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
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