This week is the Summer Solstice, Tuesday at 5:14am EDT to be precise, so let’s write a summer poem. This one should be fairly easy since all you’ll need to do is step outside and feel the heat and humidity in the air. Of course, there’s more to summer than the weather.
And for our Southern Hemisphere poets, write a winter poem. Embrace the cold and dark or recall your memories of winters past.
Wherever you’re sitting on this tilting planet, post your poem 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.
Living Poetry 
Here is my summer poem Bart ..
Hotter Than Helios
Today is hotter than hot
This town’s a living melting pot
You could fry an egg without a cook-top
I won’t be taking Frankie for a trot
My body’s losing the plot
Waiting for my aorta’s mystery clots
My writing’s burnt out, on Helios hill
Leaving an arid inkwell, holding a dry quill
Despite the heat, an exercise session I’ll do, It’s my will
To continue with this daily drill
No excuses, to lose sight of spring’s daffodil
Working out, like I’m an old grinding flour-mill
Even if I’m over-baked, like Sunday’s hot roast
For her, I’ll take life’s chances to the utmost
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Posted by ivor20 | June 20, 2022, 7:29 AMA stunning summer sonnet!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | June 20, 2022, 8:25 PMThank you Bart … the heat got to me!!
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Posted by ivor20 | June 20, 2022, 8:30 PMHi Bartholomew! Here’s the link to my response. Having difficulty with this site again!
https://gypsieswritingmusingsquotesgripes.com/2022/06/20/summer-warmth/
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Posted by Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris | June 20, 2022, 9:37 AMLove the insect and reptile references. Well done!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | June 20, 2022, 8:27 PMSummertime!
Heat waves rise
As they shimmer
It’s the first hot days
Of a sweltering Summer
Iced drinks clink
Folks get slimmer
Heading to beaches
Eyeing each newcomer
Poetree ©️ June 20, 2022
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Posted by Kathy Jo Bryant | June 20, 2022, 10:39 AMLove the “Iced drinks clink” line. Great work!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | June 20, 2022, 8:30 PMThe blackness of night
once hard and strong
rules over her shrinking domain
before the deepest indigos
seep in
softening her edges
heralding another failure
far to the northeast
a color gamut
undigitized
without moire
marks this day as the antipode
of her greatest triumph
when she ruled
in crushed velvet blackness
But now
she submits to Sol’s ascendancy
holding a garland of auroras above his disk
invisible in his garish glory
day’s lofty triumph
carried in the celestial chariot
across the sky
But
in quiet defiance
she will not whisper the customary warning
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Posted by Chris Clarke | June 20, 2022, 10:57 PMLove the “holding a garland of auroras” line. Great work! Happy Solstice!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | June 21, 2022, 4:32 PMAphelion Catch
Earth swings testily toward
its escape, fleeing the vicinity
of the near star, only to slant
south, lean into tropical.
We stop working, weak from heat,
cringing in the shade line of the roof
edging sideways for cool, plotting paths
under pendulous moss of live oaks trees,
where squirrels lie splayed along the branches.
Inside we clink ice cubes
up against the glass
of August, high noon,
one latitude north of the tropics.
Pellucid water glints above
the torrid bit of lake,
warming fish past swimming,
heavy water holds them still,
Prying ultraviolet in sheaves
of purple wavers between the weeds,
turtles hover under the dock
holding out for sundown,
static weather, fish dreams.
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Posted by ts19page | June 21, 2022, 4:44 PMLove the “clink ice cubes / up against the glass / of August” line. Great work!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | June 21, 2022, 4:56 PMThanks Bartholomew, appreciated.
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Posted by ts19page | June 21, 2022, 4:57 PMFor some reason, I stopped receiving emails, but JeanMarie assured me there was a prompt.
Who doesn’t love
a good Druid story in June
to balance November’s ghosts
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Posted by Second Act Blogger | June 24, 2022, 5:17 PMThere’s a prompt every Monday. Well, most every Monday. I have been known to forget.
Love the solstice haiku. Thanks for sharing!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | June 24, 2022, 10:08 PMPure Heat
Your perfume hits me
before the summer heat
You walk through the door
while peeling off a work day
Your tan skin busies my eyes
through the shower screen
I race toward you
just in time
Before the cooling water cascades down your toned frame
I bury myself in you
unleashing a full day’s longing
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Posted by Cassa Bassa | June 26, 2022, 9:18 AMWow. That’s hot! Perfect for summer.
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | June 26, 2022, 10:48 AM😁 need an ice block.
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Posted by Cassa Bassa | June 26, 2022, 4:44 PM