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.
spring into summer’s call
let the rays pull the drifter into
toes crusted with sand and salt
woosh to waves to tickle, to chill
one welcome to frigid
to release the heat
twisted in the minds of goers
flushed away in the minds of seekers
fresh, open for new memories
maybe old memories
come to play
come to rest
come to go
LikeLiked by 4 people
Posted by Lisa Tomey-Zonneveld | June 5, 2023, 7:59 AMLovely! I especially liked the “woosh to waves to tickle” Great work!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Posted by Bartholomew Barker | June 5, 2023, 7:25 PMThank you!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Posted by Lisa Tomey-Zonneveld | June 9, 2023, 11:13 AMI love this, made me want to have a holiday.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Posted by Cassa Bassa | June 6, 2023, 6:17 PMThank you!
LikeLike
Posted by Lisa Tomey-Zonneveld | June 9, 2023, 11:14 AMIn response to Bartholomew Barker’s June Visual Poetry Prompt
Sentinel’s standing tall
guarding the paradisiacal island
year after year into decades
through light storms and squalls
Nothing touched them at all
their roots burrowed deep
fronds spread wide against
sun wind and balmy stalls
Late on the last day of Fall
onto the beach they came
carrying machines made by men
not one could withstand the thrall
Chopping down the lovely molle
used their wood for fancy chairs
on the beach where they had stood
victims of human cabal
LikeLiked by 4 people
Posted by Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris | June 5, 2023, 8:20 AMExcellent and sad!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Posted by Bartholomew Barker | June 5, 2023, 7:27 PMThank you Bartholomew! 🙏
LikeLiked by 1 person
Posted by Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris | June 6, 2023, 3:02 AMIndeed, keep the trees and leave them alone.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Posted by Cassa Bassa | June 6, 2023, 6:18 PMMost definitely. Thank you for reading and commenting! 🙏
LikeLiked by 1 person
Posted by Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris | June 6, 2023, 6:24 PMExpressed well about the degrading of those valued walls who can no longer be seen.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Posted by Lisa Tomey-Zonneveld | June 9, 2023, 11:34 AMThank you Lisa! 😊
LikeLiked by 1 person
Posted by Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris | June 9, 2023, 3:06 PMVacation
My brain imagines
seas so blue, so transparent,
she can see the sharks.
My brain imagines
white beaches, warmed by the sun.
She can see the sand-prints
through the house.
My brain imagines
a vacation of rest and sunburn.
Nah, that’s not going to happen.
She might die
from some exotic disease.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Posted by nolchafox | June 5, 2023, 9:03 AMHa! Don’t forget the horrors of air travel these days. Great little poem.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Posted by Bartholomew Barker | June 5, 2023, 7:29 PMGlad you like “Vacation!” Travel is a whole new poem, I think.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Posted by nolchafox | June 5, 2023, 8:17 PMHaha go away intrusive thoughts.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Posted by Cassa Bassa | June 6, 2023, 6:18 PMShe’s got a lot on her mind. A vacation prescribed for renewal.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Posted by Lisa Tomey-Zonneveld | June 9, 2023, 11:31 AMI was there in May
A Mother’s Day retreat
A weekend get a way
Lazing away in a tropical paradise
Intoxicated by nature, the roll of blues, fairytale skies and shifting sand beneath
LikeLiked by 3 people
Posted by DanielleM | June 5, 2023, 10:18 AMLovely! Especially that last line. Thanks for sharing!
LikeLike
Posted by Bartholomew Barker | June 5, 2023, 7:30 PMIsn’t it the best thing to have such a glorious retreat.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Posted by Lisa Tomey-Zonneveld | June 9, 2023, 11:29 AMYes it is! Think I need another. longer time away. lol.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Posted by DanielleM | June 16, 2023, 12:06 PMPeaceable Solutions
The living die to reach paradise
It is a strange conundrum
in a philosopher’s mind’s eye
What reigned once as a haven true
now soiled and sold for a bucks few
It belongs to no one and traded yet
between littering and the filthy lots
the bitter escapists who deny life
peddle their petty plastic fortune
to enter the light of this heaven
to dirty, to debauch and to destroy
LikeLiked by 3 people
Posted by utopicdystopian | June 5, 2023, 10:50 AMGreat work! Especially the alliteration in the last line. Thanks for sharing!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Posted by Bartholomew Barker | June 5, 2023, 7:33 PMMany thanks!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Posted by utopicdystopian | June 5, 2023, 7:45 PMThis is excellent. I like your last line, how it drops the mic.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Posted by Lisa Tomey-Zonneveld | June 9, 2023, 11:28 AMThank you so much ☺️
LikeLiked by 1 person
Posted by utopicdystopian | June 9, 2023, 9:27 PM6 word story – The beach is my happy place! 🙂 And that beach is what I would consider paradise on earth!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Posted by Susi Bocks | June 28, 2023, 4:33 PMLovely! It’s ironic that you live about as far away from the shore as one can in these United States.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Posted by Bartholomew Barker | June 28, 2023, 6:24 PMInorite?!?!?!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Posted by Susi Bocks | June 28, 2023, 11:54 PM