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      September 10, 2024AbyssMike Bayles

      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.
       

      __________

      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.

       

      from Prompt Poem of the Month

      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.”