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
Black, orange, green and brown
enough food here to feed a crowd!
Big ones, little ones, look at them all
plentiful bounty I’m happy it’s Fall!
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Posted by Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris | October 3, 2022, 11:29 AMHarvest time joy!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | October 3, 2022, 8:25 PMBack To Sunday
She walked into the room
flushed, illuminated
like first light of October
in the mountains.
If Jenny comes home for Christmas,
only the gleaming mornings of October,
sunset colored pumpkins in the field,
and corn stalks drying crisp light brown.
Only mountains rolling burnished
yellow and green
with flashes of peach,
and rust and glory.
Only the hackberry tree
covered and undulating away
in each of four directions
a trillion trillium-leafed world.
If Jenny comes home for Christmas
upward gold will leave gilt
our ground. To see her
we will not need to travel far.
Her face crinkled in a smile and I
slide down the slope of her
into a sunny place
with harvest blooms
A hummingbird glint of emerald
and blur,
Sunday dinner smells
through pale yellow,
Dust motes hang in space,
fullness, everlastingness,
in days abundant in
memory forever.
She was there, and life was.
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Posted by ts19page | October 3, 2022, 12:56 PMVery nice. I especially liked the “sunset colored pumpkins in the field” Great line!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | October 3, 2022, 8:27 PMThank you, Bartholomew, it was a colorful prompt, and seasonal!
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Posted by ts19page | October 4, 2022, 9:23 AMThey hallowed me out,
cut out eyes and a mouth,
stuck me on a wall.
The candlelight looks good in me
but I could do without the flies.
Fun fact: jack o lanterns used to be made from gourds until someone figured out pumpkins were easier to carve
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Posted by JeanMarie | October 3, 2022, 11:45 PMI Like the pun on ‘hollow out’. I have heard that too, about pumpkins taking over for gourds for Jack o’ Lanterns. I guess this is why a head might be referred to as a gourd.
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Posted by ts19page | October 4, 2022, 9:07 AMI never put the gourd/head thing together until you wrote that. Thanks!
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Posted by JeanMarie | October 4, 2022, 7:27 PMShould I admit that the “pun” was an error? 🙂 I thought I had typed “hollowed”…. runs away
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Posted by JeanMarie | October 4, 2022, 7:30 PMNo. If someone likes it, always claim it was intentional. Well done!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | October 4, 2022, 8:41 PMI’ve never tried to carve a gourd but I can imagine they’d be more difficult. Great little poem, especially the pun in the first line.
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | October 4, 2022, 6:41 PMPumpkin Field
Remember that pumpkin field
under the harvest moon
where we lay in the coolness of the night?
A beatle crawled around my ankle
while your fingers gliding between my longing
landed in a fire
ignited by our stardust kisses.
The shallow field matched our breaths.
The rough skin of the pumpkin fruits
reminded me of your raw passion
overcame the smoothness of my skin.
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Posted by Cassa Bassa | October 4, 2022, 5:34 PMWow. That’s hot. Well done!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | October 4, 2022, 6:43 PMThanks 😊
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Posted by Cassa Bassa | October 4, 2022, 7:20 PMAll
All the different colors
All stacked upon the ground
All different shapes and sizes
All used to be alive
All the sweet fruit of a life’s work
All beautiful in their own way
All soon to become rancid and soft
All too soon some might say
All victims of things beyond their control
All the same in the end
All in all just like us
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Posted by Chris Clarke | October 19, 2022, 10:08 PMVery nice and all too true.
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | October 20, 2022, 9:04 PM