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.
Living Poetry
Should I ask the lord’s gardener
for direction
my dandelions think
they are sunflowers?
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Posted by Dennis Gray | May 3, 2021, 3:48 PMExcellent! Let’s all aspire to sunflowerhood!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | May 3, 2021, 6:32 PMPerhaps they are expressing solidarity with Ukraine.
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Posted by ts19page | April 29, 2022, 2:48 PMI Am One of Us
They are puzzled about me
An eccentric nerd
bury herself in books
walk in summer storm
stare at the sky for hours
A sore thumb
standing out in small talks
unable to pick up social cues
receive no offense of sarcasm
I am told that
I am the eighth colour
of the rainbow
I am just as beautiful
as all the other flowers
in the field
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Posted by Cassa Bassa | May 3, 2021, 10:26 PMSome grammar correction pending 😳
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Posted by Cassa Bassa | May 3, 2021, 10:27 PMThis is poetry, grammar is optional.
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | May 3, 2021, 10:43 PMI like that! 😄
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Posted by Cassa Bassa | May 3, 2021, 10:45 PMAh, Violet, I missed you. Well done!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | May 3, 2021, 10:43 PMThank you! 😄😊
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Posted by Cassa Bassa | May 3, 2021, 10:43 PMhttp://flickerofthoughts.com/2021/05/04/i-am-one-of-us/
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Posted by Cassa Bassa | May 3, 2021, 10:28 PMred, white, blue flowers
Not a patriotic meadow
Just a coincidence
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Posted by JeanMarie | May 3, 2021, 10:34 PMThat’s right. The flag stole the colors from the flowers.
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | May 3, 2021, 10:45 PMIt was just a short term think
now my dandelions
have white hair like me
some have even lost it
on top.
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Posted by Dennis Gray | May 4, 2021, 7:49 AMGreat poem Dennis
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Posted by JeanMarie | May 12, 2021, 1:13 AMI will pick
the sweet clover
join the stems
make two rings
to place upon our crowns
for our lovers march
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Posted by Lisa Tomey | May 5, 2021, 7:15 PMRomantic!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | May 5, 2021, 7:49 PMIt’s just what came my way. Thank you!
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Posted by Lisa Tomey | May 7, 2021, 8:21 AMoooohhh Lisa! Now I need someone to make me a ring of flowers to wear!
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Posted by JeanMarie | May 12, 2021, 1:12 AMreceptors open
right hemisphere
luminance, hue, polarity
field of color
lavender and blue
red and green
and darkness
Before before
Before after
Before Is
Before the
(Song sparrow)
left hemisphere
the pattern-matching monkey
I am, again, for what it’s worth
I know things
the things that surround me
things that are
things that were
things that may be
and feel the burden of the loss of Eve
and I look out on a
field of color
The Lavender and the Blue
The Red and the Green
(O, the Greens!)
and the darkness
where she stands
no longer me
no longer mine
separate
one flesh rent in two
now that I am
and feel the breath entering my lungs
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Posted by Chris Clarke | May 8, 2021, 10:10 PMVery interesting and somewhat cryptic, which I like. I’m intrigued by the loss of Eve imagery. Well done.
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | May 9, 2021, 12:46 PMapril showers bring,
may flowers
daises bloom,
smell of flower perfume
the awakening summer,
with loads of color
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Posted by inky | April 29, 2022, 2:25 PMVery nice. Thanks for writing to this nearly year old prompt!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | April 29, 2022, 7:57 PMCrown
One thousand roses
strive to bloom;
April in the pergola,
spring in the standing stone,
Old thorns branch new-leafed
under the silver spikes
of Corona Borealis,
Below, in motley shade,
of fattening robin, emerald clover,
the wandering man entreats
that sterling, cyclical caress
of Arianrhod.
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Posted by ts19page | April 29, 2022, 3:47 PMLove the mythic and astronomical references both!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | April 29, 2022, 8:02 PMThank you, Bartholomew.
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Posted by ts19page | April 29, 2022, 10:35 PM