The trees are holding hands
in the deep dark
like quiet teenagers
at a drive-in movie
While high above
a woodpecker sucks
the sap seeping
from newly drilled holes
Although this poem isn’t about sex
it is Spring
and all the world is blossoming
with fresh unfurled lust
(for this week’s Living Poetry prompt, written with my friends at Charles House after we read some famous Spring poems. Believe it or not, they mentioned the woodpecker before I told them about the prompt.)
“To be interested in the changing seasons is … a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.” ~ George Santayana
Spring knocked on my door this morning,
all dressed in pink, babbling about the daffodils.
She’d cut her hair short over the winter.
Still pale as a snowdrift, we collected mushrooms,
without our jackets and I felt like a blossom,
opening to the warming sun, wet with naiveté.
We slept windows open, so I’m sure my neighbors heard
but we didn’t care since the trees were doing it too.
I can’t help but fall in love again, like I do every year,
even though I know she’ll be leaving soon,
all too soon.
Silk scarf ’round your neck
lust pulling tight — seeing stars
trust leaves you breathless
(for Sammi Cox’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Breathtaking)
Before I fold the square
I write a little poem
something brief and cryptic
like a poorly translated fortune
If I’ve folded a boat
I’ll launch on the creek
let it float downstream
to a reader or some hungry fish
If I’ve folded a paper fly
I’ll throw it from the balcony
at the windiest part of the day
hoping a stranger will catch
I have buckets of flowers
folded from pied pages
and when I drive down the interstate
they blossom from the bed of my pickup
Littering the side of the road
wildflowers of variegated poetry
Retrieval of sticks
is a serious matter
except from water
for this week’s Living Poetry Prompt
Last Friday Susi Bocks from The Short of It interviewed me about the next anthology, Reflections and Revelations. I read my poem Roses at the end. Check it out!
I am pleased, proud and positively pumped to announced a new poem of mine, Forest Parable, has been published over at Edge of Humanity. This is the third of three poems that they accepted recently and I’ll definitely be submitting again.
Forest Parable starts like this:
A lone mushroom, grown in the dark,
thinks of his fellow fungi as enemies,
turns toadstool, buys an assault rifle…
Little square windows
into a black & white past
Was that you or me?
(for this week’s Living Poetry Prompt.)
I am pleased to announce that Edge of Humanity Magazine has published an old poem of mine, Stand With Me. Once again, I strongly encourage all my readers check it out and follow their excellent site.
Here’s the first stanza of four, to whet your appetite:
Stand with me
while wildfires race the wind
and ash clouds the sky.
I’ll wipe your tears.
( I just noticed both this poem and last week’s publication at Edge of Humanity start with the word “Stand”. More than coincidence?)
The moment of truth
will it sputter to life
or will darkness snuff the light
I am proud to announce that Edge of Humanity Magazine has published a new poem of mine, Survivor Anger. I strongly encourage all my readers check it out and follow their excellent site.
Here’s the first stanza of six, to pique your interest:
Standing amid the smoldering wreckage
of my life with just a few scratches
I wonder how I got so lucky…
Bartholomew Barker, Poet 