Consumer

credit-card-gold-platinum-1512626-640x480The magnetic strip
behind the thin plastic
with raised numbers
rules my life.
An embedded chip
establishes my worth,
determines where I eat,
encourages excess.

It encodes my history,
tracks my whims.
I am a collection
of transactions,
just a hologram
of flesh and bone,
I am a gaping mouth
with a storage unit.

 

(from this week’s Living Poetry Prompt.)

 

About Bartholomew Barker

Bartholomew Barker is one of the organizers of Living Poetry, a collection of poets and poetry lovers in the Triangle region of North Carolina. 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 makes money as a computer programmer to fund his poetry habit.
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2 Responses to Consumer

  1. JeanMarie says:

    Yimminy! Good one Bart.

    Like

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