I and Eddy Poe

Perhaps 't is true, what they say---that I was not born to live in day
For since childhood's hour I been from shadows weaned
From the depths of lonely darkness all knowing did I glean
That upon my full blossoming, I appeared a wilted flower
That grew from the cracks of a moonlit tower
Within whose veins flow morbidity
And within whose mind melancholy is the only stock and store.

Or perhaps I am simply deluding myself
Too enamoured perhaps of my fantasies of yore?
For since I could read I had cherished the deed
It was second to breathing...
I was a comfort and a need.

And so---.

Once, long ago, before I grew
I found an old tattered book and opened the covers
To read something by Edgar Allan Poe.

From that my passion for antiquated and rich and
Dark things grew

So that---.

When I was little I scoffed at childish shows
And my hours I did occupy with poring over
Yellowed pages---until my thoughts were all
But moulded by tales of knights and dragons---
But most of all of darkness

That ever-looming oppressive grimness of the
Forgotten pages of archaic lore.

And betwixt Mary and Bram,
When classes were dull or the library crammed
I would run to the dark dusty corner and grab
That tattered volume that I could never out-grow
(hidden safe from other hands in a nook nobody else
but myself could know).
And happy and content in the forced isolation
I would drown my solitariness in the tales and rhymes of my
Darling Edgar Poe.

Long before I could grasp what the bloody hell was
'Gothic',
Long before I felt the pain of loss and the joys of love I
Knew---that somehow I felt his sorrow, and his
Plight and madness was not something unfathomable or new.

For he and I were orphans, hated by the world.
I knew then why he wrote of darkness and longed
For the deep abyss
For I myself have thought at times then how nice it would be
to sleep that endless slumber,
to dream the un-waking dream.

I wept for his Ligeia long before I wept
For my own bride. I felt the pang of loss
When Annabel Lee has caught the chill and died.
Although perhaps I was too young then to fully
Comprehend the madness, I was dancing to the
Same beat of his tell-tale heart
And the Masque of Red Death had more than once
Awoke me with a start.

Face to face with my own mortality I did not (still do not) shrink from death
But face to face with sorrow, my heart---like his, had copiously bled.

Now I know better---since it has been so long. I now
Know the pain of loss fully, I now know its woes.
I have drunk as he once did, because of madness and despair.
And I plead as Eddy does: 'The madness drives the drinking,
Our madness is not caused by drink'.

Talk about kindred spirits, perhaps he and I are indeed just that.
Perhaps it is not simply my fancy which drives me to think
That we've walked the same roads before---
Perhaps Poe's life and mine are twisted, like arabesque shadows on
A parquet floor
Gazed upon by a demonic bird of ill-omen from whose be-deviled eyes
Our fates are lifted---

Nevermore!