This week let’s write a poem with the words avoid, court and slow 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.
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 
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Posted by crazy4yarn2 | October 20, 2025, 10:06 AMLove the honey’d words. Thanks for sharing, Nolcha!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | October 20, 2025, 7:24 PMThanks for your prompts – I always enjoy them!
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Posted by crazy4yarn2 | October 21, 2025, 9:20 AMThanks for the inspiration https://poetisatinta.wordpress.com/2025/10/21/justice/
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Posted by poetisatinta | October 21, 2025, 1:44 PMThanks for sharing!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | October 21, 2025, 7:01 PMCoincidence? I think not…
Falling in Love: Part 2
===============
In the heat of
eternal summer
the court date settled
fixed on the
online calendar
the leaves had fallen
already desiccated
blowing like the petals
spring had showered
on your car that day
they lay underfoot crunching
the soundtrack of my spirit
as the unrendable was rent
like the slow ripping
of sinew from bone
your new red car left
crushing the leaves
into even more suspended dust
tears ready to capture
the bitterness once so sweet
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Posted by Chris Clarke | October 23, 2025, 4:54 PMLove the visceral image in the 3rd stanza. Good job, Chris. Thanks for sharing!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | October 23, 2025, 6:29 PMJust curious.. was there any intentional correlation between this and last week’s prompt?
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Posted by Chris Clarke | October 23, 2025, 10:43 PMAbsolutely no correlation. Those three words were selected by rolling the dice.
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | October 23, 2025, 10:56 PM