This week let’s write a peacemaker poem. Peace, like poetry, is hard work. If it were easy, there wouldn’t be so many wars.
Post your piece 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 
This poem is about making peace (or not) with a loved one dying. And there’s a play on piece maker with the cup glued together. Ok, it’s a reach.
Years after you die
I cling to you.
Your letters torn
and smudged with tears,
they crumble in my hands.
Your photos faded
from the sun, I barely
see you there.
Your favorite cup.
the pieces glued,
I cannot throw it out.
I won’t believe
that I can grow
away from memories.
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Posted by nolchafox | September 11, 2023, 9:47 AMVery nice. I bet you could write something interesting expanding on the glued-together cup as a image of grief or moving on.
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | September 11, 2023, 7:52 PMGreat idea, I’ll cogitate and write on that one!
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Posted by nolchafox | September 11, 2023, 8:55 PMSometimes, poetry demands to be written down
sometime even the muse wants her picture taken
This was not a poem
until it was
but it is not the poem that is to come – JCC 9/11/23
———————————————————————-
Suddenly
a quickening
Early morning flights
before sunrise
delayed, delayed
delayed by fog
George Winston is dead
gone behind Capulin’s shadow
imaginary images of cars
left in the lot
across from the Dubliner in Red Bank
closed
through windows at 4 AM
long after the Dubliner was gone
Robin’s Egg blue, forever tainted
The water is broken
emotional progestrone
an elephant carries her young for 22 months
can a poem gestate for 22 years?
I will wait here for her to come.
a vernix-covered miracle
Gossamer, free to fly
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Posted by Chris Clarke | September 11, 2023, 1:25 PMInteresting imagery. (I didn’t know George Winston had died.) Especially that last stanza. Lovely!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | September 11, 2023, 8:01 PM