This week let’s write a poem featuring a vending machine. Did you know there were vending machines in ancient Rome? I don’t think that fact alone is worthy of a poem but I do think vending machines are under-represented in poetry. Let’s change that by posting such a poem 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 
It lived outside
under the eaves
along the crinkled wall
beside a pool of water
desiccating the shop’s corner
below the sixty-hertz hum
of old fluorescent lights
dimmed by weather and time
and tobacco smoke
from years of old men
from the old plant
quickly inhaling
invigorating death
their lungs exhaling their
life into the world
a sacrifice to the memory
of old Buck and his bright leaf
$1.25 a pack for Marlboros
the price of the old
vending machine says
unchanged for 40 years
why don’t people buy their smokes
here rather than across the street
LED-lit music playing
on screens above every alcove
dancing figures in a
two-dimensional perfect world
twenty-four-hours a day
$6.25 a pack
I put in five quarters
pull the nicotine-stained
phenol-tipped steel shaft
out three inches
the pride of the heartland
gears turn
the triplet plays
and a fresh pack drops
to the metal floor
I reach in
grab the box
and head home
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Posted by Chris Clarke | August 10, 2026, 9:19 AMLove the description in the first stanza. Well done, Chris. Thanks for sharing.
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | August 10, 2026, 8:00 PMHere’s my take Bart 💜
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Posted by Maggie | August 10, 2026, 10:50 AMVery nice and all too true. Thanks for sharing.
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | August 10, 2026, 8:03 PMHappy you liked it 😊
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Posted by Maggie | August 10, 2026, 9:11 PMA very interesting challenge 😃https://poetisatinta.wordpress.com/2026/08/10/living-poetry-8/
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Posted by poetisatinta | August 10, 2026, 12:42 PMI’m try to keep things interesting around here. Thanks for sharing, Ange!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | August 10, 2026, 8:13 PM💯
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Posted by poetisatinta | August 11, 2026, 5:59 AMhere is my offering:
https://alittlebitofeverythingwithlove.com/2026/08/10/vending-machine/
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Posted by lisaapaul | August 11, 2026, 12:42 PM