  Nothing special
about 70, nothing prophetic or even
mandala-worthy. 
Only the numerical answer to the problem
how many times must we forgive
the ones who did us wrong.  70 times 7
I remember from my Bible School days.
 
She kids she might get a tattoo for her birthday—
Faith Technologies in bold letters needled
on her back to testify, like the van,
that handy tools are inside
(and she gestures fist to chest)
for fixing her years of wear and tear.

Jean Biegun, retired in Sacramento, CA, began writing poetry in 2000 as a way to overcome big-city job stress, and it worked.  Poems have been published in Mobius: The Poetry Magazine, After Hours: A Journal of Chicago Writing and Art, World Haiku Review, Presence: International Journal of Spiritual Direction and other places.

4 Experiments from 
101 Experiments in Philosophy


I'm watching a spider.
Patience is another name 
for a spider. It waits and waits
in the centre of its web
unable to think yet
poised for ambush,
triggered by the slightest twitch.
Its life is circumscribed
by a billion years of practice
as are the trees, sharks, mosquitoes
and my own tabby cat.


Stopping thought is impossible
(although neither trying to think 
nor trying not to think is possible)
but if it were possible maybe
we'd tumble into a state
of stupefaction (into animal consciousness)
or else we might fall into the bottomless
abyssal silence of infinite compassion.
In this state we might row between eternity
and the instant in an instant
or we could be the blue sky
watching the clouds go by.


A ray of sunshine slants through a window;
thousands of minuscule dots, bits, flecks, fluff
and sparks dance within a cube of light, a universe
of dust suddenly made visible, spiralling, turning,
crossing; each infinitesimal smut passes from light
into darkness like Bede's sparrow
flying in and out of a room.


Instead of trying to be serene
experiment a little:
cultivate a little terror.
What if you can't stop thinking
that thinking can't be stopped
what's to stop you thinking
the next person you meet
has murderous intentions
and you're her next victim
or that some bright spark (he's a chemist)
has what he thinks is an original thought,
he's thought up a silent killing spree scenario
but he doesn't know he's simply terrorising
himself and he chickens out when it comes
to acting on the thought and anyhow
on second thoughts you realise this
is all in your mind and the chemist
and the murderer appear and disappear
there like vaporous clouds or froth.

101 Experiments in the Philosophy of Everyday Life, Roger-Pol Droit

Eric Nicholson is a prize-winning poet (Opossum 2020) and a retired art teacher. He is a Zen practitioner and this may influence some of his poetry.