This week let’s write a poem with the words court, rise and tax 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.
(These words are direct from the dice roll. No political agenda on my part. Honest!)
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 
I woke this morning …
Thousands of innocent Gazans did not.
All members of Hamas … no doubt.
That infant – his 6yr old brother – their twin sisters, both 9 … their mom …
Huddled together in a corner of what once was their home …
All … now gone.
I woke this morning.
They did not.
Not one left alive.
How can I NOT call that genocide?
I woke this morning. And cried.
Is this, their tax for being born,
levied by your Court of Blind Revenge?
They will rise again
One morning,
They will rise again.
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Posted by Dennis | November 20, 2023, 8:44 AMHear! Hear!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | November 20, 2023, 7:47 PMNight Stalkings
I court the moon in fishnet stockings, mink, and buxom breasts a-heave in velvet. How I want the velvet of the night to hold me in its starry hands. The moon is taxed with shooing sunsets, making room for dark. She won’t rise to my desires. I’ll return when she is full of milk and I’m a lunatic for love I know she doesn’t feel. She’s just a rock a’rolling lonely, high above my head.
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Posted by nolchafox | November 20, 2023, 10:55 AMLovely! Especially the sexy opening image.
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | November 20, 2023, 7:49 PMThank you so much! This piece definitely went elsewhere.
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Posted by nolchafox | November 20, 2023, 7:58 PMLikeLike
Posted by Bartholomew Barker | November 21, 2023, 7:47 PM