Amethyst Review

Threads

I am
just one
frayed
wound tight
coarsely made
tested by force
twisted resiliency
bound to others
strained with weight
threatened by blades
mended from attention
unequally created companion
equally essential thread
of the human fabric
crafted with care
weakened by wear
the loss of one
compromises
the whole
tapestry
to tear.

 

Ali Grimshaw is the author of Flashlight Batteries, https://flashlightbatteries.blog/ a poetry blog for those struggling in darkness and tough times. Her poems have been published in Vita Brevis, Poetry Breakfast and Ghost City Review.

The Tale of Silence

Before sunrise,
two thousand one hundred sixty days five hours ten seconds
before the despair,
starvation, and
r
a
p
e
,
before dreaming the wedding,
¬¬the friends and their dress,
feeling butterflies,
plaiting with her henna tattooed hands,
putting her long pure-white head dress on
headband trimmed with gold coins.
She raised her hands.
Touched the peacock figurine
on bended knees.
She turned her face towards the sun.
“Oh, Lord, You have the voice,
You have the heart.”
Before the darkest day.
After the apple.
After the fall.

 

Rabia Rana is a designer,  visual artist, and women’s rights activist. Her work has appeared in Glint Literary Magazine and Augusta Art Council. She holds MFA in Creative Writing in fiction from Queens University of Charlotte.

 

To Live By Mistakes and Perfumes

 

Sound of July crickets blends with
Trumpet, echo chamber,
Electric guitar, soft cymbals, clarinets,
harmony of the Fortunes singing
“Now just like you I sit and wonder why
You’ve got your troubles, I’ve got mine.
And it don’t seem so long ago….
That we were walking and we were talking
The way that lovers do…”
Parked in your father’s enormous Cadillac
In the moonlight
By the children’s playground on Nields Street.
Why did we love that song?

Today I notice that
My ghost smells like Shalimar,
honey and cinnamon, with a hint of gardenia,
a shade of wisteria,
disturbing the cold March air,
knife of aroma
where the spring peepers croak.

 

Anne Higgins teaches English at Mount Saint Mary’s University in Emmitsburg Maryland,  USA. She is a member of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul.  She has had about 100 poems published in  a variety of small magazines. Five full-length books and three chapbooks of her poetry have been published: At the Year’s Elbow, Mellen Poetry Press  2000; Scattered Showers in a Clear Sky,  Plain View Press 2007; chapbooks: Pick It Up and Read, Finishing Line Press 2008, How the Hand Behaves, Finishing Line Press 2009, Digging for God,  Wipf and Stock 2010,  Vexed Questions, Aldrich Press 2013, Reconnaissance, Texture Press 2014, and Life List, Finishing Line Press 2016. Her poems have been featured several times on The Writer’s Almanac.

My yoga teacher said to turn our gaze inward

Encased in my body’s frame
still, vigilant
is a large bird

feathers slick
unflinching eyes

I keep my breath smooth
not to startle it

scrutinizing with
deference.

Nothing moves, not a feather
on this good raptor

I avoid its magnificent
eyes

only the ripple of bluish light
on the glassy pond between us.

Jill Pearlman is a writer and poet based in Providence, RI. She has published in Salamander, Frequency Anthology, Soul-Lit, Crosswinds and others. She writes a blog about ecstasy, art and aesthetics in wartime at jillpearlman.com

In the Beginning

Let there be beasts
Says a sky voiced god

And from the wet ground rises
Heaving breasts thick with fur
Four-limbed bodies unfurling
Toward the hot sun upturned

From that same earth
Springs up feathered life
Arching skeletons free
Soaring bodies loose of chains

Let there be god
Says a beast-borne man

And the earth shakes in knowing
The coming birth pains of
Cracking open like an egg
To show a man himself

 

Catelyn May is a wife, mother, and full time healthcare worker living in the Southeastern United States. She spends her free time reading books and talking to people who also read books. Her short fiction has been published in various online journals and anthologies. This is her first work of poetry.

MILLENIUM TOWER

The gods are back, companions. Right now they have just entered this life; but the words that revoke them, whispered underneath the words that reveal them, have also appeared that we might suffer together.”
—René Char

The gods of this city, at rest atop
their leaning tower, sip smooth designer
coffee. One says, “It’s time to put a stop
to worship of numbers. They refine their
calculations and forget about us.”
A goddess answers—drowned out by a bus
passing below. “Temples don’t get finished,”
says a stern, old god. “They forget to pray.”
“That bothers you?” winks a love god, playing
the fool, sliding to the street like a fish.

“Suburbs can be nice—they’re very quiet,
with wispy trees and green lawns of rolled sod.
Their hearths are screens. No talk. You should try it
for a bit.” This was the laziest of the gods.
“I eat prayers,” mouthed the stern one. I miss smoke
from offerings, ceremonies.” (when he spoke
clouds formed around the tower’s slanted top).
“We are all numbers and have always been,”
said the slyest god. “I desire days when
people are kind and their sad noises stop.

“When we made them,” offered the lost love god
just back from the cool street, “we taught them fire
and stone. Make things, we said. We thought the odds
were long, they wouldn’t last. Now we’re all tired
just watching them speed around cherished grids.”
That goddess said something but a truck hid
her sounds. They looked at their city and wished
for better creatures. Still, the stiff exhaust
was a kind of smoke, a new holocaust.
They breathed deep. Cracked the glass. Made a fresh myth.

 

Mark J. Mitchell’s novel, The Magic War appeared from Loose Leaves Publishing. He studied  at Santa Cruz under Raymond Carver and George Hitchcock. His work appeared in several anthologies and hundreds of periodicals. He lives with his wife, Joan Juster making his living pointing out pretty things in San Francisco. A meager online presence can be found at https://www.facebook.com/MarkJMitchellwriter/

 

Mea culpa

Patiently listening—
the days in necessary living
ebb and flow.

This little Catholic boy holds
all his sins tight;
his past digressions.

When there is joy all around,
I still wait,
mouth closed watching,

and keep praying;
maybe this joy is misplaced

and when it passes,
feeling right again—
I still… wait.

 

Antoni Ooto is a poet and flash fiction writer.  His works have been published in Nixes Mate Review, Pilcrow & Dagger, Red Eft Review, Ink Sweat & Tears, Young Ravens Literary Review, Front Porch Review, Amethyst Review, An Upstate of Mind and Palettes & Quills.

Iphigenia

The sacrifices I’ve made
the offerings and the victims
have all been in her name

The wealth I create
by the hard work I do
………..exploiting air and water
………..stimulating demand
………..processing foodstuffs
………..utilising other life forms
………..moving money around
………..providing distractions
………..turning earth into fire
ensures I have the means
to be a good parent

She will surely appreciate
the shiny altar built for her
as she goes on alone

 

Dawid Juraszek is a bilingual author based in China. His fiction, non-fiction, and poetry have appeared in The Remembered Arts Journal, Amethyst Review, The Esthetic Apostle, Amaryllis, The Font, and elsewhere. https://amazon.com/author/dawidjuraszek

Specter of Essence

Seasons of query; blood moon sullen
keeper of the corn; coolness of breath
peeking sun warm; misty fogginess lifts.
grass wet with dew; footprints are aplenty.
fresh moldy earth turned by the oxen.
hard sharp edge; pussy willow softness
smells of mint tarrow; thankful for senses
buds burst with sun; lilacs bloomed today.
spector of essence; keeper of the scents
wafting through life; freshness of cut grass
inner core of sulfur; bud of bursting leaves
pious taste of roses; electric with the sun.

 

Ken Allan Dronsfield is a disabled veteran, poet, and fabulist. He resides in Seminole Oklahoma, USA. He works full-time on his poetry, dabbling in digital art. Ken’s poem, “With Charcoal Black, VIII” was selected as the First Prize Winner in a recent major Nature Poetry Contest from Realistic Poetry International.

RAUCH

In the swirl, intense
Calmness of the Pacific
Is a reflection

You flow like a river, a fire hose, a mouse’s tracks on new snow; of words dancing between mind and hand and pen and paper and eye and mind; of light as it slants through the memories of smoke from mom’s cigarette lazing in a July morning living room; of food and hunger and scent and everything that makes me an animal; of thoughts and emotions and everything that separates me from everyone else.
You are atoms between stars and skin cells; the water blue, the Crater Lake blue, the sky blue, the emotion-filled can’t-find-the-right-pantone blue of the baby’s eye.

In the red embers
The cooling flame’s curling smoke
Is a reflection

You are connected to the locomotive tiptoeing down the center of Front Street in the middle of the night; to the explosions deep inside the sun; electronic messages, emails, texts; to the boy who wants to know how to hold the hand of the girl; to the girl who is a woman who is a mother who is alone who is happy and sad and angry and laughing; to the fingers and the tendons and the muscles and the skin and the nails and the crinkled edges of the baby’s hand as she dozes crumpled on her sleeping dad’s chest.

In the air, this air
This vacuum, town, anywhere
Is a reflection

And you touch the shoulder of the drunk veteran, the inner world of the middle school girl, the guy driving to work with the sun in his eyes, the music major, the protester, the police;
The shoulder of a mountain, of Orion, of imagination, of the sound you make when you smile;
Lightly brushes the hour, hair, heaven, hurt, hate, honor, heritage, the hush.
Looking up, intently, breast to mouth, the baby sees a sky of intimacy and smell and nourishment and familiarity and

In a universe
Of big broken reflections
Flowing is love, love

 

Marc Janssen is an internationally published poet and poetic activist. His work has appeared haphazardly in printed journals and anthologies such as Off the Coast, Cirque Journal, Penumbra, The Ottawa Arts Review and Manifest West. He also coordinates poetry events in the Willamette Valley of Oregon including the Salem Poetry Project, a weekly reading, and Salem Poetry Festival.