This week let’s write a split the difference poem. No need for separate checks, we’ll keep is simple. Post your work below.
About Bartholomew Barker
Bartholomew Barker is an organizer of Living Poetry, where he has hosted monthly workshops for more than decade. His first poetry collection, Wednesday Night Regular, written in and about strip clubs, was published in 2013. His second, Milkshakes and Chilidogs, a chapbook of food inspired poetry was served in 2017. He was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2021, 2024 & 2025 as well as the Best of the Net Anthology in 2024. His work has appeared in The Lake, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Panoply, Tipton Poetry Journal, the Gyroscope Review and the Naugatuck River Review among others.
I think of an atom — with the enduring stateliness of nature behind it…
Ataraxia
If beliefs were atoms we were immune
from despair — the mystery of the living world
would reveal all in the rushing of water, the vapors
from a forest floor, even a growing wildfire
blackening the souls of trees, so wild and merciless,
just an excited wonder sweeping us to the great
joining/unjoining, throats become hoarse
singing our pressure waves of joy.
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Posted by Steve Croft | January 14, 2019, 12:24 PMExcellent work! I especially like your description of the wildfire.
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | January 14, 2019, 6:43 PMThanks — with the idea that splitting can be destruction, I guess. Glad I happened on your site.
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Posted by Steve Croft | January 15, 2019, 12:08 PM