“Abyss” by Mike Bayles

September 10, 2024Posted by

Mike Bayles

ABYSS

The word shadowed the lines
of a friend’s poem just as
it had found its way
into others he shared.
He said that he was the last Romantic poet
and I politely nodded.
His voice quivered as he read
line after line as if the poem was real.
I said to myself, not again.
He said that poets needed to suffer
like the friend who embraced her delusions
and they spoke on the phone every day.
He said that when he read Baudelaire
to his girlfriend he almost got laid
yet they liked arguing about politics
in the middle of dates.
When he argued with me
I said I just wanted to enjoy the nightlights.
He lamented the death of Sylvia
as if in love.
I said she liked to keep a clean house
but now she’s dead.
When I read him a poem
about blossoms and trees
and sunlight
he said I wasn’t confessional.
The night he shaved his wrist
he trembled.
I drove him to the emergency room
bearing the weight of his life.
 

—from Prompt Poem of the Month
August 2024

__________

Prompt: Write a poem with your least favorite word to see in a poem as the title. Include an explanation of why it’s your least favorite in the submission note.

Note from the series editor, Katie Dozier: “When I came up with this prompt, I wondered if it was possible to turn a poem titled with a disliked word inward on itself in such a way that it was stronger because of it—like a vortex. Mike’s poem does exactly that, first by inviting the reader on a journey that pokes fun at a friend who ignores contemporary poetry—only to arrive at the notion that life does indeed contain the epic themes conquered headfirst by the poets of yesteryear. The title plays on our expectations as readers scanning disdainfully for melodrama at the start, and, given that, we feel relief at the unexpectedly funny lines. And finally, we realize that we were swirling deeper into an extended metaphor the whole time.”

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