When Edgar Allan Poe Speaks of Ravens

3/6/2013

If it's not obvious by now, when I was a wee-writer, I had a thing for Edgar Allan Poe. By thing, I mean I really enjoyed his writing. This is where Raven's Crook comes from, and while the title of the town is a bit cheesy, I already had too many stories centered around the town to change the name.

However, my fictional towns aren't the only place Poe references occur. In fact, a few years back, I was challenged to imitate
“When Dean Young Speaks of Wine” by Tony Hoagland. As I was cleaning out my files again, I thought this might be a piece worth sharing in this good ol' blog. Enjoy!

"When Edgar Allan Poe Speaks of Ravens"
Imitation Poem by C.M. Humphries

The vulture guffaws when it hovers above the deceased.

The hummingbird buzzes when it spots something alive or sweet.

But when Mister Poe talks about ravens, his words are grotesquely poetic.

Yet it seems that ravens are hardly the subject.

He claims, Great penname but you do not need it.

He claims, Good faith but religion is falsified.

He claims, All we see is a dream within a dream.

He claims, Irrelevancy is where the truth lies.

Eighteen forty-seven was a dreadful year, he says,

and for a second I am afraid that Michigan has turned him

into a murder-lover strayed away from capital punishment.

Next he claims,

                        I have great faith in fools

and no abhorrence in danger

self-confidence my friends call it.

Then he declares, I am above the weakness of seeking

to establish a sequence of cause and effect,

            between disaster and the atrocity.

But where is the Definition of abandonment?

Where is the Romance in tuberculosis?

Where is the Misery in a life worth loving?

with the sense of accomplishment of a Wife and Child?

and the undertone of bleak Self-Assurance?

His vein bulging as if trying to free itself

from his misery.

His drug of choice like pain.

When a scholar is hurt he babbles insanity.

When a dog is hurt it lies by beast or man.

But when a poet is wounded,

                        he pleads woe is the world.

Then he sits and writes, but with one hand clutching his chest

thinking everything into nothing

                        as if loneliness could be replaced by ink.