This week let’s write a poem with the words combine, time and upon in it. This is another of those prompts where I randomly choose three words from a list of the top 1000 words in the English language plus a few of my favorites. Post your poems 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 
Upon the throne toils
the combine combines all things
Time and Life and Soil
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Posted by Chris Clarke | October 17, 2022, 11:25 AMVery agricultural! I must admit that was my first thought when the dice threw the word “combine”. Well done!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | October 17, 2022, 8:34 PMSquare, Dancing
We are arabesques of water, space, and light.
What happens to such interludes
upon the approach of night?
Photons zoom self-consciously,
hovering around, expecting echoing,
a generative sound.
Quanta zoom recklessly, with abandon,
strings vibrate bass and brass,
the edge of the forest
grows best the grass.
Loosely connected,
our incidence of particle,
our fleeting wave in time
is another galaxy in its fiddler’s rhyme,
What happens to the mist we are,
when we fall in love
the song the supple strings hum
as we run across a field reddened in the sun
We leave the ground leaping, every organ feels the rise
of combined melodies, a spectra of the skies
waving into wheat like gold, apple red,
the translucent green of leaf.
We focus on the given thing
before we open up our hand
and let fall sparkling, the scooped up sand,
deaf to the star-studded encore, the call-back
for members of the band.
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Posted by ts19page | October 17, 2022, 12:08 PMExcellent use of the subatomic. Well done!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | October 17, 2022, 8:43 PMThanks! Appreciate the feedback.
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Posted by ts19page | October 18, 2022, 9:36 AMIn the alchemy of time
there was once an elixir
meant to combine stones
of heart with butterflies
in the stomach
to bring to life, love.
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Posted by utopicdystopian | October 17, 2022, 12:20 PMHa! Love the way you played with the stones and butterflies in our bodies. Great job!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | October 17, 2022, 8:45 PMThank you!
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Posted by utopicdystopian | October 17, 2022, 10:29 PMhttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1cD7iCvWwPRUfCJQBKmFPAwLM0KLxXLyRHR62G_xRKB4/edit?usp=sharing
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Posted by Paula | October 17, 2022, 4:36 PMThe final awakening, but sad.
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Posted by ts19page | October 17, 2022, 5:12 PMNicely done. I didn’t realize, until you wrote it, that “Once upon a time” has two of the three prompted words.
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | October 17, 2022, 8:48 PMOnce upon a time
I combined words into poetry
new and sparkly
Now I recycle cliches
in boring unoriginal ways
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Posted by JeanMarie | October 18, 2022, 3:19 AMNice little poem but strong disagree on the ending.
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | October 18, 2022, 7:29 PMOnce we wed
We combined resources
Nothing plus nothing is still nothing
May as well be joint
With the passage of time
Resources are not nothing
But we struggle to keep the binding from unraveling
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Posted by Second Act Blogger | October 18, 2022, 11:43 PMForgot upon. Posted too late
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Posted by Second Act Blogger | October 19, 2022, 5:25 AMNo problem. I didn’t even notice.
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | October 19, 2022, 5:40 PMGreat description of a marriage. Well done!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | October 19, 2022, 5:39 PMNice work!
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Posted by JeanMarie | October 20, 2022, 3:32 AMJerusalem
Tears combine mud upon the soiled reality
Time stand still on her wailing
for her innocence no more
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Posted by Cassa Bassa | October 20, 2022, 12:58 AMA lovely little haiku. Thank you and congratulations on your Pushcart nomination!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | October 20, 2022, 9:08 PMI love to write to your prompt whenever I manage. Thank you. I am very honoured to be nominated. ☺️
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Posted by Cassa Bassa | October 20, 2022, 9:22 PMNever enough time
Naivety robbing chunks of mine
Tender ages torture my heart
My virtue so many ripped apart
Adolescence transcended upon thee
The most intense hope came over she
A love so pure, so hard to find
Too bad we were not well timed
But this one is the headline
Mangled heart and soul combined
A part of me shattered by you
Your shackles bonding us two
Pleading in my mind
Redemption I beg to find
Always know I tried
Never once zombified
Never enough time
For an awfully steep climb
More like a total free fall
Not black and white after all
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Posted by SummerGal06 | October 20, 2022, 10:16 AMVery nice, especially that last stanza. Thanks for sharing!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | October 20, 2022, 9:10 PM