Poems
swim through rivers of wine
are caught with lipstick lures
gutted cleaned and grilled
left as a sacrifice to the Muse
in the hope that another hungry
mind will be nourished
(a little ars poetica for the first Sunday of National Poetry Month)
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.
Bartholomew Barker, Poet 
The mound of poetry pages
Began chanting louder
“We’re not finished yet
Do not leave us for dead
Under this thick biblical heap
Please tend to your lost sheep”
And I was silently listening
To their distant preaching
But I’m not that proud
And I quickly lit the gunpowder
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Poor poems!
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Drunk, stained, filleted, consumed. What a metaphor for life.
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If we’re lucky!
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Here’s one by friend Wend…..
Poetry
Poetry is terribly personal,
Invites people to ‘look inside’,
This is how I perceive what surrounds me,
How I live, what I love, why I cried.
It’s risky, sometimes, to be open,
Court ridicule, pity or contempt.
But it comes, all the same, from within me,
Bursting out, whatever my intent.
And it hurts, now and then, in the making,
Then it grows and takes on its own form,
And I wonder just where did it come from,
Then I’m proud of this new thing, I’ve borne.
Wendy Alford July 2006
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Lovely. Please extend my compliments to Ms. Alford. Thanks for sharing!
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I love your poem!!!
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Grazie, Luisa! I was sure you’d appreciate it.
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🙏🫶🙏
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Hope is always good!
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Sometimes it’s the best we can do.
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It tis, it tis! Were you in a bar writing again?
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Who? Me?
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lol Thought so!
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