
This week let’s write a lost poem. We lose things all the time, keys, games, patience, patients. Post your findings in the comments below.
About Bartholomew Barker
Bartholomew Barker is an organizer of Living Poetry, a collection of poets in the Triangle region of North Carolina where he has hosted a monthly feedback workshop 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 a Pushcart Prize in 2021. Born and raised in Ohio, studied in Chicago, he worked in Connecticut for nearly twenty years before moving to Hillsborough where he lives and writes poetry.
Just posted my poem: https://bartbarkerpoet.com/2019/03/11/lost-keys/
LikeLiked by 1 person
Posted by Bartholomew Barker | March 11, 2019, 8:24 PMI was going to clean the house
but I lost my oomphty-oomph
I was going to call you
but I checked Facebook and lost the time
I set that item down just now
then I turned around it was gone
I was going to write a poem
but I lost the words
Of all the things I’ve lost
my mind is what I miss the most
LikeLiked by 1 person
Posted by JeanMarie | March 12, 2019, 1:31 AMI like the oomphty-oomph. Nice work!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Posted by Bartholomew Barker | March 12, 2019, 12:06 PMIf you find the hidden key
never lost by you, but found
nonetheless
what is it that you do with said key?
Would you try to use it
when you don’t know the door
or simply or not simply ask
the keeper of the key
if you are sure
Is this yours?
Be sure that when you ask
you are able
to handle the answer
or evasiveness
for I can tell you this
it’s for a great amount of certain
it’s his
Now, how’s that for turning
stomachs
hearts
livers
wringing tears from the eyes
of trust
LikeLiked by 2 people
Posted by Lisa Tomey | March 12, 2019, 7:50 AMLove the “wringing tears from eyes”.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Posted by Bartholomew Barker | March 12, 2019, 12:10 PMThank you…I rather favored it myself.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Posted by Lisa Tomey | March 12, 2019, 12:12 PMI like the desperation in disclosing what you lost.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Posted by Jess | March 13, 2019, 11:30 PMDark Room 2
She loved her photographs,
capturing other people’s moments
while they lived life
and she resolutely displaced
her identity.
It was far easier
to slink and sink
beneath the swell of the waves
of the others who were
more lucid.
It was far more evocative
to vanish
behind her lens,
seeking her next victim,
misplacing the viscera of herself.
With each click, her passion
turned her into a cannibal.
She craved other people’s
memories, dreams, triumphs, failures-
her own false collection!
My own, she thought hollowly.
She looked around her
and not even her authorship mattered.
Pictures, faded and aged from
time’s imprint,
mocked her secretly with
garish shades and shadows,
for she had capped her own
camera long ago.
Why, she asked, would I want those
irritating flashes in my eyes?
As the dark room served
as her new shelter,
she lost the reason
to develop herself.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Posted by Jess Chappell | March 13, 2019, 11:36 PMLove the ” slink and sink beneath the swell of the waves” and the cannibal metaphor. Great work!
LikeLike
Posted by Bartholomew Barker | March 14, 2019, 8:58 AM