Take a leap with this prompt and post your poem in the comments below.
About Bartholomew Barker
Bartholomew Barker is an organizer of Living Poetry, where he has hosted monthly workshops 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 the Pushcart Prize in 2021, 2024 & 2025 as well as the Best of the Net Anthology in 2024. His work has appeared in The Lake, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Panoply, Tipton Poetry Journal, the Gyroscope Review and the Naugatuck River Review among others.
Living Poetry
Love, Unleashed
Goodbye, restraint, goodbye, self-doubt.
You’re coins unrolled that spin and spread across the floor.
You’re bird set free from gilded cage.
And when you leap,
you fly.
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Posted by nolchafox | August 7, 2023, 1:30 PMLove the coins image. Great work!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | August 7, 2023, 9:01 PMThanks so much!
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Posted by nolchafox | August 7, 2023, 9:05 PMDescent, Deceit
Jackniving with joy,
she shot down the hill
like a marble in a run,
wobbling wildly, gravel
running for cover
from her mad paws
here was a real world!
every step soaked with scent,
rabbit and possum and rain
pine needles and leaf rot
a cat’s spray, a deer’s
soft footfalls. Hers to know,
to guess at, to wonder,
gleeful ineffability.
the bank, the sand, a glorious texture
spurting in showers through her toes,
and below, shining, smooth,
a bright new road.
She launched into light,
fuzzy puppy legs stretching for surface,
splashed, sputtered, squirmed to shore,
and won’t go down to the river anymore.
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Posted by Hannah | August 10, 2023, 4:13 PMHa! Love the “like a marble in a run” the “gravel running for cover” and the “gleeful ineffability” Brilliant!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | August 10, 2023, 9:44 PMLikeLike
Posted by Bartholomew Barker | August 14, 2023, 8:24 PM