Toll
The church bell cracked.
Poor and dying,
the congregation
could not make repairs.
Like an ice cream truck
trapped in a steeple,
cheap electronic chimes
swept empty streets
of wooden windowed
downtown shops.
Incessant winds
from the flatlands
scraped through cornfields,
toppled hollow trees
in the village besieged
by crumpled cemeteries.
Former residents
now armored in sod,
helmeted with tombstones,
dug in for a war
they are doomed
to win.
A week from tonight, December 13 at 6pm EST (2300GMT), I’ll be one of the featured readers at the Town of Carrboro’s Poetry on your Plate. It’s an online event so anyone on the Internet can attend. If you’ve ever wanted to hear me read poetry, this is your chance.
Bartholomew Barker, Poet 
💜💯!
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Thank you, I think. Hard to tell when all the emojis don’t come through.
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I loved it. It’s sad but also a beautiful description of a dying town. “Helmuted by tombstones” was particularly poetic.
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Definite thanks then. Inspired by true events some years ago while doing genealogy in Indiana.
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