Les Fleurs du mal

Posted on 2021-04-09 by Bartholomew Barker

To honor Charles Baudelaire on his 200th birthday, I wrote a prose poem from Robert Lee Brewer’s Write Better Poetry blog:

For today’s prompt, write a persona poem for an inanimate object. A persona poem is when you write a poem in the voice of someone (or in this case something) else. So write a poem in the voice of a pair of scissors, a picture frame, smart phone, or some other inanimate object.

Les Fleurs du mal

Dust drops like dandruff as you finally touch me after a languished abstinence. My spine creaks and cracks having been still for years or more. I stink like the musty old shelf that has been my home yet you open me up and inhale deeply as though enjoying my musk.

Before we were together, information only spread in sounds and memories— stories and songs from grandparents to fidgety children. Then you learned how to leave your mark, scratches on stone, indents in clay, pigment on parchment and your words could no longer be forgotten, only ignored.

Now you flip bits, make tablets glow and leave me to decay but there will come a day (I can feel it in the atmosphere) when sparks will no longer flow and you, my dear reader, will take me in the candlelight and caress my cover like an eager lover.

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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.
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7 Responses to Les Fleurs du mal

  1. Layla Todd's avatar Jaya Avendel says:
    2021-04-10 at 16:44

    This piece enthralls me. The language in each line is moving and lyrical. I also love the idea of writing a persona poem! <3

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  2. harleyxreborn's avatar Harley Reborn says:
    2021-04-10 at 22:58

    I’ll be honest. I go away for awhile and then I read something like this and it makes me feel like I shouldn’t leave, because missing things like this means less beauty in my world.

    Liked by 1 person

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