Amethyst Review

Of Belief

Though he’s blind,
his arguments are solid
as the molecules of diamonds.
He probes, even in his sleep,

the nuanced depths of philosophy
and highest science.
When bothered by his somber,
respectful colleagues

as to how, with the net
of his nimble Nobel mind,
he’s somehow managed
to snag the naive

butterfly of belief,
he says he’s opened
his eyes to the darkness.
Just the darkness.

Larry D. Thomas served as the 2008 Texas Poet Laureate and is a member of the Texas Institute of Letters.  He has published several collections of poetry, including As If Light Actually Matters: New & Selected Poems (Texas A&M University Press 2015).  Journals in which his poetry has been published include The Windhover, Christian Science Monitor, Southwest Review, Poet Lore, and Relief: A Journal of Art and Faith.

Forgetting the Flashlight
		

Even after my eyes have adjusted,
it is not always possible 
to pick out the path.

Firs seem more massive.
Blind— feet trip.

Finding the woodpile,
I select a log 
like feeling Braille— 

Pitch, honey thick, sticks
to both hands.

Laying the log on the coals,
flames take hold—
burning the rings,
trips around the sun,
years lost, somewhere
behind us.

Mark Thalman is the author of Stronger Than the Current, The Peasant Dance, and Catching the Limit.  His poems have appeared in the Paterson Review, The MacGuffin, Pedestal Magazine, and Valparaiso Review, among many others. He has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Oregon.  Thalman retired from the public schools after teaching English and Creative Writing for 35 years.  Besides writing, he enjoys painting landscapes and wildlife art. Please visit markthalman.com. 

Bottom of the Box
 
So far, I’ve been lucky to live
a life I would perish for,
 
my everyday pockets full
of Cracker Jack surprises found
 
at the bottom of the box.
Having chosen to do what I most love
 
is one more reason to maneuver
through my days with awareness,                                         
 
instead of checking off a list
that won’t be long remembered.
 
I need a poem that gives permission
to disregard daily impositions,
 
tells me it’s wiser to commune
with the sunshine, then with the moonlight,
 
a poem that advocates my living
these hours as the miracle they are—
 
gems, reminding me to dwell,
as often as I can remember,
 
in wonder. Right now, that’s sharing
the sunset with blackbirds lined up
 
on the high wire, later in the company
of cooing owls and a full to bursting moon.  
 

Carolyn Chilton Casas is a Reiki master and teacher who loves to write about nature, mindfulness, and ways to heal. Her articles and poems have appeared in Braided Way, Energy, Odyssey, Grateful Living, Reiki News Magazine, and in other publications. You can read more of Carolyn’s work on Facebook, on Instagram @mindfulpoet_, or in her first collection of poems titled Our Shared Breath.

Aphorism #12


On beatitude. – With my beaten
will being broken,
I realize Beauty
after miles of radical reflection,
which have led to this low valley
dotted in purple and white flowers—
and the green beginnings—
along hills as rolling rises
between two steep climbs.

And there’s natural rapture
in the stream running across the way,
silent measure in stones
stepped upon while I further
into the exhaustion
of an inner finitude
known now by this late, repeating light—
falling onto the impulses of nature— 
as if veils from eyes.

After navigating around the angled
vision of a photographer,
who seems to be searching pathway
toward presence beyond image,
I pass over the sand and skeleton
of a dried-up creek bed,
to find beatitude when climbing
this narrow ascension
lined by wildflower. 

Alex Missall studied creative writing at the University of Cincinnati. His work has appeared in Alexandria Quarterly, Hole In The Head Review, The Basilisk Tree, and Superpresent, as well as other publications. He lives in the rural Midwest, where he enjoys the trails with his Husky, Betts. 

divine lepidopterology


to God the lepidopterologist i could ascribe
99 qualities or 99 to its power, but instead i
get stuck marveling at the quality of His sight.
you look upon me as i crawl across my life,
scuttling and striding in alternations, desperate
to keep my butterfly heart beating jauntily.
so soon will your tweezers come and pinch
and your needle thrust through me in one fell
swoop until i am in twain: vessel and that being
that was once your breath. i don’t need to beg
you, handle me gently. i know that you are being
so tender it would bring me to tears, that what
feels like you rocking me from side to bitter side
of my life is really the barest kiss. where does
one begin in questioning the expert? all i can
wonder is, how does my weeping seem to you?
from your vantage, is it an attempt to waterboard,
or a drop teetering, teetering on top of a penny?
 

a a khaliq is a poet and medical student from the midwest. she writes, in the tradition of kafka, to close her eyes. 

[The day my gods died]

The day my gods died I was afraid
they would take me with them.
I turned from prophets to poets,
and my church became 
a coffee shop named after a saint.
I went from right to wrong,
and all the wrongs became
questions, not sentences.
There’s a ball of ants at my feet,
pulling some leftovers toward a hole
too small to permit it entrance
but they’ll keep at it until dusk.
And I’ll keep pushing these things
until the lights go out or a bird shows up.

Jason Gabbert participates with words (those things that stir and explore the vast range of what it is to “be”) with simple sentences.

A Bit of What I’ve Learned

There will be detours, side trips in your journey. 
You will deviate from the path that is trodden. 
You can’t stay unconscious when you are lost. 
Pay attention. 
You’ll learn to be resourceful, to depend on the stranger. 
You’ll get stronger, softer at the center when moving on the edges. 
It’s there you’ll learn about radical acceptance. 

Then find your church even if its in a large box, a tree, 
in the pine sap, the mud, the tender green.
Love, make bread, feed someone kindness. 
Walk, take a nap, remember the Sabbath. 
Attend to your work. The doing will teach you. 
Garden, hang laundry, dig, chop the onion. 
Subtract from your life but take every offering:
the tears, the laughter, the good, bad, the ugly. 
Look the other in the eye, look anywhere, 
and see humanity all mingled together with divinity. 

Angela Hoffman’s poetry collections include Resurrection Lily and Olly Olly Oxen Free (Kelsay Books). She placed third in the WFOP Kay Saunders Memorial Emerging Poet in 2022. Her poems have been published internationally. She has written a poem a day since the start of the pandemic. Angela lives in rural Wisconsin.  

What Every Rose-Grower Should Know 
publ. The American Rose Society, Harrisburg, Pa., 1931 				       								  	

A Book of Rose-Progress for All 

In these pages are helps 
to carry a rose-friend 

forward. To strengthen the 
faith of rose-lovers, all history, 

all observations unrelated 
to propagation 

have been omitted.  


Bury in the Autumn, Plant in the Spring 

Spring planting is safe, 
if done early.  

Earliness is relative.


American Rose-Needs

There are, so far, no true yellow 
Hybrid Perpetuals.  Hope 

was high a few years ago 
when Peter Lambert announced 

Yellow Druschki, but it was yellow 
only in the bud. 


Protecting Roses from Enemies

Hybrid Multiflora provide 
many shades of red, pink, and 

white, but no good yellow, 
although several whitish varieties 

are flattered by the names Yellow 
Rambler, Sunny Gold, etc. 

Rosa Lucieae (the Memorial Rose)

Breeding yellow tones 
into this group 

seems to injure the form 
of the plant as well as 

the flower’s color.  It is 
hoped that this 

can be overcome.


The Elusive Recurring Climber

Recurrent blooming may 
be impending. Blaze, grown 

on new wood, has come 
again. New Dawn, a sport of 

Dr. G. Van Fleet, is reported 
twice returned.


Time to Order Your Roses 

Roses are grown for only 
one purpose – production 

of flowers. Their value 
lies in their ability 

to endure neglect. 


The Severer Zones 

Harison’s Yellow is required
for thin and difficult places. 

It is the only dependable yellow 
in the colder North.     


The Much-Desired Yellow Color 

There is a climbing Austrian 
Brier, known as Le Rêve, 

which is yet the deepest 
yellow in existence.


What to Make of a Diminished Thing  

The dotted line shows 
how to cut a rose.	

Colin Jeffrey Morris lives and writes in Berkshire County, Massachusetts. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Ekphrastic Review, Delmarva Review, Lily Poetry Review and descant.

Early Buddhism


Polly Cannon set off all by herself
to find un-named trees and lose her wrong self
like a basket or a love note. She looked
at leaves, branches, sky. She refused to chant.
The sounds that god-names made scared her infant
soul. She ignored birds. Learned no holy books
while scratching words in dust. She asked for no
meaning. She sat still. She breathed. She let go.

Mark J. Mitchell has worked in hospital kitchens, fast food, retail wine and spirits, conventions, tourism, and warehouses.He has also been a working poet for almost 50 years.An award-winning poet, he is the author of five full-length poetry collections, and six chapbooks. His latest collection is Something To Be from Pski’s Porch Publishing. He is very fond of baseball, Louis Aragon, Miles Davis, Kafka, Dante, and his wife, activist and documentarian Joan Juster. He lives in San Francisco, where he makes his marginal living pointing out pretty things. He can be found reading his poetry here: https://www.youtube.com/@markj.mitchell4351A meager online presence can be found at https://www.facebook.com/MarkJMitchellwriter/A primitive web site now exists: https://www.mark-j-mitchell.square.site/ He sometimes tweets @Mark J Mitchell_Writer

What the Light Can Conjure
 
If you find it
(and it may
find you unexpectedly),
hold on to it with your eyes
for a very long time.
Stretch it out against the evening
before it disappears.
If you’re lucky,
you can watch it go
back to where it came from.
 

Sarah Rehfeldt lives with her family in western Washington where she is a writer, artist, and photographer.  Her poems have appeared in Blueline; Appalachia; Presence: An International Journal of Spiritual Direction; and Weber – The Contemporary West.  She finds inspiration in the close-up world of macro nature photography.  Favorite subjects include her garden; the forest; cloudscapes; and the ever-plentiful raindrops of western Washington.  You can view her photography web pages at:  www.pbase.com/candanceski