October 2022 | Best of Net nominee, poetry
The Local
oak and leather corner pub
warm glow of Guinness
tensions softly fold to sighs
beyond these walls
irrelevance
Speakers
Eyes
That widen in surprise
Tear in sympathy
Smile
Pen
That writes of playful things
Whose ink spills out in flourishes
Drawing pictures in words
Laptop
That clicks with musical beat
Whose letters speak to screen
In engineered friendship
Screen
That explodes, whispers, cries
a tale I don’t want to hear
but I can’t turn off
Hands
That speak of love
With the softest caress
on the cheek
Voice
Muffled by mask
That can’t hide the smile
In the eyes
Ode to Candle Stub
Wax almost spent, wick bent and blackened
dripping life blood of self in service
sleeping old soldier
bivouacked in the back of the drawer
Ignored
found when pawing for pen or twist tie
always ready, willing to accept
the sweet kiss of fire, illumine
the great pool of dark as strong as
younger, taller, more fortified
tapering heights
Service to the end of life
Service to the depths of self
Service highly valued
to the stubby end
Cathy Hollister
Cathy Hollister is an older writer whose poetry often explores the treasures embedded in age, isolation, and continual readjustments. When not writing you might find her on the dance floor enjoying the company of friends or deep in the woods basking in the peace of solitude. Her work has been in Silent Spark Press, Humans of the World Blog, Open Door Magazine, Beyond Words Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine, Poet’s Choiceanthologies, and others. She lives in middle Tennessee.
October 2022 | Best of Net nominee, poetry
Would love to bake chocolate chip cookies again with you. Do not
care if we ate all the dough and had no cookies to eat. Miss you.
Come as you are. Do not care if there’s bones, skin, or nothing. As long
as it’s you. I will know you by your laugh or simply your touch. Miss
you. We never did get to run that half marathon together.
Was run in your honor. A full too. When you come please bring that
cheesy pepperoni bread. Soooo delicious. Have not been
able to duplicate it. The cheese melts into the dough and it’s terrible
re-heated. Think it’s the wrong kind of dough. You would know.
Miss you. Heartbreaking life experiences shatter. I’m sorry.
I am sorry I failed you. Would love to hug you. Hard. Kiss your check.
Your forehead. Hug you again. To many unsaid goodbyes. I know
you said goodbye before you left forever. Knew it. Felt it.
Here. Inside. Look for you in my dreams … into that wide darkness … can’t
find you. Will forever Miss You. Riding brought you so much joy … exuberance.
You wanted to go faster and faster … as fast as the horse’s hooves would
run … which now pound my heart … my head. It’s almost spring.
Daffodils sprouting and covered in snow. You loved their yellow happiness.
I remember you telling me how pissed you were with your mom for making
you pick the ones in the field. Planting time. Dogs running through the
garden … playfully trampling all your plants. We are all dog hoarders now. Miss you.
The sea is calling. We can walk on the beach. Looking for sand dollars, shells,
and starfish. Let me know where to meet. We’ll both show up. Bring that
blue jean hat we all loved. The one where your white blond uncontrollable curls
tumble out. We have so much to catch up on. I want to hear all about
Heaven … how you’re doing. I’ll bring the cheesy pepperoni bread and flowers.
Daffodils or Sunflowers? The new dog will be on a leash. You’ll love him.
He’s a foodie too. Any time. Any place. Or just the dining room table.
That’s fine too. Just come.
MD Bier
MD Bier is a binge reader and you’ll always find a book with her. Her writing reflects her passion for social change and social issues. Being part of the Project Write Now Community is where she writes and studies poetry. She has been published in the Write Launch, Humans of the World, New Brunswick Poetry Anthology, and the New Brunswick Windows on the World. MD Bier lives in NJ with her family and dog.
October 2022 | poetry
Dear Tina,
Is it possible your turtleness has something to sing?
Bought with a boy’s allowance, you’ve learned
a new word: plunder, a contribution
to mid-grade reptilian literature.
Is it possible a diva like you
is drawn to a spot of light? You were there
that day with the boy in his room. You seem
desperate to speak. Perhaps some ember of his
infiltrated your shell. He couldn’t sing
either. His head was your Goodyear blimp.
Now, all the lonely hours you’ve shredded.
What were you thinking as he hung there?
The world has many competent turtle people,
but I’m not one of them. I’m sorry.
I tried to give you away but you’re
one of the most invasion species here.
All the turtle literature warned against
plopping red-eared sliders into random habitats.
And now you have mental health issues. You
seem urgent. O Tina, tell me you miss
that boy, that body you watched grow up,
appearing and disappearing like a
companionship of wind, suddenly still,
then gone. Still. Gone.
Brian Builta
Brian Builta lives in Arlington, Texas, and works at Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth. He has recently published poems in Jabberwock Review, Juke Joint Magazine, and South Florida Poetry Journal, with poems forthcoming in New Ohio Review and TriQuarterly.
October 2022 | poetry
Downpour pelts windows, rakes roof
like shards hurled in menace.
The torrent brakes slowly, as though coaxed to relent.
A respite that cradles seeds of relief that will soon
vanish, Scott thinks as he zooms in on a cardinal’s
cautious dip in a puddle beyond its sheltered nest.
Choice lies in the space between frames.
Focus to see it, or miss it & get carved by tides.
Worse yet, see it and stand struck, a piano key stuck
unhinged from resonance. Scott once found consonance
with Steph under a willow tree, a refuge from raindrops
that soaked their skin as sunlight dappled through
storm clouds. Creeping myrtle carpeted ground where
he went down on one knee, weather be damned.
He’d still make that choice after seeing
the frames that followed: currents that surged
and swept them in their wake. Adrift, he crops
the cardinal shot, softens shadows until
its color pops, stashes it amid thousands of
moments frozen in time, sketches on fogged glass
stiffened into stone. Steph murmurs, voice barely
a whimper since her last chemo. He
lets go
of his camera, its lens
powerless before a butterfly’s floundering flutter.
V.A. Bettencourt
A. Bettencourt writes poetry and flash fiction. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Magma Poetry, The American Journal of Poetry, and Willows Wept Review, among others.
October 2022 | poetry
1.
With boulders, or another substance that can’t burn, I’ll build a barn,
buy Nigerian goats to bounce with favored popcorn sheep.
Animals kicking bare bone as wildfire steams a skyline.
2.
Goatee on my chin, the soul of California is burning like a lung.
I’m goat eye, horizontal, confusing as three pupils,
a shag of helpless, readying to die in the coming singe.
3.
I don’t eat meat from a table though mouths I love
water at the char of curry. Sweet strings of shoulder,
a chew of God meat in the cheek of a funky heaven.
Robert Carr
Robert Carr is the author of Amaranth, published in 2016 by Indolent Books and The Unbuttoned Eye, a full-length 2019 collection from 3: A Taos Press. Among other publications his poetry appears in Crab Orchard Review, Lana Turner Journal, the Maine Review, the Massachusetts Review and Shenandoah. Selected by the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance, he is the recipient of a 2022 artist residency at Monson Arts. Additional information can be found at robertcarr.org
October 2022 | poetry
I’m standing on my head and typing with my toes
because this is for you,
So …
Who’s going to sell those autographs-of-jesus?
Who’s going to snort Beethoven to the clouds?
Who will anoint our hearth with Velveeta?
And who will love me like Livin’ Is A Breeze?
In-furigated,
re-pooperated,
beanie-brained as we pleased,
it was easy to be in love
when livin’ was a breeze.
“Let’s take our feet with us wherever we go”
Ok. And keep them safe inside our shoes
(but if a puppy sucks on our toes, that’s ok, too).
Then we’ll run down rabbits on the way to our soul,
ask the wind which way to go,
then finally, we’ll know how sad we can be:
Making love,
we couldn’t help but press your dying into me;
couldn’t help but want
my life for you.
Gary Lee Barkow practices Tai Chi and walks around feeling loved. He keeps a flashlight by his futon in case he has a brilliant idea at night. He doesn’t know where poetry comes from, so he enjoys the mystery. He likes: Mathematics, aeroplanes with propellers, earthworms, the San Francisco 49ers and rock ‘n’ roll.
